Site meeting

The builders have found a major problem - all the floor joists downstairs are too narrow and too shallow to support floorboards. I thought the floor was bouncy because the floorboards have woodworm. They may have but that's not the main issue. The builder-in-chief, S (as opposed to the owner of the building firm or the overall site manager, neither of whom were at today's meeting), tried very hard to persuade me that they must be replaced. He didn't seem to understand that he didn't need to persuade me. Of course, of course, they must be replaced. I'm not sure what I'll cut to do it, since the budget is already overcut, but structure comes first.

The person who lived in the house for 60 years before me was a make-do builder. S showed me a novel example of that today -  a scaffolding pole has been inserted under the front-room floorboards to hold the bay up. Hmm. But I don't think there'll be too many more surprises like this as almost everything is uncovered now. Even the stairs have gone, which is a little disconcerting. 

S told the architect and me that he used to work in a team of 14. Nine of them went back to Poland when 'coronavirus' (a diplomatic word for 'Brexit') happened but he'll be bringing some of them back here to work on my house in due course. I'm very pleased about that. I don't know about the current state of construction training in Poland but they kept high-quality training going long after the UK had turned apprenticeships into candy floss.

I asked what the current estimated finish date is. For the last six weeks those further up the hierarchy have been saying mid-October but S said that with luck I'll be back in by Christmas. The architect looked alarmed and asked what I thought of that. I told him that I'd never believed the October date and have budgeted (rent for my attic and other time-based costs) till the end of December. I'm bewildered that so many people in the building trade simply can't estimate either costs or time.