A Self Build Diary - Day 63 - erection issues

well I have been pretty poor about keeping the log daily, a pattern I shall work pretty hard to break.

It has been a hugely busy week, not just on site but with family and work.

For those that don't know mrs g is due to give birth any time, so getting on top of work has been a priority.

On to what's going on on site.

Well my last post on day 52 stated that by the end of this week we would be water tight as the scaffold tent should be completed. Well we have been truly let down by the scaffolder who is not only poor at communicating but seems incapable of accepting responsibility for the actions of his staff and team. The builders hoped to be back on site last Thursday whilst the scaffolders sheeted in, but the structure wasn't ready and the roof wasn't in place.

After some strong conversations late last week the scaffolders were told that builders WILL be on site on Tuesday morning and any down time for them will result in penalties for the scaffolders. We agreed a two week build schedule and that finished on Friday, we have given them an extra day (as well as this weekend) so lets see whether my strategy works????

If they have had their way they wanted an extra week, which would have pushed our already very tight schedule back. The builders have been magnificent, juggling things around to fit around the delay which hopefully means we will recover the time quickly.

At this point early on, I have learnt to ensure that you fix time plans with contractors and decide on the consequences of them being broken before they start. It's difficult sometimes to make sure that they have no reason to drop you for someone else even if it is for "just a day".

So we will hopefully see the base of the walls starting to form from Tuesday onwards, either that or the scaffolder will be into some serious penalties!

So for now this is your update for day 63, I promise to be back tomorrow, unless I'm in a labour ward!

Neil