A question of standards; House doctor Peter Fall asks what standards we should look for from tradespeople.

Byline: Peter Fall

ABUILDER once said to me that quality is very subjective. He was trying to persuade me that the undulations in the concrete floor finish were acceptable. They may have been to him but not to me or, I believed, my client!

He's right of course. Inspecting buildings over the past who knows how many years, I have become quite blas over people's ability to ignore what I see are obvious defects, which they should have attended to years ago before they became a big problem.

Let's take a simple thing like a dribbling overflow from the toilet. To the occupier it's not a problem, the toilet still flushes and the overflow discharges outside the building, so it doesn't affect the way they live.

Repairing an overflowing toilet usually involves a 5p washer and 15 minutes of time. At worst, a visit from the local plumber shouldn't be more than pounds 30. But do the owners fix it? No.

By leaving the pipe dripping they run the risk of the water running on to the wall saturating the bricks and we all know what that can do. If the wall is solid brick or stone, then it will penetrate through, damaging the plaster and possibly rotting any timbers fixed to or built into the wall. Not so much of a problem with a cavity wall, providing it doesn't have any mortar droppings bridging across the cavity. Fixing damp plaster and rotten windows can cause the costs to run into many hundreds of pounds.

Another side of the quality argument is my problem with the builder. For me, a tradesman should be able to work to the quality standards and tolerances laid down by British Standards. Sometimes the client might require a higher standard but they must be prepared to pay for it. I rarely find an instance where the client wants a lesser standard, unless they really want a cheap job and don't care about the consequences.

We are often called in to look at a job and comment on the quality aspect. Unfortunately, in these instances we find that the client or the builder have rarely agreed on the quality standard before they started. The difficulty is without this definition they each come from opposite ends of the quality spectrum. That's where the British Standards should come in to play. These will frequently show the quality that should be achieved and what tolerance is acceptable. It's my opinion that this standard is the minimum, unless the client asks for less.

There can be instances where it's just not feasible for the builder to achieve the British Standard at an acceptable cost. For example, the plasterer cannot smooth out a rough undulating old wall without applying some thick base coats to bring it to a reasonable level. If that thickness interferes with other finishes, then you will have to think again.

There is, of course, the other side to all of this. Some of us don't mind a bit of damp or an undulating floor. Some of us can live with a rotten skirting and we'll get round to replacing all the rotten windows, when we can afford it. "Am I bovered? No I'm not" and for those of you that are, get a life! There are far bigger things to be worried about. But that's not all of us.

Peter Fall is former president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He is managing director of Clear Building Survey, tel: [phone].

www.clearbuildingsurvey.co.uk