Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: Notsototalnewbie on 03 May, 2015, 08:41:23 pm
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We need to re-render our entire house in lime render to fix a damp issue (nasty concrete render is not good for Victorian houses) We need to hack off the blown & cracked concrete render, put on lime render and limewash it.
It is a detached house, but one gable wall sits up against the boundary with our neighbour's land, so the scaffold needs to partly sit in their garden/side alley (the houses are still very close together) so they can access that wall.
The woman of the couple was never very happy about it (because of the security issue, she is scared of burglars) and has kicked off massively now the lime render company has decided they need 3 whole weeks to do the job (originally he reckoned much less) and would like to start next week. She literally slammed the door in my face just now when I tried to discuss it again with her (she has known about this since the beginning of April so it's not come as a surprise to her).
Because she is so scared of burglars, she demanded initially (when we thought it was a shorter job) that one of us was at home at all times to keep an eye on the scaffold to make sure no one was climbing on it. Because we wanted to placate our new neighbour, we agreed to this even though we both work full time in very demanding jobs, and have agreed to honour it even with the extended time (my mum, who has just been made redundant, is helping). But that's not good enough apparently.
It will also involve removing a gate that they've attached to our house (to prevent access to their side entrance) which we would pay to be removed and reattached, but I know she's going to go bloody mental when she finds out about that, too. I wasn't able to discuss that with her because the door was slammed in my face.
At the end of the day I know I can probably force this through legal channels as it's a maintenance issue and we need access, but I really would rather not for people that I have to live next to for the next 10 years. Just gutted that we've scrimped and saved every spare penny to be able to afford this work (it costs a bomb, and is fairly specialist so even finding a company prepared to do it was not easy) and now we've got this to deal with, too.
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You probably have a way leave or some provision in your title to the property for access via the adjacent property for maintenance purposes, which should not be witheld unreasonably. Failing this
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/23/contents
appears to offer access via notice for the purposes of repairs and maintenance, but one for the lawyers perhaps.
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Have you talked to the scaffolders about security? E.g. removing ladders at night/weekends, and any other tricks they may know to make access difficult. It might help to reassure your neighbour.
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Yes, I've told the company that she's terrified of burglars, and he's said he's used to neighbours making a fuss and not to worry, and that every effort will be made to make it secure. And we've told her that he'll be making it secure etc, and she just muttered something about bloody builders etc and needing to keep an eye on them (we'd remove ladders etc ourselves if we had to, for our own benefit as well as hers). But we've now reached the stage where she's slamming her door in our faces which makes reasonable discussion somewhat difficult.
The company also mentioned about alarming the scaffolding being an option, but I don't see why we should pay extra for that *as well as* babysit the house the entire time it's up; it's one or the other.
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If she is slamming the door in your face now, screw what she thinks. Do whatever is legally required to get the work done and ignore the rest of her insanity. She isn't going to get any better.
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Bloody neighbours. I'd be inclined to send a letter saying 'sorry but this is necessary' and listing the steps you'll be taking to minimise risk to her. Be as precise as possible about dates, etc. Stress that you wish to remain on good terms. I suspect she'll seethe but not do much.*
*Cross-fingers.
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If she is slamming the door in your face now, screw what she thinks. Do whatever is legally required to get the work done and ignore the rest of her insanity. She isn't going to get any better.
'Legally' is the problem...didn't really want to go down the court order route even if we did have the spare cash to do so. We have to live next door to these people and were planning on staying here a while.
Bloody neighbours. I'd be inclined to send a letter saying 'sorry but this is necessary' and listing the steps you'll be taking to minimise risk to her. Be as precise as possible about dates, etc. Stress that you wish to remain on good terms. I suspect she'll seethe but not do much.*
*Cross-fingers.
I don't know. I think she might call the police and complain about trespass or something. I think she may have mental health issues, she was so irrationally angry earlier on, going on about not being given enough notice, except I definitely had a conversation about this with her 2-3 weeks ago (albeit the company had not confirmed dates then) to tell her it would be happening late April or early May so she knew full well this was coming. I tried my best to be conciliatory (I deal with a lot of angry neighbours in my job as it happens!) but she was having none of it.
We are going to try again tomorrow in the hope she will be calmer. Her husband does seem a little more sensible and I wish we could get hold of him (shortly after we moved in, he did attempt to stop her telling us slightly random horror stories such as how our house would definitely be invaded by maggots from the rubbish truck that parked outside our house while it collected the bins from the rest of the street...) but it always seems to be her who answers the damn door!
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If she is slamming the door in your face now, screw what she thinks. Do whatever is legally required to get the work done and ignore the rest of her insanity. She isn't going to get any better.
Yes, I had a similar problem with a neighbour. Husband was fine about us removing the ivy from our collapsing fence and putting up new panels. Then when i started and the inevitable gap appeared where the old fence was, out she came ranting and raving. I couldn't get a word in!
I waited until their son and daughter-in-law visited later in the day and went round to sort things out and she couldn't make a scene while they were there it seems. Anyway we came to an arrangement provided I put up a 6ft fence, yes, 'to keep the burglars out'! That was fine, I'd have put up an 8ft fence if it was necessary to keep her out of my hair.. Husband's dead now; i'm not surprised.
Definitely nuts, these people, there's no other explanation.
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Unlucky, neighbours can be real shits and generally ruin an otherwise excellent day.
Send her a bunch of flowers and be nice, but you'll have to be firm with her as she sounds a bit loopy. Tell her you'll set up some security cameras covering the scaffolding and record it, they only cost £100 or so.
It might work, but I know what you're going through as we had a major issue over a neighbours retaining wall that they refused to build, anyway a letter and a solicitor from our insurance company sorted it and we moved house afterwards.
Can I also suggest that you ensure that the builder is responsible for clearing up properly and that the scaffolding is sheeted when they remove the old render. It'll be coming off in big slabs and you don't want anything to be damaged if they are careless.
Plus, with my building conservation hat on, make sure they don't put any cement at all in the lime when they render it as it will ruin it, no matter what they say, it's a no go.
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Party wall act, no need for a solicitor. Just a surveyor. If you are the slamimg door stage I suspect it gone past that point.
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Rather than flowers, we'd already bought beers and wine to hand over yesterday (we know they don't mind a drink as I've seen her in the local shop stocking up when there's been offers on, and think that might be seen as more valuable currency!) but we didn't even get a chance to hand it over :facepalm:
The company we're using has very good reviews, has some excellent examples of their work, and is actually more used to working on rather more precious listed buildings/ those in conservation areas (of which our house is neither, just bog-standard, but old and inappropriately rendered) so I'm reasonably confident they know what they're doing, but I will stress again the need for care when taking off the render.
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Its not a party wall as defined in the legislation.
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No, it's on our side of the boundary so it's our wall.
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Good luck and I hope it works out somehow.
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She's a fruit bat. Get the job done, ignore the ranting, wait till they're on holiday (BTW what does she do about 'the burglars' when they go on holiday?) and sell the house.
The other alternative is mass murder but that ain't gonna fly . . .
**Not the most charitable response, I'll grant you
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She's just come and knocked, giving us an opportunity to hand over the booze. She's grudgingly now allowing us access to put up the scaffold, but is refusing to allow us to remove her side gate from our wall to allow a neater job (we'd remove and replace it at our cost). Render company owner was loathe to render around her side gate as he said this was lazy and wouldn't give a good finish.
Not 100% sure where we stand on this because it's on *our* wall, but it's probably been there a good few years so I don't know if it's acquired some kind of right, and again, I don't really want to push it anyway.
We're replacing our own garden side gate (which is knackered) with a much tougher, higher one, to give better protection to the Preciouses (ie the bikes in their bike bunker). Considering asking the bloke who's coming to quote us tomorrow for a quote for our new gate to replace her gate with a better, taller one too, if it means we can get her permission to temporarily remove her gate to do the render job properly. Not that we exactly have extra dosh knocking around...
(NB considering the obsession with burglars she's not got an alarm that I can see - we've got one that the house came with, and set it religiously when off out because it gave us a hefty discount on the contents insurance...I mean I know they generally do sod all....but still....)
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Sounds like you're getting there.
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Edit: Written before your previous response...
Some rather uncharitable responses as regards her mental health ("fruit bat", "real shit" etc.). We had a similar situation with one of our neighbours, who ended up secreting hidden recording devices around the garden as she thought we were planning to pull down her house. It was a highly stressful situation for all concerned.
If it is possible, I'd recommend seeing if it is possible to discuss through an intermediary (possibly the husband or other relative?) whom she trusts. There is cause for optimism as you genuinely want to resolve this amicably with minimal inconvenience to your neighbour. Having someone she trusts helping to persuade her of that fact can help to smooth things through. And as hard as it can be, ~always~ keeping your cool, always being polite, whatever the provocation helps in the long run.
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If the gate is bolted to your house, you have the right to take it off to maintain your property.
If you put it back on afterwards, she'll have no reasonable cause to complain. You will have to leave it off for a few days however, as the lime render will take at least week to go hard enough.
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AM has it right. Talk to the husband and tell him what is going to happen. Let him deal with her irrelevant objections.
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Talking to the husband is difficult when it is she who comes to the door every time we knock. She has also refused to give us a phone number should we need to contact her/them. She obviously wants control of the situation.
The only alternative is to lay in wait for him and ambush him on his way in or out of the house...which isn't exactly easy either. Come to think of it, I haven't seen him in a while; I would definitely rather have raised this with him.
Re the gate, it's the leaving it off for a few days that will send her up the wall. Think of all the burglars that could walk in while it's off! (I raised this with the company and they said they'd secure it via other means to put off potential opportunists.)
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Maybe it's her husband she's trying to keep out?
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Its not a party wall as defined in the legislation.
No, it's on our side of the boundary so it's our wall.
Party wall acts covers works to structures withing an area. If you can't get the scafolding up on your own land then party wall legislation can be used.
Also if the gate is attached to yours, you can do what you want. Is there permission to attach it to your property?
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Edit: Written before your previous response...
Some rather uncharitable responses as regards her mental health ("fruit bat", "real shit" etc.). We had a similar situation with one of our neighbours, who ended up secreting hidden recording devices around the garden as she thought we were planning to pull down her house. It was a highly stressful situation for all concerned.
You don't actually say that you weren't.
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It was there long before we bought the house, so a previous owner may well have given permission, I don't know
Thing is, we don't really want to start throwing our weight around with what we can legally do, if it's going to totally ruin our relationship...I don't really want to go to war with her.
Might try persuading her again under the guise of removing it to stop it getting damaged while the render is getting hacked off the wall. Which unfortunately sounds like a threat, but is a realistic possibility...
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Glad to hear that you're getting there. Can the gate bit be done in a day, while people are about? (or does it take an age to dry?)
Maybe throw in some bedtime reading to take her mind off the worry?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimewatch-U-K-Nick-Ross/dp/0340405414/ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimewatch-U-K-Nick-Ross/dp/0340405414/)
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Maybe these are people who've their minds warped by excessive doses of tabloid scare stories.
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Would it be possible to hang the gate on the other side (their side) to resolve the problem of rendering your wall (and your builder is correct, rendering around the gate is not the best way to do things if it can be helped). The gate wouldn't have anything to shut against while the wall was being done, but it should be fairly easy to bodge up something to make it look like it was secure.
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The gate should be hung from/to a post set apart from but adjacent to the wall. Once again would be surprised if the curtilage is exactly on the line of the gable as is often a few inches beyond.
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Can the builders not erect a perfectly viable temporary gate out of Heras fencing for the hours of the night?
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Wot him above sed.. Heras fencing, some bike cable locks, together will all be far more secure than the original gate is. However, Canardly makes a very good point. I'm currently engaged in a large external wall insulation project, and gates attached to walls are a right pain in the arse, separate posts are a far better thing. Also less likely to bring abotu unwanted vibratino and noice during use, through your wall. Your neighbour is truly being cataclysmically silly.
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Glad to hear that you're getting there. Can the gate bit be done in a day, while people are about? (or does it take an age to dry?)
Maybe throw in some bedtime reading to take her mind off the worry?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimewatch-U-K-Nick-Ross/dp/0340405414/ (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crimewatch-U-K-Nick-Ross/dp/0340405414/)
Building lime comes in three types Lime Putty (In a bucket with water), Hydraulic (powder in a bag, different strengths) and Hydrated. The first two have two types of set and Hydrated won't set by itself and needs cement and is used for cement based mortars to increase their workability.
The initial set is where it stiffens up but you can re-mix again it to increase its workability and its final set is when it carbonates and becomes hard and durable.
The rate of initial set depends on how dry the substrate is (brickwork in this case, I would imagine). The final set/carbonation will take about 30 days before the render reaches its full strength and in the case of lime putty, that's not a very high crushing strength compared to a Hydraulic lime based mortar.
The plasterers will make use of the initial set, as the render should be applied in at least two coats, a scratch coat, which is scratched when soft to provide a key for a final coat which is smooth and flat, but not like plaster smooth. Then they will have to wait some time......a week or so before they can lime wash the render with 2-3 coats of lime putty mixed with water, like paint. Once the lime wash is on they should re-hang the gate.
They will have to keep spraying the render with water and protect it if it's really warm, windy or pouring with rain until it's hard enough to take the lime wash without brush marks in the render. If they don't damp it down it'll shrink and crack like anything and you don't want that in the final coat, although the lime wash will fill any fine hairline cracks ok.
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The scaffold is now up. Rob said she was perfectly happy with it when he went to see her afterwards. Maybe because she's realised it doesn't go as far back as she thought it did and is actually only adjacent to a blank gable wall as far as she's concerned, which even the burglars will find it difficult to penetrate (we're not re-rendering our modern extension, only the original Victorian bit), maybe because she's partaken in the booze we donated, who knows... Apparently the scaffolders were a bit cross at not being able to use her house to brace the scaffolding, but managed nonetheless.
What Aunt Maud has said ties in with the timescales that he's given me (he's set out very clearly each stage, and he needs time between each stage, including time for the bricks underneath to dry out if they're wet, which they probably will be as rain has been getting into the old, cracked concrete render and unable to get out again). It's apparently going to piss it down tomorrow when the render is due to come off so that'll go well ::-)
Might try to broach subject of gate again tomorrow, maybe when render company bloke is here to reassure her as to what kind of securing job he's going to do in the interim. We're actually much more at risk as we've got a much larger pair of double gates at the side that need to come off, but he assures me he deals with this kind of thing all the time.
So the gate cannot be done in a day, it would need to be off for a while to allow the render to cure.
We didn't mind the gate being attached to our house before now, they rarely use it so we never heard it, and a couple of months ago she was proudly telling me of her burglar deterrent (she's got a load of thorny debris/dirt piled up against it so that if a burglar does jump over the gate he'll get a nasty shock, I suspect half her problem was the fact that she had to move that to allow our scaffolders access...)
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The render is coming off. Rob has just texted me that layer of pebbledash has been discovered under the concrete render. Lovely.
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Oh lovely... Well at least you are confident that the job needed doing, and the wall be now be better protected! Pebbledash - uurgh!
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Oh lovely... Well at least you are confident that the job needed doing, and the wall be now be better protected! Pebbledash - uurgh!
My house is pebble dashed.. I'm just dreading when I need to take it off
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Bloody hell this hassle is never ending.
Came home the other night to find they'd managed to damage the toilet soil pipe and now it was splashing loo contents over the patio every time someone flushed it. Phoned the guy and he sent a plumber round straight away to fix it, sounding very unimpressed that he'd not been informed of it.
Went out today (zomg we were naughty and left the house unattended except for the dog, please no one tell the neighbour) and when we came back one of the neighbours further along was outside and asked what works we were doing and we explained it was necessary works to stop damp.
Chatted for a bit and then he pointed to his BMW and said that the dusty works weren't making us very popular (pointing to a fine coating of dust on his car, bearing in mind we live in Croydon which is pretty filthy and any number of building works going on at any one time) and that he'd asked the builders to give him a tenner to get his car washed, and if they wouldn't give it to him next week he was going to ask us for it. We just laughed in a 'ha ha, imagine that!' kind of way, and I said to be honest he didn't have to worry about many more building works happending in the near future because we didn't have any spare money left after paying for this work and were probably going to eat beans on toast for a while to pay off our debts. Which is not far from the truth. Ie, don't hold your breath for your tenner, mate.
People are so fucking ridiculous about their bastard cars. Cheeky little sod. It'll probably rain soon, that'll sort his precious car.
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My motor-car seems always to be covered with a fine film of dust, whether parked close to the building works over the road or quarter of a mile down the side road, therefore BMW man is a sillybollocks. Set his car/him on fire.
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What a tosspot.
If you take your car out of your private enclosed storage space into public space, you have to accept that it's going to be subject to all the dirt that implies.
Road grime, seagull shit, dust from building works, you name it.
If he doesn't want a dirty car, tell him to keep it in his private enclosed storage space.
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Next-door but one to us has a woodburner. He burns all sorts of crap wood in it that frequently leave a fine coating over the entire cul-de-sac's vehicles. This is the same twunt who complained that the kids in the close's chalk drawings on the road were vandalism.
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Tell the twunt to move to Rugby. Every day he can wipe the fine dust from Rugby Cement Works from his precious twatmobile. I'd like to see how he fares asking Rugby Cement for a tenner to wash his car.
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Building works will never make you popular. Mess, noisy machinery, huge deliveries, vans blocking the road... Try doing it all when you live on a narrow 25% hill*. For matters like the gate, just get it done, your neighbour has no reasonable cause for complaint. And remind her that your house looking nice makes her house worth more.
Our neighbour is mostly fine (we have a similar setup with a wall only accessible via her property). Our only gripe are a couple of self-set sycamores and a hazel that grow in the gap which really need to come out (they'll just overgrow our house, the roots are a level below and will eventually damage her property rather than ours, everything is terraced owing the hill). She keeps agreeing to get it done, but this is year 2 of her conspicuously not getting it done. I figure I'll just offer to pay. Mildly annoying as it would have been easier before the leaves came.
As for the dirty car, 'fuck off' is I think is the only reasonable response. Our car is parked under cover and rarely used and it's still covered with dust within two weeks. That might be our neighbour's wood stove, she burns anything too (can't complain, I pass plenty of it over the fence). I'm not bothered, cars get dirty.
*for bonus points, have you removals pantechnicon block the hill at about 5.30pm on a weekday and create your own traffic jam. Most people were OK about it, the movers were helping people squeeze their cars by, but there was one idiot – BMW natch – who came banging on the door demanding that I have them move the lorry because they were 'blocking his right of way'. He was ready for a right barney. Bad fight to pick mind, considering I standing there with no fewer than eight blokes who lift furniture for a living.
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Edit: render. Who's idea was that? Let's go back in time and put a stop to the very idea. What's wrong with bricks/ And what kind of idiot buys a house that's part rendered and part wood-clad. Oh.
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And what kind of idiot buys a house that's part rendered and part wood-clad. Oh.
A USAnian, he said, charitably?
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If you take your car out of your private enclosed storage space into public space, you have to accept that it's going to be subject to all the dirt that implies.
Precisely.
Edit: render. Who's idea was that? Let's go back in time and put a stop to the very idea. What's wrong with bricks/ And what kind of idiot buys a house that's part rendered and part wood-clad. Oh.
Render is necessary when the bricks are not water-resistant. Rain makes bricks damp, damp freezes in winter, bricks crumble.
Pebbledash or other varieties of render are common next to the sea, where the salt-laden spray has its own wonderful effects on brickwork.
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Edit: render. Who's idea was that? Let's go back in time and put a stop to the very idea. What's wrong with bricks/ And what kind of idiot buys a house that's part rendered and part wood-clad. Oh.
The Romans were good at it. Render under to Caesar and all that.
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Pebbledash or other varieties of render are common next to the sea, where the salt-laden spray has its own wonderful effects on brickwork.
Exactly what I have and why. Another 'advantage' for the builder is then you can build the rendered parts of the house out of breeze block instead of brick. This method is quicker and cheaper, and has been used for a long time in other countries like Germany and Austria.
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If you've ever been to Hell or some London suburbs, I swear everything is made out of heaving and gradually cracking render and pebbledash. It makes your very soul itch. Pebbledash just looks like a concrete dinosaur vomited up the side of your house. I've lived in houses made of bricks and I didn't get wet. I presume this house is additionally armoured against Surrey Bear attacks.
(Fortunately, ours was just cracked and blown in a few places. I hate cracks. From cracks come Cthulhu.)
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(Has Mr Hall taken out the back and discreetly murdered utterly to DETH)
"I've just pebbledashed my Transit" said Tom, vanishingly.
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I think the houses round here still with their stock bricks and soldier courses etc look an order of magnitude nicer. If our bricks hadn't been totally buggered by the cement render we'd have had them cleaned and repointed and kept them. But we knew they'd be buggered.
Mr BMW asking for a tenner was very greedy anyway, I had a look at the prices for the hand carwash on my way to the station this morning and they only charge £4.99. Not that I'm inclined to give him that either.
A new problem. I've got a written quote for the removal and lime rendering of 'all elevations excluding extension', right?
When the bossman showed up for the first time this morning as I was leaving, I asked when he was planning on removing the render from the tricky-to-get-to bit above the single storey rear kitchen extension (the single storey bit has got a pitched roof, so they can't stand on it, and is joined to the rest of the extension, which is two storey, so not really possible to scaffold - he had mentioned that might be tricker to access when he came to quote last year, but said he thought they could get round it.)
He then claimed that this was 'never part of the quote' and that the quote he'd given us didn't include that bit. Except his written quote doesn't say that. I didn't have the quote to hand at that stage and was rushing to catch a train so didn't have time to debate the point and said that wasn't my understanding, but methinks he's trying it on because they either forgot about or don't want to do this difficult bit.
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we didn't have any spare money left after paying for this work and were probably going to eat beans on toast for a while to pay off our debts.
Have you tried selling the television rights? It's better than DIY SOS, that's for sure.
Render is necessary when the bricks are not water-resistant. Rain makes bricks damp, damp freezes in winter, bricks crumble.
Sometimes it's a cheap alternative to re-pointing. I'd a house in Suffolk with an exposed single-skin gable end that had damp. I used a silicon fluid to paint on the absorbent bricks. They soaked it up but it made no difference to their appearance. It fixed the damp problem.
A lot of very old stone houses in our part of France were rendered in the 50s and 60s. It makes them very damp as the rendering traps the moisture in walls that need to be able to breathe. Unfortunately not only is it a tough job to remove the render, you also need planning permission!
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Frankly, given some of the mishaps at the Asbestos Palace, I was surprised to find that they'd used actual render as opposed to a thick layer of Philadelphia Cheese. I tried licking it just in case. I presume the render and wood-cladding dates back to original build. I hear a lot of drugs were consumed in the 1960s.
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Have you tried selling the television rights? It's better than DIY SOS, that's for sure.
Fuck me, given the latest installation I think I just might...
Don't have energy to bore y'all about it in all its detail, but he's only just woken up and realised we've not paid him anything at all for all this work yet (he didn't ask before, so he didn't get) and if he thinks he's getting it before this dispute's sorted out he's got another think coming...
I fucking hate builders.
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Have you tried selling the television rights? It's better than DIY SOS, that's for sure.
I fucking hate SOME builders.
FTFY
I used to run a small building conservation company, not all builders are rip off merchants. Pay him a bit to keep him happy and don't let him charge you for anything that's not written down, unless you specifically ask to have it as an extra.
Make sure you withhold 10% until he's completely finished and tidied up, then pay him what you owe him and let him know he won't be getting any more.
Be nice, be fair, be firm.
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It sounds like he's either too busy to write a proper quote including a payment schedule or he's incompetent.
Be wary if him.
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The rules with builders is pay nothing until the job is done. A reputable builder will be happy with this whereas cowboys take money and often piss off without finishing the job.
If a builder wants money for materials up front ask for the invoices and settle to them. The well used grab is to get his discount at the supplier and sell on to you at profit. You'll need to keep an eye on what's bought and what stays on site too.
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Have you tried selling the television rights? It's better than DIY SOS, that's for sure.
I fucking hate SOME builders.
FTFY
I used to run a small building conservation company, not all builders are rip off merchants.
Be nice, be fair, be firm.
Fair enough, but my experience thus far has been limited to the ones I walk/cycle past, and their helpful comments/whistles/lucky saddles etc, and this guy, so forgive me if I'm not feeling kindly at present.
If we pay him now, we risk him downing tools and leaving us with a half-finished house. At least we retain some power this way. We have absolutely sod all spare money and no means of taking him to court etc.
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You really do have to be wise with builders, plasterers, roofers, chippies, plasterers, plumbers, brickies, sparkies, etc., etc. There are many excellent tradesmen and women but there are a few total tossers out there.
My roofer forgot to replace a fascia board last year then tried to claim that it wasn't part of the job. Why then did he replace all of the others and why does it say gutters and fascias on the quote? Why then did he also replace the guttering where the old fascia is? I said that would withhold £500 until the job was done. He claims that he has to partly dismantle the roof to do it so I'm still waiting with £500 still in the bank. Considering the section of roof is completely accessible from ground level and there is no need for a ladder or scaffold I guess that he's just written it off.
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Yes the material thing is a bit of a misnomer the guy has 30 days credit at least. What is really going on is risk sharing. Having had some unfortunate experiences recently trying to support local businesses and with very mediocre results and in some cases very poor workmanship. I have also had a brilliant one, replacing a flat roof and upgrading it to current building regs, fantastic team, first rate workmanship and amazing guys. They still required a deposit.
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I always took a deposit.
No deposit = No work done. I'm not a bank and don't give interest free, unsecured credit to homeowners who ask for work done.
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My roofer forgot to replace a fascia board last year then tried to claim that it wasn't part of the job.
I think this guy forgot he was doing the rear elevation at all, which is what's happening here. On the first day, the scaffolders turned up and only did three elevations. When Rob (who thankfully was here keeping an eye) noticed that they'd not done the rear and questioned this, they claimed they'd only been told to do three. A call to the bossman fixed this as far as the rest of the rear elevation went, but the extra section still wasn't scaffolded in any way.
Why he thinks we'd pay all this money to do only three bloody elevations of the house and leave one in cracked concrete, I don't know..
Aunt Maud, I was actually more than willing to give him a reasonable deposit had he asked, as I've done for previous works (eg the blessed boiler works, obviously done by a different guy) and had asked him about this previously, but hadn't received any bank details etc, and wasn't exactly about to chase him up on it.
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It sounds like you're having a horrid experience all round with this one.
If it says the on quote that he's going to render the house, but not the new extension, then that's what he has agreed to do if you accepted his price based on his quote.
If he's put an area down i.e..230 square meters of render blah, blah....you need to get your tape measure out and measure up.
If you refuse to pay him any money when he's 40% into the job, he'll start to wonder if he's going to get paid at all. If he's got loads more work on he may stop at yours and take his tools elsewhere.
Obviously you want to make sure that A) He doesn't leave unfinished or an elevation unfinished and B) You pay him a lot less than the value of the work done including the scaffold until he is finished, otherwise he could just say adios and not loose out.
I've no idea how much the quote is, obviously, but you need to ensure that if he goes, he's going to loose out on a fair chunk of money and not just a couple of hundred quid.
When he's done with an elevation, you should eye it up, but not in front of him and it should be flat up, across and diagonally. Do it when he's not there and if it's not flat, do it in front of him again. This is all provided that your brickwork was flat in the first place and it probably is, unless you've got a structural problem.
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I always took a deposit.
No deposit = No work done. I'm not a bank and don't give interest free, unsecured credit to homeowners who ask for work done.
How long did you get to settle account(s) with your supplier(s)?
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I always took a deposit.
No deposit = No work done. I'm not a bank and don't give interest free, unsecured credit to homeowners who ask for work done.
How long did you get to settle account(s) with your supplier(s)?
That doesn't matter and you probably don't run a business, if you need to ask that question.
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Well, I do run a business actually though not a building company but I have relatives in the trade. I happen to know that suppliers give typically up to 30 days 'free credit' as a billing period and up to 30 days to settle. That would amount to up to sixty days before you need to have settled your bill.
Any builder who needs to have his suppliers bills met immediately is either in the mire or has no credit with his suppliers - both situations would be of concern to me.
I appreciate that on some very long jobs the builder might look for stage payments but these would have to be dependent upon progress and the builder actually delivering at each stage.
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Polar Bear,
I'm not going to get drawn into an online argument with you over how I chose to run my business, or your bad experiences with the local builders.
You'll have to find someone else to do that with, I'm afraid.
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From the times we have had to have non-family trades in to do work I would say 10% is being a bit tight.
We always operated on, and agreed with the trades, between 25 and 30%. This worked in our favour when we got the shower room completely re-modelled in Norathampton, as the guy doing the work did a whole list of things which we were not happy about, the least of which was using the skips that we were paying for to dump the rubbish from his gang's other jobs. When we witheld 25% of the final bill (IIRC about £2.5K) due to the fit and finish not being done to an agreed standard he failed to return, at times agreed, to finish the job and we eventually terminated the engagement and got someone else to finish the work. This was exceedingly silly as most of the finish work was small, cosmetic jobs(which costs us ~£500 to get done)!
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Deposits aren't just for materials. I imagine that it's a not good thing if you're self-employed to find out on 5pm Friday evening that the customer has decided the two week job you had scheduled for Monday is no longer required.
We've always agreed to pay in installments (for the refurb here we paid on completion of each room) and held back 10%.
As for the case in question, read the estimate carefully and see doing all the render is a reasonable interpretation. If so, point it out. If not, then offer to meet them halfway. They'll be set up anyways so the extra costs will be marginal and at the end of the day a happy customer is future business.
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Polar Bear,
I'm not going to get drawn into an online argument with you over how I chose to run my business, or your bad experiences with the local builders.
You'll have to find someone else to do that with, I'm afraid.
Just as well because it is of no concern of mine how you run your business. I am concerned that the OP gets the advice that she needs.
I have just worked out that to date on our property renovation we have had seven separate tradesmen or firms in in the past 14 months. Only one took a stage payment* and all did not receive the balance until completion. Four of those tradesmen will be back for further works this year. Seems to be a system which works for all concerned. :thumbsup:
* He did works then had to wait for a further job to be completed before he could install. As his wait was for an unspecified time I offered to pay in stages which he accepted.
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This is a pretty big job (by our standards, anyway!) We're talking five figures. If he walked away now, he'd lose a lot of money and we're not talking hundreds. He's had scaffolders do the scaffold, then between two and four men working two days hacking off the render, and then three of them putting on the scratch coat over the course of a day, and loads of materials delivered. This is why I would happily give him an interim payment, subject to knowing he's actually going to do the job we asked him to do.
There has now been a full and frank exchange of views both over email and over the phone. He never provided any square metre measurement on his written quote, which would have avoided this. It simply says 'remove and re-render all four elevations excluding rear extension' and I, perhaps naively, thought that was clear enough, considering I had had a very clear conversation with him regarding the difficult to reach part when he came to quote, and made it very clear I wanted that to be included - I literally pointed it out.
After much arguing, and some polite but very firm suggestion that he re-examine his memory of the matter (I would genuinely give him the benefit of the doubt if my memory of this were anything but crystal clear) he has agreed to include the patch of wall as part of the quote if we make the interim payment. He has confirmed this in writing, spelling it all out somewhat more clearly than the original quote did.
Re interim payments, I have made them before, I think it probably depends on the kind of work that's being done. When I had my central heating done in my old flat, the engineer had me pay a supplier directly to buy the rads etc which I thought was fair enough. The problem here is the dispute, which we wanted to resolve first. What we wanted to avoid was paying him enough to make it worth him cutting his losses and buggering off. Unfortunately that might have had the unfortunate side effect of making him panic that he's going to get paid at all - but again - if he thought back to his original conversation with me he might remember I asked him several questions about payment of deposits etc, and was generally very willing - he just never asked. I think he's just a rather disorganised and could do with writing things down a bit more, personally. He took ages to reply to emails, and I waited over two weeks for his written quote (when he knew I was waiting on it for negotiation purposes with our vendor). While this might have been a warning sign, he has a bit of a monopoly on this kind of work in this area (there aren't that many companies working in lime round here) so I didn't exactly have a lot of choice of other builders...
I do suspect that what happened is he's forgotten about that difficult bit. They're a busy company. We just can't really afford to pay for their mistake without going into more debt, which is why we had to be firm too.
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Well, I do run a business actually though not a building company but I have relatives in the trade. I happen to know that suppliers give typically up to 30 days 'free credit' as a billing period and up to 30 days to settle. That would amount to up to sixty days before you need to have settled your bill.
Any builder who needs to have his suppliers bills met immediately is either in the mire or has no credit with his suppliers - both situations would be of concern to me.
I appreciate that on some very long jobs the builder might look for stage payments but these would have to be dependent upon progress and the builder actually delivering at each stage.
His workforce are weekly paid even if his suppliers aren't. And if he doesn't pay them on time they won't turn up on Monday.
The most valuable asset of a service company is its staff. Those are the skills they're selling - any fool can buy lime render, it's sticking on the wall that NSTN is paying him for, and the men doing that need paying long before 60 days are up.
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Well, I do run a business actually though not a building company but I have relatives in the trade. I happen to know that suppliers give typically up to 30 days 'free credit' as a billing period and up to 30 days to settle. That would amount to up to sixty days before you need to have settled your bill.
Any builder who needs to have his suppliers bills met immediately is either in the mire or has no credit with his suppliers - both situations would be of concern to me.
I appreciate that on some very long jobs the builder might look for stage payments but these would have to be dependent upon progress and the builder actually delivering at each stage.
His workforce are weekly paid even if his suppliers aren't. And if he doesn't pay them on time they won't turn up on Monday.
The most valuable asset of a service company is its staff. Those are the skills they're selling - any fool can buy lime render, it's sticking on the wall that NSTN is paying him for, and the men doing that need paying long before 60 days are up.
And furthermore it's *entirely* irrelevant to the customer what his payment terms with the supplier are. Sainsbury's or Asda want me to pay them immediately despite the fact they keep the farmers' money for three months or more; DFS is happy to wait three years.
(And to reinforce your point, for a job like this the materials cost is minimal anyway - it's the wages cost that will really stack up.)
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Excellent news that he's seen the light and things are going in the right direction. It'll soon be over and it won't seem so bad after all, plus your house'll look swanky too.
When builders get busy, quotes get put in a pile, the person who shouts loudest gets their quote quickest. If he has a regular stream of clients that he knows will be happy and pay straight away, he'll go to them first and if your a new client and he's got a massive pile of work, you'll be lucky to get a look in.
It takes an age for a builder to build a good reputation, but only 5 minutes to loose it, so he'll be wanting to keep things going along swimmingly and if you're happy you should pay him what you owe him quickly, if your not you should tell him first and not your neighbour. If it looks like you might need more work of this type done, you'd be well placed if you remain friends at the end of the day.
As a general note, although by the sounds of it it won't involve you.
Try to avoid getting on the list of bad payers that floats around Travis Perkins and other builders merchants, word gets out and most builders will know about it very quickly and you'll end up with "Desperate Dan" next time.
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Without wandering too far off topic, jsabine, DFS don't wait three years, they have their money before you even get your sofa, as it's all done through finance companies.
I see your point, though, just gave a bad example :)
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Hold on. There's a house in Croydonia that might end up looking nice. Stop right there. I hope you're going to put a discarded fridge out front. There are some standards.
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Glad you said sofas, I was wondering who DFS were.
I'll give one example of why I never extended any credit to the overly smart and over mortgaged people I worked for.
I built a very complicated and expensive single storey extension to the rear of a Georgian house, which involved amongst other things, propping the neighbours elevated 16th century stone cottage and excavating underneath it for 4 meters to remove the soil and underpin it, to get the extension to fit.
I took my deposit as usual and work began. Half way through the project, when the client was due to make one of their fortnightly payments. His wife took me aside and sheepishly asked if I could wait a bit for it. "OK, no problem, but I'd like it next week, as I have to buy £4000.00 of lead for your roof".
Next week came and I asked for the payment before I ordered the lead..............Cue much dithering from him, "Um!"
Um?.............. "You do have enough money to continue with the project, don't you ?"
"Yes........... kind of, we've gone and invested the money we borrowed for the extension in the stock market."
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My view is that when the job is done the money is due. For larger projects (either in terms of time or in terms of money) agreed stage payments are the way to go. My folks had an extension done, which takes some time and costs some money. This was staged so that at each point the builder was paid for works satisfactorily completed, reducing the risk to client and builder. Unspecified deposits and stage payments against time rather than targets are a no-no.
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Hold on. There's a house in Croydonia that might end up looking nice. Stop right there. I hope you're going to put a discarded fridge out front. There are some standards.
Careful, lad! Schloß von Brandenburg is technically in Croydonia, though five minues on foot would see you in Lambeth, Bromley or Southwark, according to whim.
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My view is that any materials to be delivered to your property should be paid for or invoiced at the time of order unless a credit account is created. Once they are within your property they officially belong to you, whether fixed or not.
I'm not talking about £500 jobs, but jobs in the thousands and tens of thousands.
For everyones peace of mind, the whole process should be written down before things start moving.
This includes how much deposit as a percentage for the whole job and a schedule detailing when payments are to be made and how much, plus an agreed no payment strategy and details of any guarantees for the work.
Leave nothing out and all should go well.
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Hold on. There's a house in Croydonia that might end up looking nice. Stop right there. I hope you're going to put a discarded fridge out front. There are some standards.
Careful, lad! Schloß von Brandenburg is technically in Croydonia, though five minues on foot would see you in Lambeth, Bromley or Southwark, according to whim.
Is Schloß von Brandenburg on Crystal Palace parade?
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Inside the CP Triangle (like the Bermuda Triangle but with more poncy restaurants).
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As a former resident of the People's Democratic Republic of Croydonia (and dweller at the bottom of Anerley Hill), I have reserved rights to demand that discarded white goods be placed in a garden, that pebbledashing should crack and break like some masonry version of eczema, and what garden peeks from shade of the rotting car offers a bountiful harvest of weeds. And let no pavement not be blessed by a discarded mattress.
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Without wandering too far off topic, jsabine, DFS don't wait three years, they have their money before you even get your sofa, as it's all done through finance companies.
I see your point, though, just gave a bad example :)
I do know that about DFS - using them as an example was supposed to add an amusing wrinkle in terms of the retailer-supplier payment terms being doubly irrelevant to the customer where their payment was not even made to the retailer.
Oh well, it amused me. A little.
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Inside the CP Triangle (like the Bermuda Triangle but with more poncy restaurants).
Strange area that, ever since F.W. Woolworth closed - you can buy scented picture frames and hand made tagines, but you try getting your hands on some bog rolls or lightbulbs - not a chance.
I think it is trying to be a high altitude version of Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.
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Well as agreed the interim payment was paid, and they're now back, the tricky bit has been scaffolded (took about 30 mins) and work is proceeding.
As a former resident of the People's Democratic Republic of Croydonia (and dweller at the bottom of Anerley Hill), I have reserved rights to demand that discarded white goods be placed in a garden, that pebbledashing should crack and break like some masonry version of eczema, and what garden peeks from shade of the rotting car offers a bountiful harvest of weeds. And let no pavement not be blessed by a discarded mattress.
We've let the side down, ian. The council are so desperate to stop flytipping that they'll get rid of anything (or several things) if you pay them a tenner (probably even a body if you wrapped it up well enough - cf their Don't Mess With Croydon campaign). So when we found a load of old furniture in the shed in our garden (beyond help) we did. God knows what the neighbours think. Paying the council to take things away. Whatever next.
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Croydon are actually very good. We had a 'street manager' who regularly used to come around to collect the mattresses (seriously, what is it with the mattresses?) and deal with issues. (Compare to Tandridge, who eventually get around to responding with the stock 'we don't have funds for that'. Despite my paying more council tax for the dubious privilege.)
Shit cycling provision, though. There's nothing in Croydon that can't be solved by adding more traffic. Other than the traffic.
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Did they disappear, or were they letting the scratch coat harden ?
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Well, they'd already allowed time for that in the original schedule, which we're now over as work stopped temporarily while we were having our 'discussion'.
They're just leaving now; went and had a look and it looks like they've done a bloody good job so far to be fair.
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Excellent, are you a happy camper about it ?
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And have the neighbours been burgled yet?
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And have the neighbours been burgled yet?
Please Miss!
Deliberately provocative post!
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Excellent, are you a happy camper about it ?
It's funny that you should mention camping; we were supposed to go to Blackberry Wood this weekend (booked for a long time; the works were supposed to be over by now) but that would contravene the housesitting at all times rule ::-)
There are some very small hairline cracks around the door reveal; one of the lads said something about the limewash filling those in; I'm not sure how true that is, perhaps you can advise... But otherwise it looks a very neat job.
And have the neighbours been burgled yet?
Also funny you should mention that. She's just been round to tell me that they've left a ladder up which obviously the burglars would *love*. So I obligingly went out the back to move it but unfortunately it was very long, very heavy and very solid (ie not aluminium or anything like that). I called my mum (housesitter general) out to help but we both have zero upper body strength and additionally it's so bloody long we were worried it would slip and break a window. Rob is out playing Warhammer til late tonight, not that he's exactly a muscle man either. There's also an unhelpfully placed jasmine archway thing in the garden (it's a very tiny yard really) which means it's not a matter of simply laying the ladder on its side, but of lifting and manouvering it to stop it crushing the arch which neither of us was strong enough to do.
After listening to me and my mum bicker for about ten minutes as we tried to decide what to do, neighbour called over the fence that her husband was in and he'd come and do it for us. Which he did as though it weighed nothing at all. It's now horizontal and locked to the scaffold with a D-lock (as we've been doing every night).
I will be happy when this is over.
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Do you live in the Versailles of West Croydon?
It never ends by the way, now you can gaze upon your pristine exterior and wait for it to crack. Entropy, you may as well embrace it.
I can regale people with the fact that my house is named on Google maps. I figured something exciting must have happened here. Perhaps someone was murdered by bears. Also the last owner designed the sets for several leading BBC TV shows. Which may explain the shaky nature of some of the DIY.
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Croydon are actually very good. We had a 'street manager' who regularly used to come around to collect the mattresses (seriously, what is it with the mattresses?) and deal with issues. (Compare to Tandridge, who eventually get around to responding with the stock 'we don't have funds for that'. Despite my paying more council tax for the dubious privilege.)
Shit cycling provision, though. There's nothing in Croydon that can't be solved by adding more traffic. Other than the traffic.
Amazed at the amount of mattress and divan that appear at the end om my road....as well as the occassional sofa
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Ah, the joys of expansive suburbia, where the occasional sofa trumps the occasional table.
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Limewash fills all sorts of Mister Meaners...........erhm, anyway.
It will fill hairline cracks, like the chap said. The reason your getting them is because the lime putty ( the white stuff in the bucket, remember, from your online crash course in building with lime) is full of water when its mixed and when it dries it loses volume and the render shrinks a bit.
The lime render won't have dried fully yet, but it'll be well on its way after a couple of weeks and will start to carbonate, go hard and become durable. It should have done most of its shrinking by now as it's been on porous brickwork in the sun and wind. All bricks except engineering bricks are porous, especially London Stocks which is what your house is probably built from, so don't worry about "Oooh, my bricks are all porous :o ". If you want to check that out, put a dry brick in a bucket of water and it'll bubble away nicely.
To make sure the cracks aren't getting worse, take a photo of them now and another on Monday and compare them.
Lime is a marvellous thing and by lime washing the wall you'll be filling the cracks with binder ( lime, think glue for sticking particles of sand together for making mortar products) and creating a multi layer, moisture permeable, weatherproof coating on the render. It'll last for about 4 years or so and need re-doing to keep it looking lovely and white. It's easy peasy to do and cheap as chips. You can get all sorts of colours to put in it as well, our lime wash on the internal kitchen wall has cobalt in it and is a fetching shade of blue and our external brick panels are yellow ochre.
A bucket of lime 20-25kg costs about £8 and to make lime wash mix 50/50 with clean water with a whisk ( one of those things that you put in the chuck of a drill for mixing plaster with ). Two buckets of lime make 100 litres or so of good lime wash and should be enough to re-do a semi with two coats. You can get all sorts of other stuff like casein or raw milk to put in lime wash to make it stick to timber and modern gypsum plaster, but it's not necessary for washing lime render.
Compare that to the cost of a fancy pants modern exterior paint. To make it dazzle white 8) 8) mix Dolly Blue in with it, if you can find some in grandma's under sink cupboard.
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Thanks Aunt Maud, that's all very useful to know. Limewash does sound like very good value compared to modern paint.
Perhaps unusually, when the old render came off, our house had the yellow London Stocks on the front elevations and red bricks everywhere else, which I've not seen before (and my job involves looking at a lot of houses, and a lot of bricks...)
The next thing, I suspect, will be painting the modern rear extension, which we left alone for obvious reason, but which I suspect will now look very grubby next to the rest of the freshly limewashed house. I'm guessing we probably can't limewash it...(it's currently rendered and painted).
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I'm guessing we probably can't limewash it...(it's currently rendered and painted).
You could lime wash modern cement render with casein mixed in the lime wash, but you'd have to get all the paint off first and I'm not sure how durable it would be. The casein, being a milk protein could possibly attract mould growth when applied to an exterior wall (I'm guessing here) whereas lime wash is a strong alkali and nothing will grow in it, but it won't stick to cement render on its own.
Once the casein layer is on and dry you could probably just lime wash it, which should work nicely.
You can get all this stuff from; http://www.mikewye.co.uk
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Have they finished ?
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Would lime wash adhere to fibreglass? Does it come off if you brush against it?
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Would lime wash adhere to fibreglass? Does it come off if you brush against it?
No, it won't adhere to fibreglass and would just flake off.
Lime wash needs a porous surface for it to stick to, preferably lime, clay or brick.
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Apologies for thread hijack.
I have fibreglass and concrete to paint and would appreciate keeping the cost down. Flat white finish preferred.
Pain suggestions?
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Contractors emulsion from Travis Perkins. Comes in a 25l tub and is fairly cheap, but it's classed as an interior paint.
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Apologies for thread hijack.
I have fibreglass and concrete to paint and would appreciate keeping the cost down. Flat white finish preferred.
Pain suggestions?
NSFW is that way ----->
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Contractors emulsion from Travis Perkins. Comes in a 25l tub and is fairly cheap, but it's classed as an interior paint.
This is exterior. Will check out what they have.
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Have they finished ?
They finished last Wednesday. It looks very nice.
Unsurprisingly, the scaffold that caused so much angst still appears to be being stored here (and in the neighbours' garden). Probably because it doesn't suit the scaffolders to take it down yet. I've told him he'll get the rest of the money as soon as the scaffold disappears. Apparently that's happening tomorrow or Thursday.
