Cowboy builders?

[Nurse Julie]

With the greatest of respect I think you are worrying needlessly.
Think it will look nice when it is finished.
I take it the walls will be tiled so any plastering,cabling will not be seen.

Surely that's the point of having electric cables running vertical or horizontal isn't it, so when the walls are tiled you know where the wires are. ?

[hairygit]

Exactly Julie, the regs used to say if not vertical or horizontal it required protection by an earthed steel channel, and buried 50mm, okay the RCD will stop someone getting a shock if they drill or nail into it, but the wall would need stripping back to replace the cable!

[Aly-b]

Had you moved into the house after the kitchen was fitted and did not know where the cables were fitted and you wanted to drill the wall, the sensible thing to do is test the walls with a suitable device.Then you would know where a cable or pipe is.

[ST1100]

...normally the plastering and decorating is done first, then the flooring, then the kitchen units...

This site/setup is wrong in so many ways...
And all the kitchen cabinets have to come off before anything else can be finalized...

[matthewmosse]

I rent off my parents and before I moved in I helped the electrician re wire the place, I reacon our spark would have a fit and downright refuse to put his name to that job, especially the diagonal wiring. I have worked on instalation with 2 time served electricians and both were adamant about the diagonal wires thing unless the wire comes up to a sloping roof then it goes streight until no longer possible and is routed somas to be protected by several inches of solid timber perlin and roof truss. Yes you can tile up to but not under the kitchien units, but that may be a long term issue as it leaves a area for damp to get under units and lift the tiles, hence part of our rennovation was removing a 8 year old tiling job that was already cracking and comming loose and replacing with floorboards running right to the wall. Ok for a rental where the landlord is assuming the floor will either suffer abuse or he'll sell soon enough for it to pay for itself he might think that ok, but if it were my house....
As to the idiots ripping half of the house appart and expecting you to live in a building site, where I used to work as a carer, when they did that to the kitchien the tennant was moved to a b&b for the 3 days it was in a state. To my mind and how we did our own house, the best way must be to make the room sound and plastered and painted, then pop the kitchen in - the kitchien is basically flat pack furniture after all.

[Spitfire]

Not impressed with the diagonal wiring, as others have said it should be vertical or horizontal, I can't imagine a professional doing a job like that, sure I always test a wall before drilling but sometimes these testers are not at all accurate, then you have to rely on the electrician doing it properly.

Cheers

Dennis

[Green1]

I'm a decorator by trade and see this sort of thing often in rented property and it drives me crackers.I think you will find the plaster will just be patched and then a painter (not decorator) will be expected to feather it in to loss it if he can be arsed or even capable.But it will look OK in the end.

I rarely see floors tiled under the units and never in new builds anymore unless its a million pound plus propertys now.
I have never come across wiring like that as sure its a no no.

I rearly work for landlords as they are often a funny breed that never want to pay the going rate.I think you will probably find that its an acceptable finish for the price there paying.
Hold in there it will come good in the end. 

[matthewmosse]

Bear in mind the mindset of a landlord may be absolute ruthless squeezing of expenditure and maximising of profit margin, my soon to be ex boss has at least 3 properties, probably a lot more, including 2 large farms with workshops where our factory grew up from and a full blown victorian mansion. He got there by being ruthless and pretty cut throat, wish I had known that before I thew in a dull but stable job to work for his firm. Quite willing tomcut corners for a quick profit, we are talking shot blasting 27 ton payload trailers and avoiding the brakes - initially I was told because the brake mechanism was too much work to strip, when I pointed out the back plates and mounts were dangerously thinned or totally rotted, I was told, we know, just paint over it, he wants to sell at the best price he can. I geuss my obvious disatisfaction with this is part of the reason my contract has been cancelled. Anyhow, how does someone get to have a property portfolio worth millions, one way is to really push for every last bit of profit, that trailer I blasted would probably only have cost £600 more to do right, but that hits profit and some folk just want to squeeze for every last drop of profit.

[hairygit]

Our landlord owns a large part of Devon, with 800+ rental properties. The kitchen was not a cheap one either. What we think has happened is the contractors have got a contract to do 30 properties to start with, and they may have cut prices to the bone to win the contract, and the diagonal wiring and bodge the plaster later is an effort to save a few quid on materials here and there.

[Green1]

Sounds about right I have worked almost for nothing to win contracts in the past

[Rozabikes Tim]

Part of my job is fitting curtains / poles we make via our shop. I once ended up drilling through and electic cable running diagonally between switch and light. Guess what the very embarrassed home owner's trade was.....!

[hairygit]

Part of my job is fitting curtains / poles we make via our shop. I once ended up drilling through and electic cable running diagonally between switch and light. Guess what the very embarrassed home owner's trade was.....!

Oops!

[Green1]

The blind man often causses me problems on one mansion I worked on the curtain fitter drilled into microbore pipe that was run at the perfectly wrong hight across the window distroying the £400 a role wallpaper and the games room below.

On the plus side it gave me more work 

[mike the bike]

The blind man should have got his labrador to do it