Conservatories, esclating costs and rights

[ast]

Well, when I say caustic, I mean dry, to the point, listing the events as relayed to me, making clear that the additional payment is not the only issue with the order, but part of a pattern. I’ve included the itemised builder’s quote for the cost of the conservatory, so the manufacturer has the opportunity to rebutt that assertion, as well as rebutt the timeline.

As for “proof” that they forgot to add glass in the price, the only proof I have is being shown two emails from the same person in the company, one admitting to the error, and the other pointing out the company “no losses” policy (whatever that means), dates of delivery and the offer of a discount, as well as the job number, eminating from an email of the format xxx.xxxxx@crystal-direct.co.uk. I see the marketing director monitors social media accounts, including Trust-Pilot (to be honest, the online reviews, good or bad, I take with a pinch of salt, because how many conservatories does one buy in a lifetime, to judge whether they are good or not), and has posted their full contact details.

As for the garage roof, I agree about concerns with the timbers, though they “look” ok. The quote includes replaciing the plywood boards and facias. But the cost of replacing a joist, once all the plywood boards are off, seems pretty incidental, £60-100, and if they need replacing, they need replacing. I am prepared for a worst case, though the quote is basically for the “most likely worst case” (ie. the plywood boards are scrap).

Along with garage mechanics, I hate builders, and their mates. But then, I work in an profession where there are real world consequences to mistakes.

On the otherhand, the electrician has been brilliant, and between us, we are planning a snazzy rewire of the garage, as he also undestands what I’m looking for (also into cars). No co-ckups on the billing, and what he has charged for seems a bargain, when I think about the time he has spent on things, and his pretty precise approach to his work.

[Scottishfiver]

Saz,
I was involved in Customer Finance for many years with one of Scotland’s most “prestigous” DG organisations during the Council House Right to Buy era. This often included small, medium, and large Conservatories including double glazed doors & windows.

Now, the elephant in the room with your post so far is we are still not clear whether this “forgotten glass” are simply single panes for insertion into soft / hardwood or UPVC frames…which I doubt.
This leaves the apparent omission buy the tradespersons of including, I say again ( but you did not respond…) of custom built DG sealed units encased and ready for inclusion in the build up…which would be a non action of imbeciles…who on the face of it…are creating a whiff of sulphur back tracking. In which case, these sealed DG units(???) will, or should, form part of a stressed - load bearing construction.

NB: You cannot “forget to add glass” to the bespoke construction of sealed DG units. They are either cut & ready for insertion into the DG UPVC /Hardwood frames…or they are not.
Which is it? Single panes (surely not?) or factory DG in frames? TBH…“just” £1200 for a set of ( how many) DG sealed units-in-Frame sounds too cheap to be true.

[ast]

You’re probably right, that the excuse is a cover from the manufacturer. Frankly, the actual reason I suppose, to me, is irrelevant. Its a 37% increase in their costs, which they are trying to pass onto me. I have been told by other sources that, initially, there was a supply disrution in the industry, but that fairly quickly was worked through. But they might have faced other rising costs, besides the costs of raw materials.

By tradespersons, do you mean the builder or the supplier? The contract includes drawings, both computer generated, as well as sketches put into the itemised, small print, contract. And the manufacturer admitting the error is from their end, not the builder. It doesn’t make sense at all that “glass was forgotten”, but that is what they said, in print. . The conservatory is UPVC, with double glazed units. Its not an off the shelf size, so I assume the window units are constructed to fit the overall dimentions, rather than the overall dimentsions being built around off the shelf standard sized units.

When they say (paraphrasing from memory the manufacturer’s statement to the builder), “the sooner we can order the glass”, are they literally waiting to order the panes of glass, or does he mean ordering the assembled window units, I do not know.

FWIW, how it will look but without the Edwardian ■■■■ on the apex

The software used “Whiteshill System” is supposed to be an aid for producing quotations for the industry, so as you say, things like “glass” cannot be missed off. This software I suppose is designed to calculate the costs of all the assemblies, fixings and so forth.

