Episode 24 Cowboy Trap

We're travelling all over the UK

to meet the homeowners forced to live with the grim consequences

of employing a cowboy builder.

He says he's "bent over backwards for you

"and absorbed much of the extra cost."

He says, "We will give you a building certificate."

We never got nothing on completion.

It's impossible to overestimate the damage these guys do.

Whether they're blatant amateurs or simply crooks,

cowboy builders not only ruin homes,

they wreck lives, too.

'The fact that I was not able to see some of the quality of the work

'until after it was finished.'

Of course, it gave them the time and space to get away.

What looks like a lovely finish for the first few months

in a year or so will look an absolute disaster.

We've got the good guys in our posse

to help turn these houses from hell into heavenly homes.

I feel like I've just gone and bought myself a new hat!

Well, in a lot of ways, you have!

-A 100-square-metre hat!

-Yes! It's lovely.

This is the main entrance to your house

and it didn't look great before, did it?

It's a lot nicer, now.

110 improvement.

It's thought cowboy builders cost Britons over £700 million each year.

So if you think you know how to spot one, think again.

Make no mistake. The next 45 minutes could help keep you out of the cowboy trap.

Today's Cowboy Trap is a cautionary tale about the dangers of paying your builder in full

before they've finished the job.

All these homeowners did just that,

and found themselves stuck with the nightmare of an unfinished bodge on their hands.

The realisation starts to sink in

that they're not going to come back.

And that we're going to be left trying to sort this out.

Seeing water in a brand-new property, coming through your roof,

was really soul-destroying.

I actually felt like running away.

Later, we tell the story of the neighbours who clubbed together

to improve the access to their homes.

But ended up with a driveway of despair.

But first, we're in Northamptonshire,

in the picturesque village of Ecton.

Ecton's parish church of St Mary Magdalene

dates back to the 13th century

and, believe it or not, this tiny village is a place of pilgrimage for Americans

because of its links to one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Benjamin Franklin's ancestors lived here for more than 300 years,

many of them village blacksmiths

based here at the site now occupied by this pub.

Franklin was an extraordinary fellow.

Accomplished author, politician, scientist, musician, inventor, the list goes on.

The exact opposite of the builder at the centre of this Cowboy Trap,

who puts me in mind of an altogether different American institution -

The Muppets!

This cowboy builder's unlucky victims

are retired couple Sue and Fred Ellis

who live in this two-bedroomed mobile home.

Sue and Fred first met an impressive 51 years ago.

Sue was just 15 when she fell in love with Fred,

who was her family's gardener.

Ah, love's young dream!

I thought, when I saw Fred, he was quite a handsome hunk!

He was very tall, and I'm very small.

He was the sort of man I had in mind of marrying.

I thought very, very nice girl. Very pretty and that.

Course, she was a fair bit younger than me.

As time went on, it just took off, like, you know.

The couple tied the knot and went on to have four daughters.

And it was on their family holidays that the couple fell in love with caravanning.

The kids loved it. It's nice and free, they've got plenty of freedom.

It's perhaps no surprise, then,

that once their girls had flown the nest and Fred had retired

the couple decided to sell their bungalow

and opt for a nomadic life caravanning around the UK.

Sadly, all this came to an end when Fred was diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago.

'It was a very aggressive one, you know.'

And I had to go to hospital every day for two months

to have radiotherapy.

This shock news forced Sue and Fred to re-evaluate their lives

and in order to help Fred on his road to recovery,

they decided to put down roots.

It was a big step for the couple to have to settle down again

after so many years of freedom out in the open air.

They set about it with somewhat heavy hearts.

But then they remembered a mobile home site they'd stumbled upon some years ago

and instantly fallen in love with.

It was a Eureka moment for Sue and Fred,

so they made the journey to take a look for themselves.

We came over to Ecton village

and had a look at the site.

The fields, and the sheep and the openness of it.

It's just lovely. All I can say, it's lovely.

It's lovely and peaceful, lovely views, nice people.

After checking out the cost of ready built homes,

Sue and Fred decided building from scratch would be the best option.

They found a builder on the internet

who specialised in bespoke cabins.

