[Poll] Rate my lagging

[Tardigrade]

Re-done previous post as I was unclear.

Scenario - multi-million pound council programme to redistribute heat from a hospital, via a set of "block" boilers, into homes with heat exchangers. My personal bill was 15k for the local work (x290 flats in block) and 4k (x a lot) for the longer distance hospital stuff. As a leaseholder, I pay. No breakdown. The standard of work generally was awful, and lots of remediation work was done. The latest thing I am fighting is the standard of lagging. For me, a system based on waste heat distribution is particularly sensitive to heat loss, so lagging seems important. We turn on the hot water tap and literally wait c. 2 minutes for hot water in some cases, as an example.

So the context is quite specific: the standard is: You, a reasonable and knowledgeable professional, have specified lagging work of a reasonable standard, knowing the use case is for a heat exchanger system.

Now, here is the lagging that was done:
Album — Postimage.org

None of the cuts have had adhesive applied. Significant gaps ont he side you can't see at the joints. As you can see, none of the clip areas, or valve areas, are covered. Good practice guidance is clear this is sub-standard:
http://www.armacell.com/C1256AF100412A28/F/NT016C8C66/$FILE/ArmaflexApplicationUK.pdf


Q&A!
Q. This isn't a place for contractor bashing, pay for a 3rd party opinion.
A: I have got a 3rd party opinion, and it is that the lagging isn't good enough. But that is just one opinion vs the council, I need more, and it isn't fair to get a ton of people turning up to give me an opinion. Also, I'm as much council-procurement bashing as contractor bashing.

Q: It depends how much you paid / what work was specified
A: There is no cost breakdown. The whole project cost a lot, so I think the standard should be high. The key thing for me is I understand a heat exchanger system is particularly sensitive to heat loss, and so a reasonable procurer should have specified a good standard of lagging. (For those interested, NO lagging was done originally...!)

 

[Welder]

Which bit of my post did you NOT understand?
Get a professional surveyor in!
Opinions mean NOTHING as no one has seen or can see the damn job. You need objectivity not a freaking Brexit shambles.

@ShaunCorbs shut this down please.

 

[Welder]

Your poll is nonsense.
You cannot require two opinions in one question

 

[SimonG]

Just going to bang on until somebody tells them something they want to hear.

Typical of somebody with an axe to grind.

 

[Tardigrade]

Mate I don't know what has triggered you in to this aggression, calling me stupid etc. I've just tried the poll, and it only needs one, not two responses as you appear to be indicating. The responses available are also clearly on a spectrum, and I don't see how they might conflict, if that is the meaning of your barb.

 

[Tardigrade]

Yes I do have an axe to grind...why shouldn't I? Would you be happy to pay 19k for shoddy work? Why the hostility?

 

[SimonG]

Everybody just vote the top option

 

[Gasmk1]

in none of the posts were you called stupid, and you havent paid £19000 personally the council has paid so take issue with the council over the workmanship.

 

[SimonG]

It's gone up 4 grand since the original post.



Got bit on the right one this time.

 

[Tardigrade]

1. Yes I was called stupid, by a poster in this thread, in the other thread.
2. I clarified in this post how cost went from 15k to 19k
3. Yes I did pay, as I've said multiple times. You seem to have a problem with council tenants, which I am not.

Anything else constructive to add, or are you just an aggressive, unhelpful chap by nature?

 

[SimonG]

TBH i got sick of reading it after the first line.

 

[Tardigrade]

Than perhaps don't accuse me of things in an aggressive tone until you have? Or ask to maliciously derail my poll?

 

[SimonG]

1. Yes I was called stupid, by a poster in this thread, in the other thread.
2. I clarified in this post how cost went from 15k to 19k
3. Yes I did pay, as I've said multiple times. You seem to have a problem with council tenants, which I am not.

Anything else constructive to add, or are you just an aggressive, unhelpful chap by nature?

He didn't call you stupid, he said you lacked the intelligence.

Only one person being aggressive, yourself. It's very typical though of people who don't like the answer to their question.

 

[SimonG]

When was this work done. I asked on t'other post and still not answered.

 

[Tardigrade]

Ok. You're not aggressive. You're simply lacking in empathy, kindness, passivity, constructiveness and non-aggressiveness. That disingenuous enough for your standards?

I don't like people being dishonest, and not answering what I asked. That has happened repeatedly. Before the other chap kicked off, he said quite clearly the work wasn't good enough earlier in the other thread, for the use context. Most people that have provided reasoned answers have agreed the work isn't good, but simply qualified it that that is not uncommon. So it is nothing to do with not liking what I hear. In this case, it is to do with two people deciding they'll go hell for leather in ruining my post simply because they appear to be nasty pieces of work.

 

[SimonG]

Answer the question in post 14 or do I have to use smaller words?

 

[Tardigrade]

This specific lagging was done this week. This was re-doing lagging done a few months back, and the original unlagged major work was done a few years prior (it took a while for us to get the remediation work round 1 done).

 

[SimonG]

How many months is a 'few'. Shouldn't be hard to give specific dates.
What was in the original contract? For 19k I expect their was quite a bit of documentation.

 

[rpm]

I`M OUT!

 

[Tardigrade]

As I explained, the council ran procurement, and as such, there is near zero documentation provided to us, and we don't have access to what they contracted out. I am effectively challenging the council - so what they did or did not agree with the contractors is not relevant as much as what they SHOULD have agreed.

 

[Welder]

You were given honest objective advice. It is the best this group for the reasons stated.

However, you persist in this utter pointless exercise diverting help away from people we can help more specifically through, one can only assume, some affiction.

For the last time, get a qualifed surveyor in to objectively report. We cannot help you as we know our opinions are worthless to you where it counts.