[Scottishfiver]

Right Saz.
Now we are cooking by gas.
From your latest information, it seems to my eyes the issue lies at the door of the “user”/ input-design expert cocking up the component & material list to produce your unique construction.
Factory sealed DG bespoke / custom units without the costings of twin paned cut glass?
Even at that stage, software would give options of what type of glass eg triple or double, reflective tint, heat absorption etc.
Get away Lunn Poly.
Which is a polite Scottish version of "kindly “do one”.

[Scarletpimpernel]

Edit-Just seen above, BUT.
As the above posts.
If you agree to pay the additional amount you will never get that back “as you agreed to pay it”.

I still don’t buy it that they “Forgot”.
Also, I still don’t buy it that your builder didn’t pick up the fact the glass was NOT included.
There is a LOT of glass in that plan and that I am sure would cost more than £1200.
Your builder would have also worked out his profits based on the whole project BEFORE he gave you the quote.

From my experience glass is expensive and an integral part of the unit (as SF states).
Not sure how far forward you are with the project, how much you have paid so far (none of my business and don’t want to know) but I would be re-grouping.
“Someone is feeding you a fair amount of BS here”.
Not my project, but based on the info I would be telling them to have sex and travel.
Just an opinion.

[Scottishfiver]

It’s staring me right in the eyes this bit.

Roof glazed with “Ambi Aqua” Self Cleaning Low E.
"Frames glazed with…bog all.
There is no way on God’s beautiful earth all these sealed (12?) DG vertical units plus Venting Hoppers (?)amount to just £1,200.00. Not a tiny chance.

There is the up-kok right there.
The sofware I was involved in as my finance customers watched would not finish a costed quote until all the boxes had been filled in…like flipping glass types etc.

[NDer]

Heart goes out to you on this one. Detest ‘tradesman’ more than electric cars and conservatories even more!

[ast]

Point of no return really.

Old conservatory is demolished, new base put in, ~50 sq meter of area has been dug out, levelled, hardcore down for patio, 9 course retaining wall built (sloping garden, previously, he garden had a raised patio 12" from the door of the old conservatory, which was daft, so I had it all leveled out. It will look great when its done though.

Groundworks were seperate to the conservatory. The cost of the conservatory was £13,900, and prior to all this, I had £2380 left to pay out.

No telling what went on in the builder’s (FENSA) head; I asked him specifically if £3500 seemed unusually low for that size and spec of conservatory, given that he has been putting these up for well over 20 years. No,was the glib answer, each job is different, difficult to generalise etc etc.

I guess I could have thrown the builder out, and see you in court etc But I suspect I would have, a year from now, be still staring at a concrete base, weed covered hardcore, and half the house electrics runnng off extension leads. And with only a fraction of the £11k paid out for the conservatory back in my proverbial pocket. And all the contractors quoting wanted money up front before starting.

You can’t trust any of them, even household national names. My parents had a new front door fitted. They went with probably the most expensive, Everest, trusting the name. The bodgery in the fitting is terrible, with every screw rounded, and the door not closing in hot weather. And now the company is in Administration, and the warranty seems pretty worthless.

[MickAP]

Can’t offer any advice on the conservatory, I’d love one but the costs involved we refused one quote so gave up on that.

Anyways despite years ago being told we needed to have shingles scattered on our felted garage roof to deflect the sun’s rays away it’s been there now since 1990 just bare felt. Had a roofer in to do some work on the ridge tiles of the house and I mentioned to him about the felt on the garage roof. I just wanted advice on what to paint on to preserve it maybe for another 30 years😁 He went to his van and handed me a large tub of bitumen paint with aluminium colour. It’s a reflective paint so reflects the light back from the sun’s rays, he even helped me apply it. It’s all you need, I wouldn’t have shingles on mine ever, they hold the moisture and rot the felt. Had a flat felted roof over the porch, that went years ago, rotted as it has shingles on there, it’s now got a pitched tiled roof.
I say this as I notice maybe you have shingles on your roof looking at the picture?

