Episode 10 Cowboy Trap

Cowboy builders are the scourge of Britain's homeowners.

Ripping off people for profit.

I'm on the road to uncover some truly awful building work.

There was no plaster on the walls. It was just brickwork and a bowing roof.

I've come across some of Britain's worst builders in my time,

but I'm still shocked at the hideous work they try to pass off!

I shook a man's hand. That was his bond. It hurts a little bit.

But with help from some local good-guy builders,

I'm hoping to get this unfortunate family's dream build

back on track as well as their lives.

Gutted. We've already been through so much mess and upheaval for it.

And along the way,

I'll give you some tips to help you from falling into the cowboy trap.

Today, I'm in Nuneaton in Warwickshire which is named

after a 12th-century Benedictine convent situated at nearby Eaton.

Nuns at Eaton, Nuneaton, get it?

Nuneaton was home to Victorian novelist George Eliot

who wrote The Mill On The Floss,

the heart-wrenching tale of brother and sister Tom and Maggie Tulliver

who drown in an embrace.

It's a similarly tragic story that brings me to Nuneaton

to meet Lisa and Lee Summers whose dream of an extension

ended in disaster when they encountered

the villain of the piece in the shape of a cowboy builder.

You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?

Lee is a production engineer and Lisa works in a warehouse.

They met as childhood sweethearts and have been married for 15 years.

About 13 years ago, they moved into their home,

but with their growing family of three children,

things were cramped, so Lisa and Lee decided to extend the house.

In August 2010, they decided to build a conservatory extension

including underfloor heating,

all electrics and with walls boarded and plastered.

Outside, they wanted a garage built and a slab pathway laid

from the back gate to the garage,

so Lee could get his motorbike in and out.

Like most middle-aged men,

I needed somewhere to get away from the children.

I'm a keen motorcyclist

and I wanted somewhere where I could put the bike under cover.

Keep it safe and dry and I could go and mess around

and be away from the madness of three children.

It sounds like an Eliot classic - a beautiful Midland setting,

and a cast including a family intent on a fairy-tale home makeover.

What could possibly go wrong? Read on.

Lisa and Lee couldn't wait to get cracking.

They put out an appeal for a builder on a social networking site.

A friend of ours came back and said that her fella was a builder,

and he was starting and he could give us a quote on what we wanted.

I'm not sure if George Eliot was a fan of social media,

but I'm sure I'd remember if she'd mentioned it.

But if you like to tweet or post news of recent events, good on you.

But if you're going to try and find a builder on the internet,

please, remember to carry out the necessary checks.

When the builder came around,

he said the job was more than he normally took on.

But he would sub-contract the brick and block work to expert brickies.

He was confident in laying the garage foundations though

and quoted 16 grand for the whole job.

The Summers were delighted with the figure and shook hands on the deal.

I'm old-fashioned. For me, the handshake is the deal.

I've changed a lot since then.

This is a classic mistake.

When it comes to contracts,

mere words aren't worth the paper they're not written on.

If you don't get building works formally agreed,

you've got no chance of getting any money back if things do go wrong.

But the Summers' project got off to a good start in September 2010.

He sub-contracted to brickies,

they come in, did what they were meant to do.

So that was quite a fast process. But, he seemed to know.

It seemed to be going how it should do, or how I would expect.

But then, the project took a turn for the worse.

The builders stopped turning up

and started leaving the work to unskilled labourers.

I've come across loads of cowboy builders,

but when it comes to quality workmanship

and skilled labour, they're sadly lacking.

But when it comes to excuses,

well, they've turned THAT into an Olympic sport.

And the Summers' builder was definitely a medal contender

when it came to making excuses.

He said the job would take six-to-eight weeks,

but it went on for months and he found imaginative reasons why.

He must have the most unreliable van in the country.

The spring's broke, the steering's gone, the DVLA have impounded it.

It's just...a nightmare.

Some builders will say anything to get out of finishing a job,

however far-fetched it may sound.

I've heard every excuse going.

