Poor landscaping work - garden resembles a swamp

as someone who's been through this (still going through it), it's years worth of hassle and hundreds of pounds to get nowhere!

You'll soon find that solicitors, courts and bailiffs are all useless.

Depends how much money you've lost, and the lengths you're willing to go to get justice (I'll say no more).
 
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Update: 1 of the 3 workers has turned up today to redo part of the wall. Apparently their plan is to relay the patio tomorrow and the grass will take another day. We'll see!

TheOracle said:
as someone who's been through this (still going through it), it's years worth of hassle and hundreds of pounds to get nowhere!

You'll soon find that solicitors, courts and bailiffs are all useless.

Depends how much money you've lost, and the lengths you're willing to go to get justice (I'll say no more).
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I'm sorry to hear that and hope you get a result at the end of it to make the effort worthwhile.
 
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Adam said:
Update: 1 of the 3 workers has turned up today to redo part of the wall. Apparently their plan is to relay the patio tomorrow and the grass will take another day. We'll see!


I'm sorry to hear that and hope you get a result at the end of it to make the effort worthwhile.
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Patio in a day.... Aye right - If it's still the same looking ground from when they pulled it up, no chance it's going down in a day. They need to clear the slabs of any old material, relay the whole bedding for it, and then start putting them back down with proper care...

No chance that's happening in a day.

Nightmare situation for you.

sending one guy just smacks of keep you "ticking over" as long as they can whilst making money elsewhere.
 
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booyaka said:
Patio in a day.... Aye right - If it's still the same looking ground from when they pulled it up, no chance it's going down in a day. They need to clear the slabs of any old material, relay the whole bedding for it, and then start putting them back down with proper care...

No chance that's happening in a day.

Nightmare situation for you.

sending one guy just smacks of keep you "ticking over" as long as they can whilst making money elsewhere.
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What do you expect them to do? Not eat and prioritise his job?
 
dLockers said:
What do you expect them to do? Not eat and prioritise his job?
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of course he's doing other jobs - I'm just saying he's padding for time as long as he can to make money elsewhere, probably needs to make money elsewhere as he ain't making it on this job. - I didn't say he shouldn't be doing that but he's still stringing along the OP here.

Job should have been done correctly in the first place.
 
Out of curiosity, how does the garden drain now pre-turf, or have you not had enough rain to tell just yet?

If your patio drains/falls in the correct direction after the fix, and the lawn can deal with minimal water now how are you to know the effects of winter months?

I feel the contractor is playing it smart yet shady. He'll have it finished and "fixed" by end of April when we enter all the drier months, you'll believe it's fine and are satisfied with the job until we hit the wintery rainy months again and the problem resurfaces.
 
Update: 2 of the 3 are here today. One of the 3 no longer works for the company I was told.

They have been using wheel barrows to get sharp sand and type 1 in for the patio and have been compacting it before laying the patio. They expect that to take 2 days (I was told 1 by the younger lad yesterday but that was clearly over optimistic). The type 1 is going on top of the previous concrete as they had to raise the level up so it drains towards the aco around the house. It looks like they are making decent progress, I have offered them some tea and generally left them to it apart from making small talk. I'll take some pictures later if I have time.

PermaChanged said:
Out of curiosity, how does the garden drain now pre-turf, or have you not had enough rain to tell just yet?

If your patio drains/falls in the correct direction after the fix, and the lawn can deal with minimal water now how are you to know the effects of winter months?

I feel the contractor is playing it smart yet shady. He'll have it finished and "fixed" by end of April when we enter all the drier months, you'll believe it's fine and are satisfied with the job until we hit the wintery rainy months again and the problem resurfaces.
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Interestingly I had this conversation with him this morning. He is "very confident" the drainage he has installed for the turf will work. He said they tested the drainage before laying the shingle and he is happy with how dry it is out there. Despite not having any rain there have been freezing temperatures so there is no evidence of any moisture. He said he is looking forward to it raining heavily so we know for sure. I can't yet comment on the patio as they haven't finished yet.

Given where we live (South East) and the clay I think we'll have to accept it will always be wet and damp in the winter to some extent and hopefully the drainage will help with this. I'm just hoping that the kids have a garden to enjoy in the summer or as the weather improves. My son is desperate to practise his cricket out there.
booyaka said:
of course he's doing other jobs - I'm just saying he's padding for time as long as he can to make money elsewhere, probably needs to make money elsewhere as he ain't making it on this job. - I didn't say he shouldn't be doing that but he's still stringing along the OP here.

Job should have been done correctly in the first place.
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I asked him how his other job was going and he said there were issues on that job too, again related to drainage. He said they had to install a giant tank and pump to move the water away. He did say that it was much bigger than my garden.
 
I was also keeping an eye on how they were laying the tiles when I was making them a cup of tea. After compacting the type 1, they laid about an inch or so of wet concrete. On the back of the tiles I saw them brushing on a wet substance which they have made up in a bucket. The tile was then laid on the wet cement and they were checking the fall with a spirit level.
 
Latest update (I didn't want to tread on the slabs so not a great angle).

G9LDpjl.jpg
 
Adam said:
I was also keeping an eye on how they were laying the tiles when I was making them a cup of tea. After compacting the type 1, they laid about an inch or so of wet concrete. On the back of the tiles I saw them brushing on a wet substance which they have made up in a bucket. The tile was then laid on the wet cement and they were checking the fall with a spirit level.
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Sounds perfect that. I can tell you they didn't do that before with how easy the slabs came up.
 
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