One of my daughters said, "Go on to Google

"and you'll find them on there. Lots of people make these places."

And I went straight onto there,

and found this builder.

Fred was hugely impressed with the pictures and prices on the builder's website.

We went to his house and we explained what we wanted.

He explained what he did.

He done some rough drawings there and then

and he told us a price.

I thought it was fantastic. Cheaper than what I was going to pay anyway.

And we could have it built our own way.

So I definitely went for him.

Everything seemed perfect. Too perfect, perhaps?

This goes to show how misleading the internet can be

and how dangerous it is as a way of finding your builder.

I've had a look at this guy's website and it's pretty impressive.

There's no way you'd think you were dealing with a cowboy.

But as we've seen so many times on Cowboy Trap,

glossy brochures, newspaper ads or slick-looking websites count for nothing,

as Sue and Fred would soon discover to their cost.

The builder quoted £46,000 to build a mobile home to the Ellis's design

with 10,000 paid up-front.

This included all plumbing, gas and electrics

plus installation of the kitchen and bathroom.

Despite the hefty deposit,

Sue and Fred were happy with the arrangement

and agreed a start date of January 2012.

But when the couple came to make their first payment,

they discovered the builder's financial arrangements were...somewhat unconventional!

When we paid the first instalment,

it was about 10,000,

and he asked us to make the cheque out to this particular lady

which we did, which turned out to be his girlfriend.

His girlfriend?! Take a tip from me.

Trust me. You'll live to regret that later.

Which is exactly what happened to the Ellises.

In fact, warning bells were ringing from the outset

because although the couple were told the work would be done and dusted within ten weeks,

this builder appeared to be all talk and no action.

We kept saying, "When are you going to start?"

And in the end, I think it was towards the end of January

that he actually started the foundation.

So already the build was weeks behind

and the pace of work wasn't gathering any momentum.

Sue and Fred began to worry

that the move-in date the builder promised was drifting further and further away.

So Fred decided to pay the builder a visit.

And he was horrified by what he found.

I go over to his works place, find out where he works.

I went over there, and all it was was a yard with all his timber in

and a little old shed.

I thought, "Oh, he's conned me now", straightaway.

Fred called the builder, looking for answers.

The builder said the yard was empty because he was working on another job, too.

So the couple gave him the benefit of the doubt

and even handed over their final payment

in the hope that it would speed things up.

Some weeks later, work was indeed complete.

Or so they thought.

Finally, Sue and Fred were able to move in to their new home.

Sure, it had taken a few months longer than they'd hoped

and yes, there had been one or two hiccups along the way.

But now you come to mention it, the place did seem a bit cold.

But the couple were over the moon. It wasn't to last.

Every time we turned the water on,

the boiler made a - sounded like a lorry coming down the road, literally.

We kept thinking, "Where's that noise?" and it was coming from the central heating boiler.

Sue and Fred called out a plumber

who told them not to use it because it hadn't been regulated.

And that wasn't the only problem.

We said, "We haven't got enough radiators in."

And he said, "The radiator in the living room will warm the whole of the living room up."

We said, "It can't do. There's just not enough there."

We said we wanted more radiators put in.

And he gave us a quote of 2,650.

And that was just ridiculous.

Not kidding. And just when Fred and Sue thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

The roof started leaking like a sieve.

Seeing water in a brand-new property coming through your roof

and ceiling,

was really soul-destroying.

I felt - I'll be honest -

I actually felt like running away.

Sue noticed all the water coming through. I felt like going berserk, then.

The stress of it all.

Apart from the first leak in the bedroom,

we'd got leaks on the outside, dripping down the windows.

All of a sudden, I started to realise everything was connected to the roof.

Sue was absolutely right, of course.

When the builder sent round a roofer to take a look,

well, he dropped a bombshell.

His roofer came down and had a look.

And he said to Fred,

"The whole roof's got to come off.

"It's no good."

And we were horrified.

So the couple's dream home was riddled with leaks

and as for the cowboy, you won't be surprised to hear it wasn't long before he rode off into the sunset.

My husband rang the builder

and told him we've got to have a new roof.

And that's when all contact was severed.

And the sad thing about this sorry episode

is that it could have been so easily avoided.

