More rantings!

Spent a very pleasant morning snoozing on the sofa and then this afternoon went to the river for my walk.  It was very hot and sunny down at the river so obviously I had to do lots of splish, splash, sploshing.

And sorry; but now Ann’s going to have to do more ranting re the big Edinburgh flat refurbishment………………..  It’s therapy writing everything down to get it off her chest??

Iain met with a potential new company this morning and guess what?..............  They flagged up a problem which hadn’t even been mentioned before……………… the walls that we want knocking down may not be approved because of fire regulations.  In effect we will be creating a big open plan space – hall/livingroom/kitchen with doors off to the bathroom & two bedrooms.  Ann’s calling it urban loft living.  Apparently it could be considered to be a fire risk if the bedroom doors open directly off the kitchen area, which of course they don’t, but once the kitchen and living room doors have been removed, in theory they do.  It’s all very complicated.  So Iain was going to pop down to the planning department this afternoon and see if he could find someone to chat to.

However, this new company suggested blocking up the kitchen door and only knocking down the wall between the kitchen/living room (which isn’t a load bearing wall).  We had actually thought about this before but because we didn’t think we could move hot and cold water tanks which are located in a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, we rejected it.  Also if the kitchen door is blocked up it would make the hall very dark.  However, at this stage in the proceedings anything is worth considering.

And then…………. this afternoon we got an email from our original Project Manager (who hasn’t contacted us since last Thursday) pretty much blaming the engineer for everything.  Apparently this is the fourth engineer that they’ve used as others wouldn’t get involved due to the construction of the building.  Well, were we told this???  No we were not.  And now he’s saying that the engineer needs to get into the flat above and below because he needs to check the whole structure of the building and the cost for these additional investigative proceedings would be about £1,500 + VAT???  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen??!!

The very strange thing is though………….. that in the email the PM says that a better idea may be to block off the kitchen door and just take down the non load bearing wall.  Very, very odd that we get this email just a few hours after someone else has suggested it.  Call Ann suspicious but she suspects that either Iain or the new company have talked to an engineer who already has knowledge of the property. 

…………And he still wants to meet Iain at the flat to discuss the project.  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen either??!!  Apart from anything else we still haven’t received details of the heating that they recommended on 3rd March.

At the end of the day; he’s lied to us.  I don’t really care if the engineer lied to him.  The PM should have checked that a building warrant had been applied for before he assured us that it had.

Anyway, I’m wittering on now.  Onwards & upwards!!!