The GOOD the BAD and the UGLY

During this project we have been incredibly lucky in most of our dealings with suppliers and professional services. The critical kit supplier, the SIP Construction Company has just failed us so completely we can only put up the small 9m diameter roundhouse until and if we can get the funds sorted out. Our consequential losses alone look like being over £25,000.

We really have had great service from a number of suppliers..Annie Washbrook and Mrs Stone Store come highly recommended. As do Rooflight Architectural who took real pride in the quality of their workmanship. These are GOOD people to do business with.

Then we have had the very dodgy business methods of  Anyappliance.co.uk. Our reviews of our experience with this trader has been very interesting. It looks like Trading Standards have been involved. BAD for them and they deserve it.

Now we have the UGLY - the businessman who has ripped us off, and gone bust taking a big chunk of our life savings with him but who is still working in the same trade. You would have thought he was untouchable but the SIP panels industry has some very odd business relationships. The panel supplier SBS had three 'partner' businesses. All are still sitting there on their website, including Tim Allan's previous company SIPit Scotland, now compulsorily liquidated by HMRC and which ceased trading in 2008. (Except it didn't - up to 2010, two years later all our dealings with TIm Allan were through this business - SIPit Scotland. Business premises, email addresses, everything still badged with a company name that was in liquidation - you can still Google the name and pick up the website.) The SBS finance director told me all three of their 'partner' companies had ceased trading. So what does that make the panel supply company SBS ? What are the business ethics of a business which still promotes three folded companies on its website ?

And Mr Allan himself should be avoided at all costs. He has lied to us, he has abused our trust, he has cheated us. He is the truly UGLY face of the building industry in general and SIPs in particular.

Please don't be deterred from using SIPS as a building system. They are the future. They are the only way to comply with upcoming amendments to the Buidling Regs. for airtightness and insulation. But whatever you do ask some very serious questions of your intended supplier and contractor. It would be tragic if the cowboy SIP kit builder ruined the entire industry.

And our blog comments on Mr Allan's business methods are beginning to pick up the level of web traffic that will certainly cost him and his associates very considerably indeed.....