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Please help me get out of trouble - landscaping project
Anonymous user 15/03/2024 - 2.39 PM
Please kindly help point me the right direction, your comments are highly appreciated. I moved into a new build development with bare garden. A colleague recommended me a guy so I checked with him too. The guy came and quoted at a very competitive price, he seemed genuine and polite so after a few rounds of emails back and forth, I decided to pay deposit done. (there is only a quotation, no formal contract). My project is 6*6 sqm of pavement and the rest is turfing. day 1, his guy only came to manually remove some top soil and put some hardcore down quickly. 2-3 hrs job done day 2, he and his guy came for one hour to compact the hardcore. I did question about not enough hardcore was put down, the answer I got is it is light use so 2-3cm is enough, maybe some more later.. they came 3 days later. day 3, full day paving, with only a spirit level, no strings or anything to control levelling. A few days after day 4, seal the joints with resin. 2 hrs max. Job done! Then I noticed the patio looks strange! There is a big raise up to a corner and the answer was due to my ground condition.However, I showed them the photos of original paving and it was all the way along below 2 brick course. Also,the elevation map from the building site shows the area is flat so the raise was caused by their poor workmanship! After I did the research online I found what they did was wrong: 1. Patio needs to be 15cm below DPC, some areas that the paving goes all the way up to DPC, this is breaching building regulation. 2. Not leaving enough gap to avoid rain splashback. Some gap were left to only 1-2cm, they were not even bothered to cut a single slab to make enough gap between the walls! 3. Patio should be leveled or slope away from my house, not all the way slope towards my house, If it has to s, there should be some draining system in place, otherwise water can go nowhere but damaging my house. Given these issues found, I asked the guy to rectify his job, he initially said I had to pay extra I refused, he accepted to redo it from scratch. The second time he hired a digger and dug about 10-20cm, and poured some hardcore in, however he also put back some dirts he has dug out claiming that it was too much digging, I told him that 300mm below surface it was compacted clay done by developer, unless he has touched that base, how can he say he dug too much? His answer is rather vague and now the majority of the area is boggy and digging 10cm will form a pond of water. He wanted the water to go naturally before he can compact hardcore. My point is, he hasn’t done enough digging. I don’t think I could trust him on getting the job done properly so I wanna cancel his job. I would like to know what would be my right? Can I claim back what I have paid him partially or rather lose it? In this situation, what would be the best solution for water to drain and to have solid subbase? Thank you
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5 Answers
RMD Planning
Michael Tiler