Truss Manufacturer to Avoid

DeeJunFan

I have been having numerous issues with my Truss manufacturer, they have taken many months and a number of mistakes to get a correct truss design in place.

They pulled the finger out and finally got around to sorting the measurements and getting them delivered (in a manner of speaking)

But alas when my roofer tried to put up guide trusses for the house we discovered that the months of back and forth about in-correct measurements, over hang and corbel detail went in one ear and out the other.

Trusses were delivered to site to big. As we are not going with facia/sofits etc we are having a corbel block which is already in place we needed the trusses to finish up inside the cavity. As shown in the drawing (done by the Truss company)



Unfortunately as the Guy who measured up our house did so incorrectly twice with a laser tape (God knows how), he also sent a design that had the wall plate on the external block! He also made a small but meaningful mistake on our first quote. Pricing 3 Double trusses at 1.93 instead of 193.00 which made them look like a much better deal!

They have come out 30mm to long at the Joist and with 20mm extra overhang (Garage Trusses have 100mm extra overhang). So they all need to be trimmed before they can be craned onto the roof.

Not a big deal i hear you say, well in some ways not but in other ways yes. (Lets go back to the Delivery)

Day the Trusses were due to arrive, i got a phone call around 9ish asking "Do you have a crane on site" No was my obvious reply. Truss guy said, because your trusses are so big (10 metere) They will only fit on a 40ft Lorry and we have nothing to take them off the Lorry (I'll add they were paid for delivery)

So i had to cancel my roofer and the crane i was getting to lift the things onto the roof and spend a week (as it was over the builders holidays) trying to arrange a tele-handler or something to lift the trusses off the Lorry for the truss company. All was eventually arranged and after first getting the house measured for trusses in January, they finally arrived on site in July! (Noting has happened on site since March due to the delay)

For some unknown reason the 40ft couldn't reverse down our drive (as the slate lorry had) so they tried to off-load the trusses at the road, spent 2 hours, attempted to put them into a neighboring farmers field and eventually gave up and left 30 trusses at the entrance to our site, blocking any other deliveries (all other deliveries had to be taken down the driveway with forklift.

As they had chosen to basically abandon the trusses they were not being kept together by the ties so a bit of a balls up.

Fast forward again and the roofer wants to fit the guides, size is wrong as because they trusses are all over the place they cannot be easily trimmed on the ground. As the corbel block is already in place, they cannot be put in place and trimmed on the roof (This was the reason we spent so many weeks trying to make the truss people understand why we needed to reduce the overhang.

So Joiner goes nuts saying he is going to have to man handle the trusses and cut them one by one before the crane arrives, and truss company should be offering some form of discount/good will towards his labour which is required because of their mistake.

Truss company response it "Nothing we can do about it"

During a number of phone calls they were not exactly decent to deal with, they tried to tell me that the house was out of square (which is why the trusses had to be bigger) even though 2 other joiners have measured the house and said its exactly square.

There answer was "Tell the Crane man to lift each truss and have them trimmed while on the crane" I said thats grand but who will pay for the extra time for the crane and joiner, they said "Thats not our problem the trusses are made to specification" My response, no they are too big for the house, they do not fit. Then said he would phone back and never bothered. I got talking to my other rep who said the truss dept are standing over them and they are refusing to do anything. I asked for someone to come out and check the measurements, they refused. At this point I said then come out take the trusses back and give me my money back. Again they refused said the trusses were made correctly and they had no reason to take them back.

I know to some this may seem like a trivial tale, but the point of the matter is. I paid over 6000 for trusses, including delivery. Then i had to pay more money to get a machine there to "help" them deliver the trusses and then when there is a small issue (that was entirely their mistake) that could have been rectified by saying fair enough we'll give you 100 credit on your account to cover the labour (even if that didn't cover it all) It shows the level of contempt they have for self-builders. Had i been a big developer there would have been guys on site checking things out and discounts galore to smooth things over. On a number of occasions i asked to speak with a manager and was told the Branch Manager was on holidays and the truss manager wasn't available. I'm going to try and find email addresses for them as i want to make sure they were aware of the decisions made.

A cautionary tale for any Self-Builders Avoid (Please PM for Details)

DOCARCH

DeeJunFan wrote: »

(Please PM for Details)

Thanks for that bit, and, not naming names!

DeeJunFan

No problem,

I just want to inform people who may be in the decision making process.

I'm hoping companies start to realise that self-builders may only be one off customers but they communicate with on another, and that can have an impact on them.

Thanks
Damian