What was done was electrical 2nd fix plus what can be seen here: patio's base had been installed (with drain) and a scratchcoat on walls.

We sought external advice and I was advised that working out a way forward with this builder would still be quicker way to completion than terminating the contract. 

We spoke to the builder who apologised repeatedly, but wouldn't give a reason why he hadn't done it. He did stress that he wanted to complete the work if we would give him another chance.

We set out a way forward; he listed items that were remaining and set an hourly rate against each. From this it appeared 190 hours were required to complete. He assured me him and the others would work 8 hours a day.

3 guys, 24 hours work per day, 190 hours of outstanding, 8 days (bar snagging). Reasonable... but despite his assurances I was sure he wasn't going to do 8 hours per guy per day as he didn't acknowledge how the frequent stoppages (tea breaks) affected this time.

I would keep a log of attendance and stoppages from this point.

19th September

Assuming he would have completed, my parents in law rearranged many things to come down this weekend, with our "puppy" they'd been looking after. The same puppy that went away five months away for a month and wasn't much of a puppy anymore.

21st September

At the end of this week, according to the builder's calculations he should have worked 120 hours, but the reality was 58, equating to 7.8 mandays lost.

I tried to speak to him about this and explain that as he's paying his workers a day rate this is additional money he's paying needlessly, but didn't get far as he assured me he would reach the end as agreed.

Progress this week:
 

Benches created

Chunky Furniture the company is called.


 

Shame about the forced dog leg reducing the amount of space here, but it still feels spacious and works fairly well

I addressed the ridiculously easy (and well known) burglar entry point by changing the lock barrel for a modified one.

The lock on the top is the replacement and on the bottom is the supplied. The supplied lock's design flaw is having a single weakpoint (the securing hole in the middle) which will fail when lateral forces are placed upon it, whereas the replacement one has two additional weakpoints (in red).

Of course this doesn't make the house burglar-proof, but does remove their ability to spend 10 seconds on forcing entry before calmly opening the door and walking in. You would have thought that the door company would have added £20 to the cost of their £3,700 doors with lots of security to address this...

28th September

So the end of this week has the builder done the 120 hours he says they would?

Nope. This week they did 73 which is 5.8 mandays lost. This included all 3 of them leaving at 2pm on Tuesday "to get the fence panels" and a surprising late finish on Thursday of 5pm.

No fence panels ever arrived on site this week.

I did find out that he day rate he pays his guys is £180. So that's £1,400 last week and £1,000 this of wasted labour. I hope for his sake that he's at least working somewhere else as well.

I spoke to the builder again to express my concern of how few items of the list he had completed.

I tried to explain about the days lost last week and the one before, and if he had the guys working 8 hours a day we would already be finished. He assured me not my concern and he would be finished in a few days.

1st October

After leaving early yesterday, the builder didn't show up at all today and initially did not answer calls.

When I got hold of him he cited poor weather and disagreed it was good enough to work. These pictures were emailed to him at 10am prove the weather was ok, but I was unable to get him back on the phone.

Further work this week:

4th October

On Friday I come home at 3 to find he wasn't there. My wife told me he locked up, said goodbye and went an hour earlier. I called and he told me they hadn't left - "definitely not" and "why, did you think we had left?", etc... but had gone to get the turf for the garden and was coming back, definitely.

2 hours later, I was told the van had broken and he'd still be coming back. 2 hours after, the van was being towed somewhere to be fixed, but would be ready tomorrow.

Today I he said he was coming round "in an hour"... and then no answer on his phone for many more. I called his house to find him there and asked him to come round to talk. He did and would only say he promised to be finished by Wednesday..

Not that it's relevant, but this week the score is 9 mandays lost

Unfortunately the grout left over the tiles appears near impossible to shift.

12th October

Flew past the "by Wednesday" promise on Saturday without a whisper.

Hours this week were much of the same, with little progress shown. 6.7 days lost. Too much outstanding. Out of the items that had been done they'd managed to generate more snagging issues.

Very unhappy.

This week they were here for a few hours on Monday and a few on Tuesday.

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