I do wish Fred and Sue had taken up proper references for this guy.

They could have spared themselves a whole lot of heartache.

Building inspectors will not have been involved in this project in any way

and that's because mobile homes are exempt from building regulations.

So I'm fascinated to see what our surveyor has to say about it.

So just how shoddy is the work on the Ellis's mobile home?

To find out, we asked independent building surveyor Jack Bradley to inspect it.

Jack's been through it with a fine-tooth comb

and is about to fill me in on what he found.

How old is this roof?

-It's less than a year old.

-These are real problems we've got coming in.

'First off, that disaster zone of the roof.'

This, to me, looks like a roof that's been squashed!

It's an attempt at a pitched roof.

I call this a flat roof.

We measured this at about seven degrees.

With these roof tiles on, it should be closer to 17 degrees!

So that's a huge difference.

The big problem with that is you treat a flat roof completely differently

to a pitched roof. The loadings, the wind loadings,

the dead-loads of the tiles,

everything is completely different.

And this amount of concrete tiles on, in essence, a flat roof,

creates completely different loads on the structure

to what a pitched roof would.

This is going to start bowing, pretty soon.

Inside that home, there's large rooms there.

And you will start to see the ceiling start to bow slightly

if you left those concrete tiles on there.

Because all the weight is pushing down on it

and that will make it curve.

Then your boards start to open up so the ceilings start to crack.

So what looks like a lovely finish for the first few months,

in a year or so will be an absolute disaster.

'That's something that needs to be sorted pronto

'if disaster is to be avoided.

'But the problems with this worthless roof don't end there.'

The ridge tiles, my understanding of roofs,

are the first point, the central part of the roof

where the water might hit and is the first opportunity for water to get diverted over the rest of the tiles.

If you're building a pitched roof,

it needs to hit the roof and run off. That's the idea of it.

Because this isn't a pitched roof, it's a flat roof,

water will hit the roof and stay there.

'And when you go inside, you don't have to look very hard

'to see the long list of bodges continues.'

In this photo here, you see one radiator located in the corner.

But over the other end of the room, and this is a big room,

it's freezing cold.

-Only one rad for the whole lot?

-One rad for the whole room.

'Right. Time to ask Jack that all-important question.'

So overall, then, how would you mark this project?

Generous at one out of ten.

-Generous, one out of ten?

-One out of ten.

There's just no technical understanding by the builder here

of how to build and finish this home.

'One out of ten. Sounds fair to me.

'Check out what the cowboy left behind.

'Leaks everywhere and a threat to the basic structure of this home

'thanks to that concrete tiled flat roof

'which will have to come off.

'A distinct lack of radiators for the size of the rooms,

'an incorrectly-fitted boiler

'and no certification for either the gas or electrics.

'And remember, Sue and Fred paid more than £46,000 for this shoddy job.'

In short, Fred and Sue's mobile home dreams were pretty much at the end of the road.

Time to bring in the good guys.

'And here's head honcho Konrad Skubala riding to the rescue.

'there's so much to do here, we're concentrating on that wet blanket of a roof

'and replacing it with something fit for purpose.

'The Ellises are chipping in.

'First things first, getting rid of those completely unsuitable tiles.

'Next, prepping the area to make it flat and smooth.

'And then it's on to covering the whole area in plywood

'ready for the weather-proof mineral felt.

'The good guys are making a great start.

'But can they give Sue and Fred the dream home they really want?

'Only time will tell.'

I'm in the small village of Ecton,

where Sue and Fred were looking forward to spending the rest of their retirement

in their dream mobile home,

until their so-called builder left them with a cold and leaky bodge on their hands.

Well, our good guys have now finished their work.

Let's see how things are looking now.

'The Ellises were at their wits' end before our work got underway.

'I really hope they're feeling happier now.'

-Hello, Sue.

-Hello, Jonnie. Pleased to meet you.

-You too. How you doing?

-Very well, thank you.

-Good.

-Come in.

-Thank you very much.

'As soon as I'm inside, I'm back outside again.

'Bit like the hokey-cokey!'

So, from this angle I can see there's been some felting done

but I can't see much from down here.

I suppose I should get on top.

