Poor quality carpentry

[bobtskutter]

I've just taken my daughter back to her university flat. It's owned by the university and shared by 5 people. She told me "the uni have been in to work on the fire doors". This is what we found, the brad nail hiding under her door mat shows they didn't really care much about cleaning up.



Bob

 

[mac sparrow]

I'd like to think they just didn't have the time to complete and will come back and finish it off and make it look all pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But I have zero faith in that actually happening.

 

[peter halle]

I guess it is just different there because here in commercial buildings, usually when you find a fire door you will also find that the door frame is metal and fire rated as well. In residential you will often have a fire rated door leading from a home into a garage, but normal frames.

Not an impressive install.

Peter

 

[GaryA]

As a British carpenter that takes pride in my work I am offended by the title of this thread, This looks to be a case of an agency that sends in trades to a commercial type building and dictates how long a job should take and pays little, this then creates an army of trades that do a job and do not care about how shoddy it looks. I have turned down numerous offers from procurement calls to do this type of repair/work.
Rant over

 

[luvmytoolz]

As a British carpenter that takes pride in my work I am offended by the title of this thread, This looks to be a case of an agency that sends in trades to a commercial type building and dictates how long a job should take and pays little, this then creates an army of trades that do a job and do not care about how shoddy it looks. I have turned down numerous offers from procurement calls to do this type of repair/work.
Rant over

I'd consider that par for the course, especially if it's an older UNI in old buildings. The general rental market in Oz is far worse than the UNI work example above, the agents and landlords often go out of their way to not spend anything on maintenance at all, so a lot of the crappy work is done by themselves or people they know who's only claim to fame is they possibly know which end of the hammer to hold.

Some places the living conditions should be illegal, and sometimes are.

 

[ChuckS]

All the sloppy work seen here was because of one thing: lack of supervision (by the contractor and/or university). Someone "allowed" that to happen by their inaction. Don't just blame the carpenter for the poor workmanship.

 

[Doug S]

Yes sloppy workmanship but being a British carpenter myself I do find the thread title quite disrespectful.

 

[ChuckS]

Being British himself, the OP, I think, did it as a tongue-in-cheek remark.

 

[bobtskutter]

I've renamed the thread. I was not trying to disrespect British carpenters. I highly suspect none of the individuals who did the work in my daughters flat would be on this forum. I was hoping other people might post about poor quality work they'd seen. The sad thing is, they've replaced the door architraves but done nothing to improve the fire prevention capability of the door ways. It's still the same door (which is fire rated), all they've done is replaced the architrave.

@GaryA @Doug S Please accept my apologies if I have caused you take offense, it was not my intention to do so.

Regards
Bob

 

[Sparktrician]

I would be totally embarrassed to be associated with work that shabby.

 

[Packard]

Carpenters who do not care about the quality of their work, were hired by supervisors who don’t care about the quality of their work, for rooms that are lived in by students who do not care about the quality of their work. If there are no consequences, then no improvement.

I would compare that with a customer of mine that made steel doors and steel bucks which he installed exclusively in prisons. His work was impeccable. No doubt that was because there would be consequences for poor quality work.

 

[bobtskutter]

It's funny you should mention "students who don't care". There are 5 of them in the flat and the only person who thought anything was wrong was my daughter

She's made quite a few friends in the building maintenance crew when having them come over to get stuff fixed.

Bob

 

[hdv]

What a dog's dinner they made of that!

 

[GaryA]

Thanks for the apology and the rename. No harm done.

 

[Packard]

It's funny you should mention "students who don't care". There are 5 of them in the flat and the only person who thought anything was wrong was my daughter

She's made quite a few friends in the building maintenance crew when having them come over to get stuff fixed.

Bob

Your daughter mentioned it because you indoctrinated her to the difference between good work and indifferent work.

It is not that college kids don’t care; they simply don’t notice these things. I’ll bet that Foggers (is that the right word?) notice indifferent workmanship where most of the rest of the world simply finds “invisible”.

 

[mino]

She's made quite a few friends in the building maintenance crew when having them come over to get stuff fixed.

Bob

Any grandkids promised?


You raised one fine girl there. She shall do fine in life.

Your daughter mentioned it because you indoctrinated her to the difference between good work and indifferent work.

It is not that college kids don’t care; they simply don’t notice these things. I’ll bet that Foggers (is that the right word?) notice indifferent workmanship where most of the rest of the world simply finds “invisible”.

I would be careful with the "indoctrinated" word here.

Pretty sure OP did not groom his daughter for the role of a Sage of The Order of Good Carpentry ..

 

[bobtskutter]

Any grandkids promised?

Not that sort of friend!

I brought her up to question stuff, design stuff and improve things.

Bob

 

[mino]

Not that sort of friend!

I brought her up to question stuff, design stuff and improve things.

Of course .. yes .. that much was obvious. I am young-enough to remember what sort of a young lady would act the way you described. It is not about knowledge, though that helps. It is about a way of thinking. About having standards. About an ability to think for oneself. Of having the chutzpah to speak out where others will not bother. An exceedingly rare breed these days. An even rarer one amongst young women.
All that. But, most importantly, it is about valuing good things. About understanding the value in creating. You raised her well.

 

[luvmytoolz]

Well put mino!