Poor landscaping work - garden resembles a swamp

[Adam]

Thanks for the comments. As work has got underway it seems slightly better conditions today as the ground is frozen and it's not a mud bath like yesterday was.

I just want to make it clear that I don't really care too much that they are unhappy with me but it does make asking questions and understanding their thought process a lot more difficult. On Saturday afternoon's I referee men's football so it takes a lot to upset me

Here's where we are as of midday today. They have pulled the paving stones up and are breaking up the concrete underneath them. At the same time they are going ahead with their drainage plan and are cutting slits in the pipes ready to be laid in the ground.

 

[Adam]

I've seen a couple of comments about the price I paid and I don't feel like I overpaid for the job. We got a couple of quotes and the others were around the same price (prior to changing the design). One told me I would need to find my own bricklayer so I went for someone who could do the entire thing themselves. Perhaps I overpaid slightly on the extra for flattening the entire garden but that was a snap decision as they had to know for the following days work. If it's done properly (big if at this stage) then I don't think £15k is horrendous given that we'll have a garden that is useable and it makes the house more desirable should I come to sell. It's a 6 bed detatched house in a great location (commuter town to London) so the garden always let the property down and I expect would have caused me issues when I came to sell.

I'm going to look at what's under the patio. I think it is soil but I do also remember them compacting and levelling that area before they started laying the patio. A family friend in the building trade is sending around a contractor tonight to have a look at the work to help me out so I'll see what he thinks.

 

[Adam]

Ok quick update before I finish work for the evening. I also had the contractor come over after they left.

The contractor raised his eyebrows at a few things but overall it's not a complete disaster and is salvageable. He thought the plan of using downpipes was over the top, unneccessary and not cost effective when using perforated land drainage would have achieved the same thing without him having to cut a load of slits.

There was some concern with the patio being laid on soil. I can confirm it's type 1 aggregate that has been compacted. The contracted (older guy) said he would have put a concrete base down but he goes overkill on these things so this is more than likely to be absolutely fine. The image I posted earlier was perhaps a red herring.



He also identified the acco drains as being too shallow (only 25-30mm). This may not be an issue based on the next point. Also he said he'd recommend having some shingle between the house bricks and the aco due so the bricks don't get wet from rain water splashing and getting the damp course wet.

Perhaps one of the most useful things I took away was the drainage. The guy doing the job was going to connect this in to the foul drain but the grid of pipes he has created for the turf sits below the drain. The contracter who came over identified a downpipe which may connect to the storm drain. He gave me some die to give to the other guy to test. This may solve a lot of problems and make his life a lot easier if he can tap in to that drain.

I'm actually feeling a lot better after his visit. I called the guy doing the job and told him these are the recommendations and I think he saw the storm drain suggestion as being positive but perhaps not so much the aco being shallow and having the shingle between the aco and the house bricks. He said it would collect water and it would have nowhere to go. I'm sure I saw something earlier on in the thread about angling the rain drops so I'll have to go back and check that.

Here is the progress so far today:

 

[Adam]

Those pipes should have been wrapped in a geotextile sock really, else the slits could just as easily block over time.

They haven’t finished yet

 

[Adam]

Here's the latest:

 

[Adam]

There probably would have been a case for artificial turf here, as it would allowed for the ground not being raised as high.

There's got to be at least another 4 inches of soil/turf to go on top yet?

Can you imagine the next owner of the house trying to dig a flowerbed or something and meeting all this plastic piping.

We ruled out artificial grass early on as we have a dog and apparently it smells bad when they do a wee. I also don't like the idea of articifial grass and quite enjoy cutting the lawn. My aim was always to have a nice flat grass area which I now have.

We are going to use the soil between the wall and the fences for a flower bed, I think it will look quite nice.

There are also LED lights under the plinths and on the back fences. I'm not a big fan of the LED lights (builder's idea) but the kids like them as they change colour and have effects etc.

It's definitely heading in a better direction, but he's absolutely gone OTT with that piping.

Are they back to accepting cups of tea/coffee?

I'm glad someone asked this. The relationship has improved and they now accept our offer of drinks They are also more courteous and friendly.

I think 2 things have changed 1) it can't have been much fun working in those conditions at the start of the week. It was cold and a complete bog out there. I saw how hard they had to work digging out the clay as they couldn't use the digger 2) my wife thinks that having the backup of the other contractor shows them that we are serious, not just making it up as we go along and are trying to be helpful. I think being able to connect in to the drain has saved them a lot of work and solved a headache of the drainage. I'm still not sure why he didn't investigate that further at the start

It's definitely made things a lot more bearable, getting the contractor in when we did has been a godsend.

 

[Adam]

Today's update:







They took part of the wall away so the downpipe could drain in to the aco.