I'll be needing one of them!

'Climbing roofs? I'm not sure that's in my contract!

'Anyway, onwards and upwards.'

Well, this is more like it, isn't it?

The pitch on this roof is fairly flat. It's a really good pitch for a flat roof.

That's clearly what our good guys have decided to do.

Put a square peg in a square hole, if you like!

Because the wind would blow any rainwater underneath those shallow-laid tiles,

all the moisture, any rain, would come underneath these tiles and give them leaks.

But now the good guys have assessed the situation

and thought, "It needs a flat roof surface put down."

And it looks exactly as it should do.

'It might not be the most exciting thing to look at,

'but a new fit-for-purpose roof means the house is now water-tight,

'which gives Sue and Fred their home back.'

Now the roof tiles before could have been used if they'd been put on a decent fall pitched roof.

What amazes me is that whoever constructed this

had perfect examples all around them. There's one!

That's how you do a pitched roof with concrete tiles.

But if you use them on a flat roof system, do it like this, this time!

'What a difference. Our good guys have really played a blinder.

'Time to speak to the man in charge about the challenges they faced.'

What was Sue and Fred like

when you turned up with six guys on top of their house?

Initially, when I first met them,

with the bad boy builders that left here, they were a bit sceptical

what to expect.

But straightaway, we turned up, started doing the work, straight into it.

-They were a bit shell-shocked with the amount of people!

-Six people on top of this!

Couple down here. Had to try and get rid of about 100 square metres, that roof.

There was a lot of tiles that had to come off before then.

There are about 30 sheets of ply that have gone back up.

-Goodness me.

-It's a lot of manpower to start with, to get it sorted.

'Yes, manpower. A job for an entire posse.

'Not a lone ranger like the cowboy the Ellises employed.

'And those leaks should now be a thing of the past.'

-Now, inside, water was coming in.

-It was coming in, yes.

That's obviously not happening any more.

We're not paid to do anything to put it right inside, but now they can do.

They can let that dry for a few weeks and then start redecorating

and get it back to a new home, as it should be.

'Time to head inside and have a heart-to-heart with Sue and Fred.

'I want to hear what they've got to say about their cowboy builder's version of events.'

He says he offered you a felt roof,

but you said it would make it look like a shed and you insisted on him using tiles.

Definitely not true. Definitely not.

He's obviously protecting himself now, that's what he's doing.

Now he does admit, however, that as a result of what's happened,

he's now "reviewing their current build process."

Oh, well he needs to!

We weren't builders. We wouldn't know what was the best thing to use. That's the thing.

You pay your builder to do the best for you, not to ask you.

-No. Quite.

-Right.

He goes on to say that the delays in completing the work

"were totally beyond his control."

Bad weather, for example, and the fact that five weeks into the build,

you changed the layout of the home.

-Yes, I did.

-We did, yeah.

-I did, admittedly.

-Cos he told us we could do.

-Which he told us we could do.

No building had gone up on the side.

He was putting it out with pieces of wood to show me.

And I realised I'd got it wrong.

I'd got the bedroom this end, and it should have been that end.

All it was was some four by twos going up, like... It was just nothing.

-Not even the walls.

-It was no problem.

-The windows weren't in or nothing.

Let's remind ourselves.

You've told me that the initial building of this home

-was supposed to take a few weeks.

-Eight weeks.

-Eight weeks.

Because of bad weather and the slight re-jigging of the layout, it took how many?

-Six months, nearly.

-Six months?!

-Yeah.

So finally, he says he's "bent over backwards for you,

"and absorbed much of the extra cost.

He "feels very disappointed and let down by all of it."

What's his... Can he name his extra costs?

I feel very disappointed in him, to be honest.

Because we were very nice to him.

And we paid every penny when he asked.

You know what, if only they'd been a bit more hard-nosed about things,

none of this would have happened.

But enough about the cowboy.

What I want to know is, has having this new roof

changed Sue and Fred's lives for the better?

Finally, you've got a home.

-You've got this dream home.

-We have. It's beautiful.

We love living on here.

I feel like I've just gone and bought myself a new hat!

Well, in a way, you have bought yourself a 100-square-metre hat!

