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Hi everyone. Hope you're all doing well
Was hoping to get some assistance. My first build has progressed quite far in.
The situation:
I have (had) an existing retaining wall with existing garden lights. As a variation I asked the builder to replace the lights however when the electrician was on site the retaining wall was badly damaged (approx 15m worth).
The builders response was the following:
After speaking with office and checking documentation with regards to the retaining wall, this will need to be rectified by yourself, please see notation below.You may need to speak with next door as retaining wall has not been installed correctly with no footing. The notation was in the specification and is as follows:Notes: Some of the retaining wall may not have footings underneath them. Should these be disturbed or fail due to being inadequately constructed, additional cost will apply to repair them. In hindsight I should've planned this abit more. Should I get quotes from other contractors to rebuild/repair the retaining wall? What would you do?
im not sure i understand, the retaining was was damaged by the builder or electrician when they attended?
the electrician, however they are subcontracted by the builder.
about 1m high with a fence ontop.
Retaining walls 1M or higher need to be engineered. Consult an engineer to get it designed, and then get quotes from maybe building or landscaping contractors. Check your DMs.
So wait,the electrician damaged the wall, and the builder is wiping their hands of it? Regardless of whether it's engineered or not, their subbie damaged it...looks like you're getting screwed so the builder doesn't have e to do anything about it
No. Re-read his first post.
The first post isn't the bit where op confirms that the electrician damaged 15 meters of wall.
In addition, the walls engineering legitimacy wasn't in question until op complained about the damage the electrician did.
The wall was only worked on by request of OP. The concern is that the wall was able to be badly damaged in the first place, imo. Furthermore, in the post the OP highlights that the wall might be lacking footings or no footings, and the builder has reported it as overall inadequate. Why should the builder be liable for what might be a crap wall? How old is the wall OP?
Noname, why are you so quick to blame the builder in such a multivariated issue. I don't think any of your reasoning is rational - as per the info we've got so far. Think about this.
Honestly the wall was in really good condition so I am disappointed. It was a limestone retaining wall. Not more than 3 years old (from visual inspection). I'll try get more info from the builder and what actually caused the damage
Honestly the wall was in really good condition so I am disappointed. It was a limestone retaining wall. Not more than 3 years old (from visual inspection). I'll try get more info from the builder and what actually caused the damage
Daniel811991
Sorry to hear you are having issues.
Do you have any photos so we can see the nature and extent of the damage? there are some really clever people on here that might be able to come up with a practical solution for your problem if we can actually quantify it:)
Cheers
Simeon
Moudzj. Are you serious? The builder doesn't even know if there are no footings. The op says the builder says "there MAY not be footings". They don't know. Again the issue came up AFTER the builders subbie damaged the wall which before wasn't in question.
The reason im quick to blame the builder on this is because of the timing and series of events.
A good builder doing any work around or on an retaining wall would have verified the engineering before touching it. Not after they damaged it to get out of fixing it. Not an uncommon escape route by contractors/builders.
Surely you're not daft?!
Moudzj. Are you serious? The builder doesn't even know if there are no footings. The op says the builder says "there MAY not be footings". They don't know. Again the issue came up AFTER the builders subbie damaged the wall which before wasn't in question.
The reason im quick to blame the builder on this is because of the timing and series of events.
A good builder doing any work around or on an retaining wall would have verified the engineering before touching it. Not after they damaged it to get out of fixing it. Not an uncommon escape route by contractors/builders.
Surely you're not daft?!
I see this completely differently to you, my friend. Had the client not asked for the builder to have a sparky complete works on the wall, nothing further would have happened, and this would have not come up. I would argue that he is lucky that this did happen, if the wall is indeed inadequate.
I am not interested in going off conspiracies or hearsay, I take the OP's words at face value only.
Lol "hysterical". OK "friend". I suspect you're a tradie that's used such useful escape routes before. There's nothing hysterical about this given its not uncommon.
Ops comments were taken absolutely at face value here too. Where is the conspiracy or here say? I am literally referring to exactly what the OP has written. Its not conspiracy when its happened enough times in the industry for it to have given trades a bad name already.
The builder can't even definitively even state if the wall is inadequate, only that it may be, and may incur extra cost to fix if it fails etc. This is the red flag for the obvious escape route. We have to take at face value that the guy that installed the wall in the first place had the appropriate engineering sorted given its height. It beggars belief that a builder would not be able to definitely conclude its validity in such an excuse.
Imagine taking your car to get a service and asking for a wheel alignment too, coming back and having all four wheels off and the mechanic telling you " they were 'probably' bald, but if you want to drive out of here today you need to buy 4 new ones"
Lol "hysterical". OK "friend". I suspect you're a tradie that's used such usefull escape routes before. There's nothing hysterical about this given its not uncommon. Litterally happens all the time.
Ops comments were taken absolutely at face value here too. The builder can't even definitvely even state if the wall is inadequate, only that it may be, and may incur extra cost to fix if it fails etc. This is the red flag for the obvious escape route. We have to take at face value that the guy that installed the wall in the first place had the appropriate engineering sorted given its height. It beggars belief that a builder would not be able to definitely conclude its validity in such an excuse.
Imagine taking your car to get a service, coming back and having all four wheels off and the mechanic telling you " they were 'probably' bald, but unsure as I don't have sight of them anymore, but if you want to drive out of here today you need to buy 4 new ones"
Its a limestone retaining wall in a subdivision. Ive seen tens of these which have been replaced due to warranty and afew which have failed - they are like a mass produced retaining wall in a sweatshop. Built like crap, and as cheap as possible. Have you actually seen any of these particular walls being built? I know these walls better than anyone.
Lol "hysterical". OK "friend". I suspect you're a tradie that's used such usefull escape routes before. There's nothing hysterical about this given its not uncommon. Litterally happens all the time.
Ops comments were taken absolutely at face value here too. The builder can't even definitvely even state if the wall is inadequate, only that it may be, and may incur extra cost to fix if it fails etc. This is the red flag for the obvious escape route. We have to take at face value that the guy that installed the wall in the first place had the appropriate engineering sorted given its height. It beggars belief that a builder would not be able to definitely conclude its validity in such an excuse.
Imagine taking your car to get a service, coming back and having all four wheels off and the mechanic telling you " they were 'probably' bald, but unsure as I don't have sight of them anymore, but if you want to drive out of here today you need to buy 4 new ones"
Its a limestone retaining wall in a subdivision. Ive seen tens of these which have been replaced due to warranty and afew which have failed - they are like a mass produced retaining wall in a sweatshop. Built like crap, and as cheap as possible. Have you actually seen any of these particular walls being built? I know these walls better than anyone.
just as suspected.
how many times have you managed to escape liability after damaging stuff mate?
"was a $hit wall anyway mate, youre lucky we picked it up" lol
Gents, thanks for your comments. I can sense the passion here!
For your info I attached a couple photos
1. of the damange
2. of the other side of the wall for an idea of how it looked before.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/9528/2aG2pZ.jpghttps://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/6753/osRbLg.jpg
Bugger. This isnt damaged, this is complete failure lol. Definitely sparkies fault, not what I imagined at all. But, in defence of the sparky, this isnt a retaining wall - its afew crappy lightweight blocks, laid on a bed of mortar with clearly no mortar in any of the extrusions. No footing appears to be visible either, all layed at NGL - whoever built this needs to be deported. In my opinion, this was unavoidable - but the bottom line is that it is the builders fault. He should have been able to identify this before any work took place.