GOODBYE.

FWIW when I commented you had yet to emerge fully from the woodwork.

If you wish I can turn into abusive if that would help your cause. Just say, "pretty please"...

 

[SimonG]

So you spent 19k with no spec and minimal documentation.

What the council agreed or did not agree with their contractors is paramount and to be brutally honest your post is ridiculous.


Yorkshire Dave was right. Not at the front of the queue, eh.

I'm out too.

 

[Tardigrade]

For all your willingness to insult me guys, there is a lot of Dunning-Kruger going on here your side. You're telling me, a legally trained chap, what is relevant for having a cause of action. You are wrong, and this is why I've repeatly stated I'm not asking for help regarding "my chances". I am well aware that it is legally irrelevant if the council contracted people to do sub-standard work. To YOU it is, as contractors, cos you figure, if that is what you were contracted to do, that is what you do, and that is fine. But it is irrelevant. Because if the work is sub-standard, it is the council's fault for making such work acceptable through poor contracting. Anyway, you've all decided to be aggressive and be "out", so goodnight, and thanks for your kind help.

 

[Pickwickpick]

As I explained, the council ran procurement, and as such, there is near zero documentation provided to us, and we don't have access to what they contracted out. I am effectively challenging the council - so what they did or did not agree with the contractors is not relevant as much as what they SHOULD have agreed.

This is why @YorkshireDave recommended you get a surveyor involved. This is not a nice simple scenario, pipe lagging was not a line item on any documentation you have, there was no pre agreed standard of work that you can clearly show has not been delivered, this is a grey area.

Getting a few opinions off plumbers on a forum is not going to be of any use to you, for starters we haven't actually seen the work, we're going off 3 photos which is not enough to give any serious judgement on. There's then the fact that the council will quite rightly be able to claim that you have just cherry picked the quotes/answers you are looking for.

However if you get a surveyor out, they can give you a report detailing whether or not the lagging is stopping the service you have purchased through the council (i.e. your heating/hot water) from working effectively. This is what surveyors are for, they are professionals whose job is to give their opinion on such matters in areas of their expertise. Now if the surveyor comes back with a report that states the lagging is causing your heating or hot water to not work effectively, you have a valid claim against the council as you have paid for a service which is not being provided. Equally if they come back to you with a report stating its not pretty, but will have no material impact on your heating/hot water, then you know not to worry about it. This is not a plumbers area of expertise, we fit, some design, but we are not expert witnesses which is effectively what you need.

And with regards to people being prickly, its all to do with your first few posts. You asked a question, we gave our answers, but because they were not what you were looking for you threw your toys out of the pram.

 

[Welder]

For one legally trained, I am uttey perplexed at your complete lack of recognition of both the role & value of expert witnesses.

Your statements & actions demonstrate a distinct disconnect...

 

[Pickwickpick]

For one legally trained, I am uttey perplexed at your complete lack of recognition of both the role & value of expert witnesses.

Your statements & actions demonstrate a distinct disconnect...

The plot thickens, seems very bizarre that a 'legally trained chap' would have to ask "what differentiates a 3rd party plumber providing an opinion, from a "survey" "

 

[Tardigrade]

Pickwick - thank you for a well written response. The only parts I disagree with:
1) I don't believe I "threw my toys out of the pram" - at least prior to being the subject of abusive language. Where do you believe I did this?
2) Had I recieved a good volume of honest responses, it would have been of use to me. a) because it would have informed the strength of my case prior to shelling out for a formal report and b) because most of this is not being conducted in a courtroom, but rather through persuasion with councilors and council representitives. Here, opnions do matter, particularly when well articulated (such as the comment that the usage of the pipe is critical when considering whether lagging is addequate).

YorskshireDave - are you REALLY from the north? You're shattering the stereotype. I didn't ask for an expert witness, so going off about it is what is called a straw man fallacy. Not the only logical fallacy you've displayed, whilst calling me uninteligent. Ironic.

 

[SimonG]

Unintelligent, now there's irony.

 

[SimonG]

Abusive? Need to get out more Buttercup.

 

[Tardigrade]

SimonG. A typo? I'm shattered by the strength of your debate skills. It actually isn't ironic, what you pointed out, but you just keep your Alanis illusions.

 

[Riley]

Dear lord please just get an independent survey and assessment carried out. Our opinion on the work is worthless because it is nothing but opinion. None of us have assessed the work or looked up close or even been privy to the spec of the materials used. We could tell you how it should be done and what to use but that’s a million miles off what the councils opinion is. You still haven’t told us what you paid for this lagging. Sometimes you get what you pay for. You are looking for someone here to turn round and say it’s unacceptable because ... but we can’t as there are too many external factors. For my opinion not that you’ll care I have seen a lot worse likewise I have seen a lot better.

 

[Welder]

YorskshireDave - are you REALLY from the north? You're shattering the stereotype. I didn't ask for an expert witness, so going off about it is what is called a straw man fallacy. Not the only logical fallacy you've displayed, whilst calling me uninteligent. Ironic.

Oh that old sterotypical chestnut - yawn.

If you wish to stand toe to toe on neuro science, psychology, engineering and many aspects of consumer law then this northern thicko is happy to just before I lift your idealistic head from its shoulders.

There are none so deaf as those who do not wish to hear. Goodnight.

 

[Tardigrade]

Riley, thank you, I have heard that loud and clear.

 

[SimonG]

Attention to detail, maybe a little bit more of that and you wouldn't be fishing for ammunition on an internet forum.

Yes your honour the UK's leading plumbing forum said so.

 

[Tardigrade]

Neuroscience? I don't know what plot you are following. Goodnight for the third(?) time.