Yes. It's lovely.

Let me just end all this, then.

What you need to concentrate on is enjoying your lovely home.

That's all we wanted to do. Enjoy our home.

-And you can now?

-We can, yes, definitely.

-Certainly.

-Good luck in it.

-Thank you very much.

-Thanks for everything.

-Thank you.

'And on that note,

'it's time for me to bid farewell to Sue and Fred.

'At last they can enjoy their dream mobile home sweet home.'

Well...

the last thing Fred needed when he was ill was more stress.

But when your house, or roof, is leaking like a teabag,

that's exactly what he got.

But thanks to our good guys,

they've put a roof on which is now water-tight.

It's a fairly simple thing,

but thanks to their good work, Fred and Sue have got now a beautiful home to retire in

and the most important thing here,

simple isn't it? Peace of mind.

Sue and Fred learned the hard way you should never pay your builder in full

until the work has been completed to your satisfaction.

It's a lesson that could have saved our next unfortunate homeowners

an awful lot of heartache.

We're in Swinton, near Manchester,

a busy town with a long history.

Swinton is thought to have originally developed

around an ancient pig farm or market,

hence the name "swine town".

Which is apt, because the bloke who made this driveway

made a right pig's ear of it.

Meet Peter Wheeler, who's 59,

and his guide dog, Zak.

Peter is registered blind,

suffering from a degenerative eye disease.

It's an inherited condition,

but when Peter began to lose his sight about 20 years ago,

he never really grasped how bad things would turn out.

At the time, I tended to ignore

the possibility of going blind.

I thought the condition would probably stabilise

and I'd have a level of sight that I could use.

That wasn't the case, and in 1991 I had to stop work

because I couldn't read text any more.

These were tough times for Peter.

Not only was he struggling to come to terms with being blind,

but soon afterwards his marriage broke down

and he became a single dad to his nine-year-old son, Christopher.

It was a balancing act, really,

of trying to keep all the balls in the air.

And I guess, in a way,

having so much going on kept me going.

Two decades on, Peter enjoys a successful career

as a university lecturer.

Christopher has grown up and left home,

leaving Peter reliant on his faithful companion Zak,

a nine-year-old labrador retriever cross.

They've been best friends since Peter got him as an 18-month-old pup.

I don't have to worry, I don't have to think about the environment that I'm walking through.

I have the trust and confidence in Zak

to take me where I need to go.

Peter also has neighbours on whom he can rely.

Jack and Joan Watkiss live next door

and are close in more ways than one.

I've known them for all the period that I've been here.

They've always been extremely helpful.

We love Pete to pieces

and when he first became blind

and he was left with Christopher,

I used to do his shopping, didn't I?

Smashing bloke.

Peter and Zak are able to move confidently around their home.

But about a year ago, it became clear that their only means of access

was in desperate need of repair.

The driveway was the original driveway that was cast

in the early to mid-'60s.

And it had got into quite a bad state of repair.

Pieces were chipping off it

and it was like walking on stones.

If Zak decided that it was too painful

or too difficult for him to walk over the old driveway,

he wouldn't walk.

It wasn't just Peter who had problems with his driveway.

Jack and Joan's had been laid by Jack way back in 1963

and now the concrete was beginning to lift,

making it tricky for him in his wheelchair.

So when a cold caller knocked on the couple's door

to ask if they wanted their driveway doing,

it seemed like a stroke of luck

and in a way, it was.

A stroke of wrong luck.

This gentleman came in. Lovely portfolio.

Showing us lovely pictures

and he said he would give us a quote.

So Jack said to him, "Is there anything off for pensioners?

"And is there anything off for cash?"

The builder said not only could he give them a discount for cash,

but he could do an even better deal if they could get any of their neighbours interested.

So Joan mentioned it to Peter. And Peter jumped at the chance.

I spoke to them both.

I said, "While we're doing it, I've been thinking of having mine done

"because it needs replacing.

"Why don't we get it all done in one

"and then it'll be one consistent driveway, all the same."

It might have sounded an attractive deal,

but take a tip from me.

..Or you may live to regret it.

Which is exactly what happened to Peter, Jack and Joan.

