'Can't Do' Attitude

[D_Douglas_G]

A couple of guys turned up at my house to carry out some wall cavity insulation, and just by the look on their faces as I opened the door
I could tell they didn’t fancy the job. The guy who’s obviously in charge of talking said “hmm, this one’s a bit different isn’t it?”.
He then spent 5 minutes walking around frowning and grunting, and finally decided he couldn’t access the back of the house, so I said
that it’s fine to attack it from the inside, but he clearly didn’t want me to make it that easy for him and went on to say that he might
crack the walls and make a mess, so I said “that’s fine, I’ve got to clean up the walls and re-paint them anyway”.

By this time he’d realised that he needed a new reason to not do the job, so he asked if he can drill a test hole to see if the cavity is
deep enough, and guess what?... it wasn’t. So his manager is going to have to come out and see if I’m a candidate for an alternative
insulation method using beads, and of course this method is going to cost more (the guy guessed it’d be ONLY £250 more, which
considering I was only due to pay £150 in total is quite a jump up). When I asked what happens if the beads won’t work, he told me
that I’m pretty much stuck with a cold house.

What really makes me mad is that 2 months earlier I had spent an hour with the surveyor (who was a very professional and polite guy)
going over what needed to be done, and this didn’t seem to prime these miserable people for their job whatsoever! And when I asked
the installer why the survey hadn’t prepared them for the job, he said “to be honest, those surveys are a total waste of time”.

It’s quite funny really, because early that morning my gut feeling was that by the end of the day I wasn’t going to be enjoying the
extra warmth that cavity insulation provides, and this is because I’ve had far too many service suppliers who are f*cking miserable,
obviously hate their jobs (and themselves) and only want to carry out the job they’re paid to do if it’s totally straight-forward
and doesn’t interfere with lunch, mobile phone calls or going home well before 5pm!

So the next time you see any kind of report of a project being delayed, or going over budget etc. you can bet your life that a big chunk
of the cause is this 'cannot do' cancer spreading throughout the land. Let's just hope that the Eastern Europeans are immune.

[Roger_Bisby]

Yes I know what you mean. The guys are paid by the hour and if they don't work they still get paid so it is more or less the name of the game to find excuses for not doing the job. When they lose their job to a Polish builder they will moan like hell about that too.

Bob The Builder "Can we Fix It? Yes We can" is not perhaps not typical of the British builder but Barack Obama took that very line for his campaign slogan so it proves that this attitude strikes a chord with the general public.


Lets hope he can do it.

[D_Douglas_G]

Just to keep you up to date.

The supervisor came to see me (who for the record was bright and chirpy), and he measured my wall cavity at around 20-25mm,
which is quite a bit short of the 50mm they require for the injection of what looks like pocket fluff.

It's a shame they can't use the foam that I remember they used at my school some 30 years ago.

[Roger_Bisby]

Did he measure it on more that one place? Presumably so because of those two measurements.
The foam is available and can be done by a DIYer or builder with a drill. There are a number of companies offering kits and full technical backup.

http://www.tigerfoam.com


http://www.expandingfoamkits.co.uk/index.php