[Paul-RF]

Hi Saz9961, I’ve not read every word of the replies but basically I would suggest the law is if you received a quotation, (not estimate) for a conservatory, unless the omission of the glass was clearly stated in the quotation by definition a conservatory is a predominantly glass and frame construction and therefore I would be surprised if our commercial law authorities found in favour of the company quoting for the work.

[ast]

@MickAP

Can’t offer any advice on the conservatory, I’d love one but the costs involved we refused one quote so gave up on that.

Anyways despite years ago being told we needed to have shingles scattered on our felted garage roof to deflect the sun’s rays away it’s been there now since 1990 just bare felt. Had a roofer in to do some work on the ridge tiles of the house and I mentioned to him about the felt on the garage roof. I just wanted advice on what to paint on to preserve it maybe for another 30 years😁 He went to his van and handed me a large tub of bitumen paint with aluminium colour. It’s a reflective paint so reflects the light back from the sun’s rays, he even helped me apply it. It’s all you need, I wouldn’t have shingles on mine ever, they hold the moisture and rot the felt. Had a flat felted roof over the porch, that went years ago, rotted as it has shingles on there, it’s now got a pitched tiled roof.
I say this as I notice maybe you have shingles on your roof looking at the picture?

Shingles, stones; it has those. Its old. My understanding is that shingles extend the life of the bitumen, as well as looking better than just staring at bitumen. As you notice, the garage roof is at waist level.

I tried patching with a pot of rubber paint/bitumen. Made no difference.

[MickAP]

How long has it been since that roof was covered?

[ast]

@Paul-RF

Hi Saz9961, I’ve not read every word of the replies but basically I would suggest the law is if you received a quotation, (not estimate) for a conservatory, unless the omission of the glass was clearly stated in the quotation by definition a conservatory is a predominantly glass and frame construction and therefore I would be surprised if our commercial law authorities found in favour of the company quoting for the work.

Yeah, I think that is generally agrred; I am not under any legal obligation to pay this additional cost. But at east one of the replies chimed with my eventual thinking; one has to be pragmatic. Likely if I threw out the toys, of the £11k paid out so far, there will be at least £1.2k I will not get back. And probably the extra money required has nothing to do with glass.

I have a contract, and monies have been paid.

[reggie747]

Your builder is a w@nker, it’s him who needs to answer to the missing 12 ton, not you.
Sort it with him and accept no bull$hit either way.
Tell him you’ll drag his name thru the local rag if he doesn’t rectify it pronto.

[Scarletpimpernel]

Very eloquently put!!
But absolutely correct.

[ast]

Literally, easier said than done.

[Paul-RF]

I’m sorry sazz, but Regis is right. You can’t pay the extra cash.

You need to be firm. As I thought when I read you original post, asking for extra money has got little to do with glass not being included.

[NDer]

Someone once told me that there was a ‘tradesman’, somewhere in the UK, who is unreliable; poor at returning calls/texts; unprofessional; turns up at a time not as scheduled; delays jobs despite promises otherwise and if something goes wrong, difficult to get out again to remedy.

Sorry, but I can’t believe that there’s a ‘tradesman’ like that somewhere.

[MickAP]

I’ve got two such tradesmen, one a roofer, he’s an absolute reliable bloke. He knocked on my door one day and handed me a flyer about all the work he does. Facias, ridge/verge renewals also general roof repairs. He’s subsequently done me 3 jobs and my son quite a few more including a full re roof but using the old tiles to keep costs down. He turns up to give you a quote literally the next day or when arranged and does the job when arranged.
Heating engineer/plumber the same more or less, he’s a busy busy man but always returns calls and gives you a date/time when he can call and sticks to it. Same when he does the job, no waffle just straightforward pricing and gets on with it. Done work done for my son too.
Had a builder, a good mate, he’s retired now done some work for me, built an extension and garage at a good price. He was a bit less reliable on when he’d turn up but his workmanship was top notch and I could forgive on the unreliability bit.

[NDer]

Yes, keep hold of them good 'uns when you find them.