The builder quoted £5,000 for Peter's part of the driveway,

while it would cost Jack and Joan £5,700,

making a grand total of £10,700.

The builder said the work would only take a matter of days.

When it got underway in May 2012,

initial impressions were good.

They had a large team of people working on the job.

It was going along on schedule.

And I believed that we were going to get a really good professional job.

But as things turned out, nothing could be further from the truth.

It didn't take long for these guys to demonstrate

they weren't exactly driveway experts.

On day one, Peter's electricity meter was knocked out of the wall

when they accidentally rammed it with a digger.

Not a great start, but one that set the tone for the entire bungled project.

Because when creating this kind of driveway,

the concrete is laid, and then the pattern etched into it using a concrete stamp.

It's a tricky technique, and you have to work fast before the concrete gets too hard.

So what you don't do is lay it on the hottest day of the year

and attempt to do the whole thing in one go.

The area is too big to do in one pour.

They should have done it in possibly three, or maybe even four,

distinct and unique sections.

Desperate for answers, Joan called the builders several times.

Finally, she managed to get through.

We said we'd like to see the foreman.

I said, "We're not happy with the path,

"there's no... The imprint isn't very good at the top."

The foreman admitted to us that the printing hadn't taken

because the concrete had gone off.

The foreman agreed to return and rip it up and start again.

Part of the driveway at the top was replaced. But they never sealed it.

These guys never seemed to finish what they started.

Peter began to suspect they were taking advantage of his disability.

The fact that I was not able to see some of the quality of the work

until after it was finished, gave them the time and space to get away.

And then Peter, Jack and Joan made an all-too-common error.

Even though the job wasn't finished,

they paid up pretty much entirely.

I kept £200 back

because Pete had said, "I'm not giving them the full money."

When they'd poured the concrete, and imprinted it,

and they'd covered it with this powder to dye it,

there was only one job left for them to do

which was to clean it and then seal the drive.

That's right. It still required sealing,

a not exactly trifling part of the process.

But guess what? It would never get done

because these cowboys were now nearly ten grand richer

and customer satisfaction clearly wasn't high on their priority list.

He went out, went to the van at the front, and the lads were packing up.

And he was on his haunches and he was paying them with the money that I'd just given to him.

So I, to myself, I was sat in here and I thought,

"Oh, they must be casual labour."

As the weeks turned into months

and with no sign of the builders returning to apply that all-important sealant,

Jack, Joan and Peter were not only concerned about their investment,

they felt conned.

We felt stupid that we'd been had.

Didn't we? We just felt so frustrated and humiliated.

And there were other problems, too.

The cowboys had left the drainage in a sorry state,

as Peter found out to his cost.

They never finished the grids. Our grid's not finished.

Next door's grid, he had his arm down and hurt his arm, Pete,

getting rubble out cos it was overflowing.

They never provided drainage covers

to stop debris, leaves and all that stuff clogging up the drains.

The cowboys also left more than two tonnes of rubble

outside the front of Peter's house,

partially blocking the pavement.

With no sign of them returning to finish the job,

let alone clear up after themselves,

Peter eventually involved the police.

By the time the cowboys finally removed their rubbish,

it had been there three long months.

Peter, Jack and Joan's dream driveway had turned into a never-ending nightmare.

What's more, the work that was done was so shoddy

that Jack now finds it difficult to make the journey to his garage.

And there are a multitude of trip hazards for Peter and Zak.

Not surprisingly, the experience has had a major impact on everyone involved.

It got me so stressed out, Jack not being well.

It's a lump of concrete.

A dear lump of concrete

but it really, really bugged me.

It really bugged me

that they'd taken our money and not done what they'd promised.

They've never said, "We're not coming back."

So all the time, you're dangling on a line,

hoping that they're going to turn up and do something.

But of course, as the year has passed on,

the realisation starts to sink in

that they're not going to come back

and that we're going to be left trying to sort this out.

It's hardly surprising that Peter, Jack and Joan have been left so frustrated and fed up

by this experience.

A simple job that in the hands of professionals would have been "bish, bash, bosh"

has turned into an exasperating saga

with no end in sight.

But just how dire is this driveway?

To find out, we asked independent building surveyor Paul Brown to inspect the work.

