little-ginge

The Cutting edge docu on builders from both UK and Poland working over here. Yes it was only one of each and as such should not be taken as this is what the entire building sector is like....!

But what a shower of ****e both the English and Polish builders were!!

The Polish guy submits a quote for £4k cheaper than an English team can do it - and you know as soon as he mentioned the price there would be trouble!

The English guy seem to talk the talk, and go on about his experience etc, and yes I know the English guy had a few problems with getting council permission for certain things, but what a bodge job!! No wonder the council now has an investigation underway into his working practises!!

The Polish guy wasnt much better. He gets the job, and then turns to the homeowner and says 'first I go to POland to get my crew..'

Then when on the job he digs the foundations in the wrong place, lays the soilpipe under the floor ( which saves him money) when the homeowners have asked for it to be laid along the outside of the extension and then does the insulation on the cheap, which makes the concrete floor crumble!

Just goes to reinforce the point - never get builders in unless they come recommended!!

Dedrater

Agree, both proper ****e. If i was a builder and on camera i am sure i would be doing my absolute best, I think with the British bloke it was his crappy brick layers more so.

little-ginge

You would think that, wouldn't you? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot - bet neither of them get much work now!!

The English guy had 2 just qualified brickies working for him, didn't he? I wonder where they qualified? the university of lego?

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

never get any builders in imo.....just buy somewhere that has had all the work done. Then you can at least have a chance to see if you are about to buy a house of horrors. Its really easy to walk away from someone else's mess, than to try and sort out one you have created!!

zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

the polish work in the end was good stuff,the roof he built from a b&q book looked great ,the english guy what a joker he said" 6-7 years it will be weathered and look ok "


but id just do the work myself even if i had to learn as i went along i can bodge better than them

Dedrater

Snap, I would employ my wife and 5 year old and train my dog to drag the bricks from the front drive

zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

their practical exam was good though

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

Sometimes you wonder with people though - they get a few builders in, then choose the one who gives a suspiciously low quote, and expect to get a good job done.

Decent builders dont give cheap quotes as they have enough work booked up not to need have to.

Dave Bullock

I couldn't believe the standard of the british guys workmanship. Complete and utter sh1te!!

The polish extension looked OK but building a roof from a DIY book come on!!
The other thing is why did they plaster and then do the electrics? Some of those cable runs were running horizontally about a meter up the wall??!! What is that about??

I'm just having an extension done at the mo and this program was a real eye opener. We are 5 days in. The architect that I used is a personal friend and I've used the builders that he recommended.

Nearly but not all of the others I asked for quotes were a shower of sh1te.

The guys I'm using weren't the cheapest but they have done everything when they said they would and apart from a few little niggles everything is going hunky dory.

You can see the progress here if you are interested.

Dave.

zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

^^ good read shall keep an eye on how its doing ,you will have to keep updating on here aswell so we dont forget .

i love things like these

GlesgaKiss

Polish guy's work was spot on. Looked really tidy.

The English guy on the other hand was a complete ****hole! However, the program didn't really prove much: They got a decent Polish builder, and a crap English one, which ended up making English builders look bad - when in actual fact you get tossers in all walks of life. It could have quite easily been the other way round.

Dedrater

Do you think the program tried, in a way to make us feel sorry for the Polish guy? Thinking about it, the lad worked for 40 odd days and had no money to show for it, the couple did have loads of things done for free and still were not happy.

GlesgaKiss

Yes, it did. It also set out (IMO) to make English/British builders look bad, and promote immigration, which as we all know, we need more of.

little-ginge

Yes i do think that, Dedrater. They showed a Polish guy who 'hasn't worked for 3 months...' who pays for extra small jobs out of his own pocket. They showed him saying numerous times ' we not here for the benefits..' and who works 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, but can still underquote the other builders by 4k. Eating his lunch/dinner out of a can.. something which was 70% and was good for energy.. it looked like lard

I'm guessing that if they had portrayed it any other way, there would have been shouts of racism and xenaphobia from those amongst the population who seem to jump on that sort of stuff, like a dog jumping on a bitch in heat