I'll be back on Monday. Me phone's broke. Me alarm didn't go off.

Your contract's in the post. Oooh, you wanted me to do THAT?

Me brother's got me ladder. I can't put me jeans on today.

I've got a problem with me eye...

Frustrated by the builder's absence and the slow progress of the job,

Lee started to lay the tiles himself.

But he soon noticed they weren't going on flat.

I stuck with it and carried on and finished the tiling downstairs.

And I grouted it, and a few days later,

we noticed the grout was cracking, right in the middle of the floor.

The builder blamed the tiles

and suggested pouring grout onto the cracks.

It seemed to work, but soon, they started cracking again.

Lee pulled some tiles up and couldn't believe what he saw.

The screed underneath had turned to sand.

It seemed the grout was sinking back out to a different end.

So it was pouring more grout into the gaps.

It looked good for a couple of days,

until we walked over it again and then the grout was gone again.

And then again.

He just said, he didn't know what do with it.

The problems weren't just confined to the floor.

When the windows for the conservatory arrived,

they were the wrong ones, and they were scratched.

And the roof was unsupported.

When it rained, the roof would bow and collect water.

I could reach up and push the roof up and down six inches

and it just sort of bowed away and sagged.

Lisa and Lee insisted the builder fix it.

To raise the pitch on it and put these wooden beams in.

Eventually, it was time for the electrics

to go into the extension and the garage.

The builder told them they've been done, but they hadn't.

-Lisa was devastated.

-Gutted.

We'd already been through so much mess and upheaval for it,

expecting it to be two months. It was disgusting.

It had got to Christmas and Lisa and Lee had handed over 15,500,

but had little to show for it.

And then, the builder stopped coming altogether.

For all the havoc a bumbling builder can cause to your property,

let alone the dent they can cause to your wallet,

the real damage can be caused to your relationship.

Lisa and Lee had been together for 15 years and over that time,

they've hardly had a cross word.

But lately, they've been doing nothing but argue.

It was horrible.

The kids getting shouted at for nothing.

We never fall out. We've almost got the perfect relationship.

Just because of mess being left and cleaning it up,

it's back there again, cleaning up, it's back there again.

It was just constant stress.

I have the stress of my job and I was coming home

and having the stress of the work not being completed here.

Lisa and Lee's house was falling apart

and their relationship was feeling the strain too.

It was a story straight out of a novel.

But hang on, is that a tall, dark stranger coming to save the day?

No, it's big, old, bald me, but you know I'm going to do me best.

Time to tell the Summers that the good guys are in town.

-How are you? You must be Lee.

-I'm Lee, nice to meet you.

-Lisa?

-Yup.

-I'm Clive from Cowboy Trap. Can I have a look around?

-By all means, come on in.

-Thank you. Nice to see you.

While they make me a nice cuppa,

I'm going to have a sneaky peak at their domestic disaster.

OK, so here's the offending article.

These joists here have not been treated and in a conservatory,

when the sun's out, the heat is monster in here.

And timber is a living, breathing thing,

so it will swell and it will shrink,

and there's big visible signs of it cracking here.

They need treating.

Ooh, and I tell you what, just looking at the floor here,

that's got a deflection on it, which means it's got a curve.

I'm not liking that at all.

And because of the curve here, you can see a tile has cracked.

I'll lift that out. Oh, that's horrible, look at that.

What the heck is going on?! Look at this!

There's no way you're ever going to be able to lay on that!

I'll tell you one thing already - this floor is coming up!

Another thing, the position of the external doors is all wrong.

You want them in line to the doors out of the lounge

so you can walk straight through to the garden.

There's a window hole between the lounge and conservatory,

but no window.

Fails building regs BAD.

Let's have a gander outside.

OK, from the outside, here's a good top-tip for you as well.

This protective coating that's on the doors and the windows,

is there for a reason when it's first being built.

It protects the surface and stops any splashes

of any mortar mixes going on it. But don't leave it on.

The reason for that, if you look at this...

