This dental practice owner wanted to convert the basement of his premises (an old Town Hall) into further consulting rooms, and employed a local builder to do this.
The builder set about the work – without building regulation approval or any form of CDM or Health and Safety in place! The practice owner stopped the work after just a few weeks due to suspected poor quality.
At this point we were requested to provide an Expert Witness report on the workmanship.
Our investigation was partially destructive and involved exposing some areas of concealed work. The quality of workmanship was extremely poor, not to mention the shocking attention to detail. Some of the defects identified included:
- a lack of appropriate damp proofing
- inadequately sized timbers
- ground floor joist ends cut (which form the reception area) and not supported
- no ventilation
- dangerous electrical alterations
- a lack of appropriate supports for primary timbers
- no acoustic insulation
- very limited thermal insulation
