Rob's Renovation - Part 5

August 16, 2015 by Rob Kahl

We are now well under way with our building work and I can just about make out a very dim and distant light at the very end of the tunnel.

We are very happy with the builders we have chosen. They are so calm and reassuring and nothing seems to be too much trouble (we will wait until we get the final bill!). There is also not as much mess or upheaval as I expected as well so, so far so good. Well not quite!

They have started with the loft conversion and are really cracking on with that. The new roof line is in place, the dormer is built, the windows are in, the flooring is down, internal walls are in and plumbers & electricians are keen to start their first fix. There is just one bit missing, the actual roof is not on!

Apparently, there has been a delay with the preferred roofer but as I write this today, a different guy is turning up at home and the tiles should be all on by the end of the week. This is good to know, but the damage has already been done. The roof has had tarpaulin covering it and we have been pretty fortunate with the weather, apart from one weekend.

Typically it was a Friday and the guys were leaving for the weekend, everything was secure and the tarpaulin was fixed on or so we thought. Carol the BBC weather girl had warned us of heavy showers but at that time, it was only very light drizzle. We spoke to the builders and they reassured us that everything was going to be fine, so we settled down to an exciting Friday night in front of the telly.

The sky’s darkened, the heavens opened and the monsoon that was forewarned sure enough turned up. We didn’t think much of it until we went upstairs to find the monsoon was actually on our first floor landing! The tarpaulin wasn’t on correctly or had blown off and the water was getting straight into the new roof, through the floor and was pouring through our landing ceiling on to the carpet.

At one stage I counted 20 various pots and bowls trying to catch the various drips and leaks, plus the water pouring down the walls, through the light fittings and on to the carpet. We managed to put some plastic sheeting down and contain it the best we could and keep it to pretty much just the landing luckily. At 3am, we admitted defeat and went to bed only to find the water was dripping in to our room on our bed! By this time I was so shattered and fed up I couldn’t even be bothered to move and just put a couple of towels on top of the duvet. Luckily our 2 year old daughter slept through it all, although in the morning asked why we had a tap on which was in fact the water pouring in.

In the morning the devastation was clear. The ceiling was ruined, completely brown, the walls were stained and already getting mouldy, the carpet stank and we called the builders in to check everything was OK above.

When we called them to say there was a leak I think they thought that we may have been over reacting, but once they saw the landing, it was pretty clear all! 

With big projects like ours it is naïve to think that things like this are not going to happen. When you are knocking around a 100 year old house it is inevitable that problems are going to happen, it is just how they are dealt with that matters.

In the big scheme of our works a ceiling, a carpet and a couple of walls are not the end of the world and the builders have been great. They are very calm about it and have made it very clear that everything that has happened will be put right. The ceiling was coming out already because of the new staircase, a couple of walls need plastering and redecorating, a door architrave needs fixing and the carpet needs replacing.

Nothing is too much trouble for them and we are sure that in the end everything will be fine it just seems a long way off.