That's been on for a year or more,

and there is a slight gluing effect on the back of the plastic.

It can affect the plastic extrusion.

Once the build's complete and it's finished,

rip that off and rip it off the doors.

Ah, look at this straightaway. Why has that drain stopped there?

That should be going all the way along the frontage.

Why they finished it there, I haven't got a Scooby Doo.

Time to have a look at the roof.

Ah, OK. A couple of things straightaway again here.

The flashing right at the back, the upstand isn't high enough.

I needs to come another brick high. And the joints look pretty awful.

That'll allow water in there and creepy crawlies.

The roof is polycarbonate.

At the far end, the last piece that's been cut and put on,

there's no end cap, so again, moisture getting in.

It's going to look pretty ugly

and you'll get a lot of creepy crawlies getting in.

And where the joint pieces are, there's no end caps on those,

and they need finishing off. It looks pretty ugly from up here.

Oh, how lovely. A play area for the kiddies.

A slide, a swing, a...rubbish tip?

Good housekeeping is essential when it comes to builders.

Keeping the place tidy.

I can see sand, bags of cement, blockwork, brickwork,

old plastic extrusion, insulation bits, bits of paving and flag stone.

All just thrown here. I don't know if they'd organised a skip or not,

but this needed taking away.

One of the worst things is what looks like a garage door.

It's all bent up and has got sharps all over it.

That is not a safe area for children.

In fact, this needs cordoning off.

Cordoning off and clearing before one of the little ones gets hurt.

On to the garage and things aren't getting any better.

Where this UPVC window has gone in, which is second-hand anyway,

there's a huge gap all the way around there.

He's tried to mastic it and mastic's about that wide.

It's way too wide.

You've got weatherboard as the fascia, that could've been UPVC.

It would've been a lot better.

Now, Lisa tells me Lee is in the garage, half-built as it is.

Let's find out what he's doing. Lee? How are you, mate? Come on out.

-Hello, mate?

-What have you been up to?

-I'm in my shrine, hiding.

Hiding in your shrine? This is your escape.

I can see why Lee would want to escape this grim reality.

It's a disaster.

This doorway looks a bit too big for the doors.

Again, it's just in a state of being incomplete really.

-It needs painting, yeah...

-Let's go back down to that conservatory.

My heart really goes out to Lee and Lisa.

A young family trying to improve their lot and look what's happened.

A chaotic conservatory, a ghastly garage

and a danger zone for the kiddies.

Time for a chat to get the inside story.

Why did this job take so long to do when he quoted six to eight weeks?

He'd turn up at 7am, get us out of bed on the weekend

and by 12, he'd be gone.

-Why weekends? Why not in the week?

-He never turned up in the week.

How did it all break down and why hasn't he been back to...

-I wouldn't want him to come back from what I've seen.

-No, nor me.

-We got to June. We were where we are now.

-From when the previous year?

-September.

-Yeah.

-The kids had just gone back to school.

That's like nine months' difference to six-to-eight weeks. Oh, no...

You can see why we got to the point where we didn't care.

Just get it finished. Get gone. That's where we got to it in the end.

-I don't know how you put up with it for that length of time.

-We didn't.

-No.

-You seem to have a really good solid bond as a couple.

Take me to the real dark times of what it was like

when it started to drive a wedge between you guys.

You basically said, "You get this sorted or I'm moving out."

It was the mess more than the completion, cos I'm a mess freak.

I don't like it. It was just constant.

And from that, it was, "I can't keep doing this".

It seemed to be simple stuff, I mean, the window.

Just blocking the window up

so we didn't get the dust in the kitchen from outside.

They put a ripped sheet up and it didn't stop anything.

Looking at this botched job, it's no wonder the marriage turned frosty.

But no fear, the good guys are here. What would you like us to do?

If you guys could come in, if you could sort that floor,

so we've got a nice floor to put furniture on, it would be brilliant.

-And just make the garden safe for the kids.

-It's been lovely to catch up.

-I need to crack on with our guys and get this party started.

