Error in house construction - How did you deal with it?

Hello everyone,

I would be interested to know how you generally dealt with errors in construction.
My problem is that mistakes keep being discovered, which are then supposed to be fixed with a "workaround" because the original plan no longer works.

A few examples:

[*]The openings for my doors on the upper floor are all too high (2.30 m instead of 2.15 m). Apparently, this can no longer be adjusted by bricking up because the correction would later be visible in the plaster. So now we are getting custom-sized doors.

[*]A distributor for the underfloor heating was planned incorrectly. It is shown in the plan as 75 cm wide, but the heating engineer needed one that is 120 cm wide. Instead of being recessed into the wall, the distributor now stands in front of the wall because the wall was already finished and the recess was too small.

[*]The canopy in front of the front door was originally intended to be made of concrete with a supporting pillar. According to the plan, the canopy should be 20 cm high. Then there was the idea to switch to a lighter wooden structure to avoid the supporting pillar. However, suddenly without prior consultation, it turned out to be 50 cm high. Apparently, this cannot be done differently because there needs to be a 15 cm layer of gravel on top as a splash protection.

[*]My balcony walls are too low. Apparently, at least 90 cm above the floor is legally required, but we only have 85 cm. Now they want to put a handrail on top, which was never planned, to get back to 90 cm.

[*]The cistern was initially not buried deep enough. Then it was excavated again and set deeper. Now a spacer ring is needed for the lid because the lid now sits significantly below ground level. We are supposed to pay for the spacer ring because it is supposedly part of the exterior landscaping, which was not commissioned. We have the same problem with the light wells in the basement. On top of that, the property is actually completely level.

How tolerant are you with such issues?
Would you insist on a solution in such cases, even if something would have to be torn down again?

Thanks.

All of these points would annoy me extremely!
You pay for all sorts of people... planner, architect, engineer, construction manager, and so on... and then you get this crap.

Which company are you building with?

A house is a complex craft process full of sources of errors that persist until the end if they are not eliminated immediately. In the past, there were foremen; this category of workers does not always exist today. When I was studying, I earned money during the holidays as a laborer for a bricklayer company that built single-family homes, did renovations, etc. The foreman was God, he had the plan, he said what was possible, everyone obeyed, and if the old man came and complained, the foreman stood up to him in front of us. When we were supposed to do a demolition, he ordered a wild strike until the old man gave out a mark of dirt allowance per hour, also for the laborer. The foreman checked our quality, he compared construction and plan, he talked to the architect or client, he had influence and thus minimized errors. I think that what we built in 1976 was not so bad. Karsten

In the past, there were the foremen,

These are now the site managers

....The result looked like this:


Me to the subcontractor - civil engineer: This won't work. He to me: Can't go deeper, there's rock underneath. Me: I don't care, I don't want to be the client with the "house behind the sewage treatment plant." He: I'll send an offer for a shallower cover. Me: OK, let's do it that way. He does it, I deduct the amount for the cover replacement from the final invoice of the general contractor. Same with a few other additional costs.

That really does look like a fool’s errand

The craftsmen have a hard time with the cisterns / septic tanks. We had to have 2 cisterns with a total of 23 m³ of water installed because of firefighting water. After the installation, my husband said they somehow looked too small. So he climbed in and measured them. Indeed - the wrong size was delivered. Ergo: everything had to be taken out again and replaced. We couldn't compromise here either, as we were required to have that capacity.

The mistakes of the TEs are really serious, and I probably wouldn't have accepted some things. We also have a few small issues like tiles not being laid evenly or the sliding door not closing perfectly. Otherwise, I've already forgotten many things - I'm like Yvonne in that perfectionism doesn't make you happy.

Who is building with whom? So many annoying mistakes... Bitter. Considering the money you pay, that's really bad.