Paul's left no stone unturned

and is about to fill me in on what he found.

It's a driveway for a blind person.

-Mm.

-So this has got to be the best job you can.

'First things first, what about these nasty gaps and cracks?'

What you see there are the gaps which have been cut into the concrete

to prevent shrinkage cracking occurring.

All concrete will shrink after a period of time.

Usually fairly close to the point that it sets

they cut lines in it to control the points at which that occurs.

But here, again you can see

that what should happen is that those lines should then be sealed

with a mastic sealant.

That should prevent debris and small particles building up in there

and grass and little stones chipping the edges.

And it should make those lines look neat.

But obviously that hasn't been completed.

What you also see is a bit of crazing around the edges

due to initial shrinkage.

That may be because the concrete dried out very quickly

and this was laid in a very hot period of the year.

That's one of the problems which have caused some of these defects.

All this cracking, this uprooting,

is going to form a trip hazard.

There's no option of having a trip hazard here.

No. Absolutely not. It should be the case on every drive that's done like this

that you shouldn't have steps or any of this early degrading of the surface that you have here

because of the issues that have been caused.

'In other words, because the concrete was never sealed,

'this driveway has been heading onto the rocks ever since.

'Still, at least it looks nice(!)'

You've got different coloured mortar joints,

it's starting to look like a bit of a DIY job, isn't it?

It looks like it hasn't been completed correctly

and is something which looks less than the impressive job

that you should get when you have one of these types of drives.

This is an imprinted concrete drive so it has a pattern

which is supposed to mirror, in this case, flags, in a decorative style.

But those patterns aren't correct and they haven't been imprinted properly.

So first off, it just looks shabby.

'And talking of defects,

'check out those drains.'

This looks like a right old mess here. What's going on here at the wall?

The first clue is you see all the silt sitting adjacent to the wall.

That means that water is sitting adjacent to the wall and dropping the silt.

That water is arriving because the drive is quite steep

so you get quite a lot of rainfall

washing down towards the house

and arriving at the wall.

What should happen, if you design these drives correctly,

is that water should be directed away from the house and away from the walls.

The contractors have introduced a very small channel

adjacent to the wall, a piece of plastic with slits cut into it,

which should take the water away.

But that is not adequate to take the volume of water

which is travelling down the drive.

'Which probably explains the slip hazard to add to the trip hazard,

'as Peter, Jack and Joan have also had moss to contend with.

'Well, it's make your mind up time for Paul.'

How would you mark this out of ten, Paul?

I'd give it a four, Jonnie.

It's not a great job and they haven't done all the things they should have done in design

and they certainly had a problem with the laying of the concrete on the day.

'Four out of ten? I think these guys have got off lightly.

'Check out the evidence.

'Signs of decay and deterioration everywhere because the concrete wasn't sealed,

'leaving a hazardously uneven finish.

'Drainage that directs water towards the house,

'levels all over the place,

'oh, and did I mention it looks absolutely horrible, too!'

All that, and this road to nowhere cost a total of £10,000.

Time to bring in the good guys.

'And heading up our good guys is main man Paul Hilton.

'First things first, it's time to clean up this driveway with a pressure washer.

'Only then can this concrete be given that all-important seal.

'Next, it's on to sorting out the terrible drainage

'under the watchful eye of Zak, of course.

'And then re-housing the electricity meter the cowboys damaged.

'Paul and his team have made a tremendous start.

'But can they make good this disaster area of a driveway?

'Only time will tell.'

I'm in Swinton, Greater Manchester,

where Peter Wheeler, who's blind,

and his elderly neighbours, Joan and Jack Watkiss,

fell victim to a cowboy builder

who left them with a dodgy driveway.

Well, our good guys have now finished their work here.

Let's see how they're all getting on.

Well, before I even knock on the door,

you can see the work that the good guys have done.

Driveways, they're all about first impressions, aren't they?

You hear about it on... Its kerb appeal, if you like.

Well, this house now has it.

It looks totally different.

There's no crumbling of the concrete.

We've just had a downpour of rain.

And there's no pooling, there's just bubbles here.

Because if you remember, there was a whole load of silting.