-OK.

But there's one more thing I need to do before we swing into action.

That's get a second opinion

from independent building expert, Paul Brown,

who has been having a nose around.

What have you found that's not to your liking?

When you look at it, you notice the garden runs up a long way

and that water is going to end up in front of the conservatory.

There's a small linear drain and that isn't really big enough

and we don't know where it drains to,

but we suspect it may not drain into any system at all.

If that's the case, water from that could wash away the ground

around the foundation and that could cause structural problems.

It's important that we get that sorted.

-Inside, what about the floor?

-If you look at the floor,

there are areas of screed, the layer of concrete under the tiles,

and it's supposed to form a good layer for tiles to sit on.

That has disintegrated. The tiles won't stay where they are.

That's another big area of concern

and we're yet to find out the full extent.

In terms of the roof tiles, the end caps are missing...

It's poor detailing. They're not adequately fixed.

They could be pulled off in high winds.

There'd be a fair bit of wind-lift on this and it could get sucked off.

The sealant around the windows, it just gives you the impression

that there hasn't been attention to detail.

In terms of a score you'd give this guy out of ten,

-What would you give?

-Not very high. It's a three.

If you ask me, three's quite generous.

Especially taking into account that flawed flooring.

We've got a family living in this property and I have to say,

in the conservatory, the floor is dodgy

and there's a tripping hazard with those broken tiles.

I'm going to declare this area a no-go zone

and only myself and the good guys are allowed in.

And talk of the devil, here they are.

Expert builder, exotically named Konrad Skubala, wastes no time.

He heads straight for the conservatory

to get that floor up and start again.

Konrad has his work cut out fixing this catastrophic conservatory.

The floor's weak in certain areas

and as you can't determine which areas are weak,

we've got to remove the whole lot.

First, we've got to remove all the skirting and everything first,

remove all the tiles and then start removing the screed.

A skip to remove dangerous building materials - what a good idea(!)

Shame that didn't occur to our cowboy builder!

So, can Konrad come up with a solution to the Summers' discontent?

Only time will tell.

I'm back in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where Lisa and Lee Summers'

dream of a much-needed new extension turned to dust,

when the builder they found via a social networking site

turned out to be a clueless chancer.

But luckily, Lisa and Lee called us in,

and I've come to find out if our good guys have saved the day.

Before I talk it through with the Summers,

I want a sneaky peak for myself.

First up, the conservatory.

Well, as usual, what a difference, straight away.

First thing that comes to my mind before I even look at the floor,

and that is now we've got the doors directly with the doors

that go into the lounge, so you've got a proper flow through.

If you remember last time, we came in, we had to do a bit of an L,

get down to the bottom of the conservatory to get out.

Now it all flows through nicely into the garden.

One of the most important things was the floor was pretty poor,

it was uneven. The sub-base was terrible.

You look at it now - fantastic flooring.

It really does look the part,

but above all else, superflat.

Window in.

I was saying before, to meet building regs

we had to make sure that that window was in place,

so this was a totally separate area from the main property.

That job has now been done.

And the outside looks good too.

Drainage sorted. The down spout's properly connected at last,

and the missing trim on the roof is fixed.

Hallelujah!

The good guys even found time to clear up the garden,

and lay down a pathway,

so Lee can easily get his motorbike into the garage.

This is what tells me that these are the good guys,

is just the way that they've actually done this turn here.

It's just absolutely perfect.

The way they've cut the flags themselves give it a nice flow,

and of course it goes from the gate to the garage,

which means now, it doesn't matter what weather it is,

Lee can bring his bike from that back shed,

bring it down to the garage,

tuck it away, lock it up - fantastic.

Before I bring Lisa and Lee out,

I want a pow-wow about their cowboy builder.

We've been in touch with him, to hear his side of the story.

I want to find out what the Summers have to say

about his version of events.

He says some of the work -

and I'm assuming now he means the tiled floor

- was completed by the customer,

-and I'm guessing he says that's you, Lee.