The level of the patio has been raised by 10mm max so it's now up to the bottom of the airbrick so the aco sits right at the bottom of it. They have told me it's been sealed and won't cause any issues. We'll see.



Interesting way of doing it. I think it could have been done a lot better by making sure it runs the same way. I'll let it go, choosing to pick my battles etc but it doesn't look great.

 

[Adam]

Are there drainage points at two ends of the ACO? As they could have ended the ACO either side of the downpipe and just notched the paver slightly to allow for the downpipe, that would be my preferred option.

No only on one side so in fairness to him it was never going to be easy to get a nice finish.

Whe he tells you he has sealed the airbricks that doesn't mean that he has sealed them up does it? They are there for a reason.

He has sealed the bottom of the airbrick between the aco and airbrick, not the entire air brick itself. Air can still enter it.

 

[Adam]

I would just use a strimmer on a lawn that size.

Costs I’d expect to pay.

£200-250 per person per day.

£200-250 per skip.

Mini diggers and small plant are surprisingly very cheap to hire in especially on a week hire rate. A powered wheelbarrow for muck shifting maybe £125 a week.

Plus materials ofc.

Based on your logic of £250 * 3 people per day * 10 days (I think it was longer originally) = £7500. They had 8 muckaways at what I was told is £350-400 per load but even using £250 that's another £2000. Then there's 40sqm of patio at £40 per sqm which is another £1600 taking us to £11,100.

Then there's been the digger, materials for building the wall, split face tiles, topsoil, turf etc etc. At least he saved some money on drainage originally

But the point is I don't think the £14,750 I paid goes very far. He certainly won't be spending the summer in Florida based on what i've paid him.

 

[Adam]

Materials have increased massively, but the biggest factor is labour. Builders don't get out of bed for nothing these days.
We had lots of quotes for a small patio last year and that was £11k. The builders who did our driveway years ago (reliable and decent) had some Jan/Feb offers on at 20% discount labour, so managed to get a new fence thrown in for £10k.

Question I have for the OP. Why is your plot so low down compared to your neighbours.

Good question and I don't have the answer. The town I live in is reasonably hilly, we are on the corner and the road is sloped. The garden has always been useable for that very reason.

 

[Adam]

No real updates. The weather has been sub zero which I understand aren't great conditions to be laying the patio.

He therefore didn't come Monday and Tuesday which is fair enough but on Tuesday he text to say he won't be coming the rest of the week as he needs to go back to his other job to get paid. He'll be back on Monday apparently which should hopefully coincide with better weather (temperature wise at least).

 

[Adam]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Out in the garden I can see a container of this stuff (https://www.everbuild.co.uk/product...a latex,dampness and continuous water contact.) laying around. That gives me some confidence that he may follow the recommended process.

I can always reference the other contractor and say something like "I want to make sure that the patios are being laid with a slurry mix and SBR primer". The fact the container of SBR is there makes me think I probably don't need to do that.

I'm going to also ask him where the aco was bought from some I can buy some spare grilles and have an attempt at addressing the mess around the soil pipe by cutting it at 45 degree angles. It bugs me every time I look at it.

 

[Adam]

Small update: Annoyingly I was text this morning to say he won't be coming until next Monday. He is going back to the other job he is working on so they will release some money which will fund my job.

I'm 50/50 what to do next. My head is telling me to wait it out and let him complete it although he could well let me down again next Monday which would then be 3 weeks of delays. My heart is telling me to put all his tools out the front and tell him to come and back them up then finding someone else to finish the job. Given that I'd need to wait for someone else's availability i'm not sure that's the quickest route but it would (hopefully!) mean it's done properly. I'd then have to take the original guy to court but i'm getting the impression he doesn't have a pot to **** in so I might be out of pocket getting the job finished.

In terms of what is outstanding, the turf area has had drainage installed and covered in shingle ready for topsoil and turf. The aco has been installed around the edge so the paving needs to be relaid.

 

[Adam]

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!

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).

I'm sorry to hear that and hope you get a result at the end of it to make the effort worthwhile.

 

[Adam]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Adam]

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.

 

[Adam]

Latest update (I didn't want to tread on the slabs so not a great angle).

 

[Adam]

Looks like they are doing it properly anyway.

Let's hope so, maybe they are reading the thread for some tips! Appreciate your help earlier on with regards to the laying of the patio.

 

[Adam]

Just need some new patio doors when they are finished

The plan was to knock the entire conservatory down and build an extension but I had quotes in excess of £75k. There’s just no point in paying that as it won’t add any value. Perhaps we will look to move instead, who knows!

 

[Adam]

Update: No work today as everything was frozen. It was -3 degrees when they arrived so unsurprising. They have gone to do some work on the other job. My wife spotted one of the tiles had a lip from the kitchen window so they are going to re-lay one too.