Basically, this drain area wasn't really working.

But it's all been cleared out and it's great to see.

Beforehand, this would have been a big pool of water.

There's been some pooling or laking here.

But what a perfect time to come, soon after it's rained.

Remember how the cowboys rammed Peter's electricity meter with a digger?

Check it out now.

Last, and by no means least, there's some concrete along here

or some kind of render, and it was all cracked.

Small job, but obviously done by someone that cares about appearances.

That's been sorted out with this paving slab

and all sealed, which is just as well, because you've got electrics inside there.

So, all in all, it looks and feels right.

'Time to chat to the man who's responsible for making it look and feel right.

'Good guy builder Paul Hilton.'

It's the sealant that stops the freeze and thaw cycle taking place

-on the concrete.

-So unless you finish it properly, seal it properly,

you're going to have problems thereon.

-It's all going to fail.

-The surface would keep blistering

and before you know it you've got holes or cracks.

So, what was your first job?

First job obviously was to clean it all up.

It was a mixture of jet washing where we could

and then a bit more work, a bit more delicate, the surface was flaking a bit.

We had to get down on our hands and knees and use scrubbing brushes

and soapy water, just to get it clean.

If you didn't get the dirt and the green algae out, you would just seal it into the concrete

rather than having a nice clear varnish to it.

What a transformation!

With the drains sorted, too...

..it's now clean,

gap-free,

and a safe, steady surface for Peter and Zak to walk on.

Time to head inside.

-Hi, Peter.

-Jonnie. How do you do?

Very good, thanks. How are you? Is this Zak?

-That's Zak.

-Beautiful dog.

'Peter's invited Jack and Joan over so we can discuss their cowboy builder.

'I wanted to find out his side of the story.

'But despite all of our efforts,

'this cowboy has refused to respond to any of our points.'

First, how does that make you feel, knowing they've not even bothered to get back to us?

-I'm not surprised.

-You're not, Peter?

No. My son tracked down where their yard was

and a week or two ago, he went back.

What he found was that all the vehicles had been re-written, sign-written.

-Right.

-And the company has changed its name.

But they're still trading there

but under a different name now.

Joan, what would you say to them now if they were the other side of that table?

Why? Why didn't you come back to us?

We paid you money. We trusted you.

And we trusted you with a lot of money.

You know, we were silly, but we've learnt and we'd never do it again.

'So, a lesson learned the hard way.

'But it just goes to show how wary you need to be

'of any builder that approaches you.'

We thought they were genuine people.

And we did want it doing.

Oh, they were so nice.

I'll never use a cold caller again.

Anybody that comes to the door. It's spoiled it for other people as well.

Thankfully, though, the good guys, Paul and his lads,

-they did get involved.

-Absolutely.

Did you notice, was there any difference in the way they operated?

It was evident that he knew what was needed.

I didn't need to discuss with him the issues.

He was picking them out and he was telling me, "This is what we've got to do.

"This is how we'll do it."

'And when you think about it, that's not too much to ask, is it?

'Anyway, time to step outside and find out whether this newly-finished driveway

'has changed things for the better around here.'

Peter, for you, one of the reasons you wanted the new driveway put down

was to protect Zak's paws, wasn't it?

It was. The old driveway was ripping up.

And at times he was reluctant to walk on it

in places.

-And he's your eyes and ears, isn't he?

-Absolutely.

It is important that he feels comfortable walking wherever we go.

-Course he is.

-And it's ideal now.

He doesn't have any problem with it at all.

This is the main entrance to your house.

It didn't look great before, did it?

Oh, it's a lot nicer now.

It's a 110 improvement.

We're absolutely delighted with it now.

I'm chuffed to bits that it's finally sorted.

It shouldn't have got to this. Should never get to this stage.

Thank you so sincerely, really.

And with that, it's time to leave these knock-out neighbours to get on with their lives,

safe in the knowledge the driveway that's been so draining for them

is now rather delightful.

As frustrating as it is

to see cowboys taking advantage,

it's also a relief to know that people like our good guys do exist.

Putting right those wrongs.

But also giving people like Jack, Joan and Peter

one thing that money can't buy.

And that's peace of mind.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd