The Upside Down House

Time for the second fortnightly site meeting today. A quick round-up of progress made and then on to new issues. The former; not as much as hoped due to the foundation issues, which in turn have lead to a week’s delay (the project will now run for 21 weeks). The latter; a few more for the list!

The biggest one is that the electrician doesn’t think much of the wiring and has recommended a full rewire. Our first reaction is to be cynical of this kind of news; the work has been won based on a quote for the required work. Later on, with the benefit of a more detailed site survey, the need to do even more work becomes apparent. But… there’s no earthing on any of the light fixtures (possibility of shocks from light switches) and many of the fixtures are in the wrong place for the new layout, so maybe our initial reaction was a little harsh…

On the upside, we benefited from being on-site with the plumbers (saved some cost by omitting another radiator and agreed the boiler/water tank location) and the electrician (fine-tuned ceiling speaker cable termination points and saved more cost by omitting the entry intercom).

Shaun and Jon have also had their thinking caps on and have come up with a solution to the window/lintel issue. It involves a product called Helifix and a technique of cutting grooves into the bricks above the windows, pouring in resin, inserting a steel rod running above the window, before adding more resin. Sounds good, we just need confirmation from the engineer…

So, lots going on but we’re a little daunted by how many issues we’re uncovering and naturally, how much it’s going to cost… But as Shaun says, “once you’ve seen something, you can’t unsee it”. And in the long run, we’d rather have the peace of mind of knowing we’re fixing a lot of issues that would eventually have had to be fixed anyway. Probably.