Nigh on 5 weeks since they started a (potentially) 2 week job, the scaffolding is down and we can finally see the house properly now. Whilst the house is now brighter, we are now seeing the commercial side of the process so to speak and it doesn’t help that the boss man’s people skills leave a lot to be desired. I fully appreciate they get paid by the council for insulating houses and not fixing other things but when “promises” are made or things are broken it can be frustrating.
We were told at the start, that electrical items that were wired into a socket and not hooked up via a plug would be taken down by them and put back up by them, but if it was a plugged item it was our responsibility. That was fine. I removed the security light at the front of the house (3 pin plugged) and they removed the security light at the back of the house which was fully wired. Today, they say they aren’t putting the light back up at the back as its our responsibility.
Before they started the job, we asked about the back gate and the response was that a few fence strips would be removed and the entire gate area would be brought forwards by 2 or 3 inches (don’t worry it will be sorted). Yesterday, the response was “we aren’t doing that, we don’t get paid for doing that, your option is either that you lose 3 inches of your gate (making it nearly impossible to get the wheelie bin through!) or we dig out a chunk of the insulation that we’ve just put in and leave you with a gaping hole…your choice” (paraphrased). Thankfully the chippy came up with a solution which has meant the gate could stay the same width and the prophet of doom was appeased.
Several weeks ago when we saw how they had boxed around the bay window, leaving some of the old render visible, the comment was “we can’t render over it (why??) but we can put a coat of paint on it so at least it matches in colour. The response today? No can do. However may give you a bit of paint if you want to do it yourself.
Several weeks ago they broke one of the fence panels at the back and two different people said that anything that is broken will be replaced. Yesterday, there was an instruction to the chippy to “mend it”. The chippy confirmed it was broken beyond repair and now hopefully the fence panel will be replaced tomorrow but only after the chippies and the snag list guy explained to the boss that it needed doing (Update: Fence panel turned up on Friday and hopefully will be fitted Monday or Tuesday).
Having said all that, the guys actually doing the job itself have been great. Obviously we don’t hear much from the Ukrainians and Poles but the Brummies who have been around recently are good chaps. I appreciate they are running a business and every £12 fence panel has to be costed to make sure its justifiable but if a window cleaner was cleaning our windows and smashed one by mistake, he can’t say ” I cant replace the window because its not in my business model”. You take it on the chin if something happens that you don’t expect. Once we get the fence panel sorted, the extra render that landed on the bay window cleaned up and the silicon around the downstairs windows and doors, we are done. This means that next week we can paint the fence, do all the garden organising we need to do (move all the garden stores, sort the mess out from the last 5 weeks and get the security light back up) and then hopefully by end of play next weekend we’ll be back to normal.