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Good result eventually. Isn't it a relief when it's finished.
I was accosted by our friendly local builder on his way to the pub. He assures me the scaffolding will be up here at the end of the month. I'm not holding my breath.
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We've got scaffolding up. It's quite good, now I've got used to it.
However, anyone know a good lead technician, or whatever they call people who work with lead now?
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We've got scaffolding up. It's quite good, now I've got used to it.
However, anyone know a good lead technician, or whatever they call people who work with lead now?
Actually, our chap (for all his faults) is good with lead. But you're not having him.
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It would only be for a day...
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We've got scaffolding up. It's quite good, now I've got used to it.
However, anyone know a good lead technician, or whatever they call people who work with lead now?
Yes, but you're nowhere near East London, are you?
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Only after (if/when) he's finished ours. Then good luck keeping him to any schedule.
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We've got scaffolding up. It's quite good, now I've got used to it.
However, anyone know a good lead technician, or whatever they call people who work with lead now?
Yes, but you're nowhere near East London, are you?
If you are in the UK, no. If you are in Aus, yes, we are quite near East London*.
* no, not eMonti
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TBH if there is a good guy available now who would like a night in the Cotswolds if needed, then I'm interested.
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TBH if there is a good guy available now who would like a night in the Cotswolds if needed, then I'm interested.
I think you posted that on the wrong board.
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;D
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Good result eventually. Isn't it a relief when it's finished.
It's NEVER finished, apparently.
The scaffolders came today while we were at work (I strongly encouraged them to come yesterday when I was at home, but no). They:
a) Instead of simply opening the gate, completely smashed up the bodged up fence repair that the guys who did the render & limewash had done for us when they removed the fence post (as we can't put the fence post back until the lime has cured a bit more) and I came home to find my garden was open to all and sundry. The bikes are stored in the garden (albeit in a bunker) so I was obviously really pleased with that. We're going to have to sort that somehow before we go to work tomorrow.
b) Had managed to knock off the down pipe from the guttering and it was lying in the front garden.
For. Fuck's. Sake.
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Good result eventually. Isn't it a relief when it's finished.
It's NEVER finished, apparently.
The scaffolders came today while we were at work (I strongly encouraged them to come yesterday when I was at home, but no). They:
a) Instead of simply opening the gate, completely smashed up the bodged up fence repair that the guys who did the render & limewash had done for us when they removed the fence post (as we can't put the fence post back until the lime has cured a bit more) and I came home to find my garden was open to all and sundry. The bikes are stored in the garden (albeit in a bunker) so I was obviously really pleased with that. We're going to have to sort that somehow before we go to work tomorrow.
b) Had managed to knock off the down pipe from the guttering and it was lying in the front garden.
For. Fuck's. Sake.
I wince and feel your pain.
Sadly, nothing I say will make it better. :(
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Oh dear. One essential skill that seems to be required for all scaffolders is the ability to randomly break things. You've reminded me.
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We had similar problems with out scaffolders last year when we had the roof replaced. They don't seem to possess common sense nor brains.
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I'm glad I was here when he scaffolders put ours up and it looks like I need to be around when they take it down.
That aside, I first went up to the top trembling and wearing a hard hat.
Now, after nearly a fortnight I am like a mountain goat*.
*If you can get fat, slow mountain goats.
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Good result eventually. Isn't it a relief when it's finished.
It's NEVER finished, apparently.
The scaffolders came today while we were at work (I strongly encouraged them to come yesterday when I was at home, but no). They:
a) Instead of simply opening the gate, completely smashed up the bodged up fence repair that the guys who did the render & limewash had done for us when they removed the fence post (as we can't put the fence post back until the lime has cured a bit more) and I came home to find my garden was open to all and sundry. The bikes are stored in the garden (albeit in a bunker) so I was obviously really pleased with that. We're going to have to sort that somehow before we go to work tomorrow.
b) Had managed to knock off the down pipe from the guttering and it was lying in the front garden.
For. Fuck's. Sake.
Days like that you can't help thinking of alternative, creative uses for scaffolding poles....
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Oh dear. One essential skill that seems to be required for all scaffolders is the ability to randomly break things. You've reminded me.
That's worrying when I think how often I walk under scaffolding. Thinking further about it I have some scaffolding and have not so far broken anything when erecting it (7m is what it goes up to) but then I am not a properly trained scaffolder.
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My dad was doing a job in Seoul with scaffolding slung under a bridge. This is bamboo scaffolding that is wired together. He insisted the four scaffolders jump up and down on it before he would set foot on it..
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I was grinding out grouting up a back-to-back in leeds, carefully concentrating on the grinder. Scaffold planks suddenly pivoted away underneath me - the scaffolding was short of the width of the house and the scaffolder had just stuck the ends of the planks out over empty space.
Yup, I walked the plank.
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Our scaffold planks are all locked down with clamps.
....apart from the ones that aren't.
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Possibly the most legendarily stupid boy I ever taught became a scaffolder. After he left school he seemed to dispense completely with consonants when he spoke. He told me he was an a-o-er. This could have been any number of things, but, model of patience that I am, I persisted and eventually through context managed to understand what was going on between his ears.
My pal Mel has a very amusing story involving this child*, logarithms and a mathematics inspector.
*If he survived his experience as an a-o-er then he will by now be in his 50s, I reckon.
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Sadly the story of the scary combination of scaffolder/cokehead must remain unreported.
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Sadly the story of the scary combination of scaffolder/cokehead must remain unreported.
Rolled fiver v. short length of scaffold pole?
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Scaffolders not only dealing coke out of their yard but having it for lunch :o
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Possibly the most legendarily stupid boy I ever taught became a scaffolder. After he left school he seemed to dispense completely with consonants when he spoke. He told me he was an a-o-er. This could have been any number of things, but, model of patience that I am, I persisted and eventually through context managed to understand what was going on between his ears.
My pal Mel has a very amusing story involving this child*, logarithms and a mathematics inspector.
*If he survived his experience as an a-o-er then he will by now be in his 50s, I reckon.
Th fnny thng bng tht vwls ar th dspnsbl prts f txt. Y cn gt by wth jst cnsnnts.
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Possibly the most legendarily stupid boy I ever taught became a scaffolder. After he left school he seemed to dispense completely with consonants when he spoke. He told me he was an a-o-er. This could have been any number of things, but, model of patience that I am, I persisted and eventually through context managed to understand what was going on between his ears.
My pal Mel has a very amusing story involving this child*, logarithms and a mathematics inspector.
*If he survived his experience as an a-o-er then he will by now be in his 50s, I reckon.
Th fnny thng bng tht vwls ar th dspnsbl prts f txt. Y cn gt by wth jst cnsnnts.
Hbrw s rttn mstly wth jst cnsnnts. Sy whn y knw hw...
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Tht's n ntrstng rvltn!