-That's correct.

Tell us your story on that.

Was it completed, or did you do the whole thing?

I did the majority of the tiling myself.

But I trained to be a tiler with a friend of mine, who's a good tiler,

so it was not beyond my abilities to tile that floor.

-So I didn't have a problem.

-But it was the sub-base.

The problem was the floor wasn't good enough.

That's right. It wasn't Lee's handiwork that was to blame,

but the poor quality of the screed sub-base laid by the builder

that caused the tiling travesty.

Then he says that he couldn't complete the job

because - stand by your beds -

because Lisa's attitude and behaviour over that floor

meant that he wasn't prepared to deal with you any more.

Now, tell me, if this was the case, were you hostile to him?

Did you feel you overreacted, and if you did, why?

No, I didn't overreact.

I said the floor needed redoing. Completely redoing.

Did you just get frustrated?

Yes, cross, for the amount of time it was taking.

Take my advice. If you have disagreements with your builder,

try to stay calm.

If you lose your temper,

they can use it as an excuse not to deliver what they promised.

Write down a list of problems.

Go through it one by one,

and agree on action points to resolve them.

Luckily, the good guys have resolved the Summers' problems.

Lisa and Lee have been living here

while our boys have been weaving their magic.

But they have resisted the temptation to take a look.

They're about to see the finished work for the first time.

-OK, shall we go see?

-Yes.

-You ready? Come on.

Come and have a look.

What do you think?

-Wow.

-Fantastic.

-What a difference.

-Fantastic.

What's the thing that jumps out at you most, first?

-It's level.

-It's level.

Put it there. It's level.

That's the main thing. It's level.

And it's got a great floor as well. It looks superb.

Window obviously in now,

so it means we have met the criteria for building control.

So that's been done.

SO it's now classed as a separate dwelling from your home,

but in terms of the way it looks, flooring-wise, just superb.

So in real terms, we've got the table and chairs in.

What do you foresee, what you going to use this room for?

This room will have two functions.

It will be our dining room,

but it will be an area for the kids

and their games consoles to play, and a bit of extra space.

Yes, the kids and grown-ups will have a great time in here.

Now let's have a look outside.

It's basic building this is,

but we've got the box guttering at the front,

because you have to remember that your garden is stepped,

and with all the rain, even in the summer we have been having,

it could easily have washed over and into the conservatory.

But now, with that box guttering, much better.

There was end caps missing off the roof,

that's all been treated and done properly.

The roof actually looks like a roof.

A roof that looks like a roof. Lee's nailed it.

Shame his cowboy builder couldn't.

The flashing on the roof still needs sorting,

but as far as the conservatory is concerned,

we've got them well on their way.

Now it's time to check out the path to the garage.

And as we make our way there,

it's great to see the garden has been tidied

so the kids can play safely.

Kids love having fun with their toys,

and so do dads.

What does that mean to you, first of all, Lee?

That to me is a high speed bank curve.

I could do 80 out of there and out the gate.

That's spot on.

-It might be illegal!

-It might.

Mind you, it's private land.

I'm loving the banking, but the way they've gone about it,

it's a smooth, flowing run.

Rather than just, you know, somebody might have built it,

and just done a right angle.

I wouldn't be able to get the bike in.

-So it's easier for you, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Overall, your feelings now, conservatory sorted out?

-Yes.

-Pathway sorted out?

-Yes.

-Do you think it has put you on the right path to success?

-Definitely!

-You think so?

-Yes.

-Brilliant.

I think we've made the Summers' day.

See what I did there?

A classic conservatory,

drains to die for,

and a banked motorbike track.

We've raced through the chequered flag in style.

Well, you know what, that's the bit I really love,

seeing the big smiles back on the beleaguered homeowners' faces.

As far as the Summers are concerned, their dream is back on track.

As for Lee, he can now garage his bike safely.

Of course, where the good guys are concerned,

it's another one in the back of the net.

As for those cowboy builders out there, look over your shoulder

because we're right behind you.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd