Broken Supply Chain - To Panic or not to Panic!

Anyone who has ever done building work knows that it never goes entirely smoothly. There are always unexpected problems to deal with. It's all a question of degree - real schedule & heart stopping surprises, down to minor inconveniences. It's all a question of how you deal with the unexpected. Are you a lateral thinker, are you positive, do you look for solutions, are you prepared to compromise?

If you aren't, don't even get started, because the stress will get to you.

My timing is dreadful. This is not a good time to be doing a big renovation & extension. The building trade is in crisis. The supply chain is broken. Materials are in short supply & have increased hugely in price. It doesn't matter what you need, there are long lead times & suppliers are fraught. Getting hold of people is a nightmare, despite the fact that this is 21st century communication. I'm tired of phone menus & music, voicemail, being cut off, non response to emails, people not doing their job.

Not everyone. Some do their darndest to help you through the issues - Bless them all. But they are in the minority.

So last week was a shocker:-

• The order for the ultra modern metal cladding for my extension, which should have been confirmed at the beginning of September wasn't. So now the company can't do it until Feb / March 2022.
• The bifold doors & windows, also for the extension, which I ordered a couple of months ago & should have been ready within a few weeks, are not even on the horizon. The lead time suddenly stretched to 16 weeks - February 2022. They must have known that before now!
• The company who are supposed to be fitting my sliding sash windows this week are not answering the phone or responding to answerphone messages. The plastering can't be finished until the windows are done.
  
• I've been waiting on accurate measurements so I can design my kitchen for months.

There is progress. The foundations are being built & the extension itself should be quick to build. It just won't have any cladding, doors, or windows. The flooring I ordered is coming this week, so the bathroom can be installed. The garden & groundworks are a sea of mud & rubble, but have been cleared. The shed I have ordered is coming this week - really looking forward to that. (Just need to find someone to erect it). The company I found to strip all the internal doors is collecting them this week. I really want to re-use them. They are original & solid wood, but are thick, sticky, smoke grimed paint.

Literally every single thing from the floor up to the loft, in both the renovation & the extension involves choices & costings. The only way to deal with it all is to be organised & ahead of the curve. I'm trying to plan the kitchen - need to get to grips with the sorftware. Ditto wardrobe planning software. I have a notebook & pen beside my bed so I can write down the things that spring into my brain in the middle of the night. How obsessive is that!

But - and it's a big but. This is only a house. It isn't COP 26. I don't live in a war or famine zone. There are more important things than my home.

 

Renovation & Building

 Stripping out - Thick lime plaster walls, lath & plaster ceilings & internal walls. 

Filthy, noisy, dusty work.

Mountains of rubbish - Several huge skips.

Demolishing - the sun room & old outside loo & larder - Spot the difference.

Front & back garden - 4 trees removed & huge shrubs drastically pruned. Stump grinder for massive Lime tree.

Mini digger scraping off all the weeds. Suddenly the garden is much bigger.

Help - I need a landscape gardener to tell me what to do!

Boarding Out -All the internal outside walls are well insulated under the plasterboard.

Bricking in - the old side door. A new one will go where the window is.

New Foundations - Literally & metaphorically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message from the past - Done in 1950, something to do with papering the room.

It's definitely all been a learning curve. Always interesting, sometimes exciting, sometimes frustrating & occasionally quite depressing. But the people I have working for me are amazing & hard working. I'm really grateful for their practical experience & knowledge. 

Who knows when it will be finished though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ageing, Pain & Disability

My father & mother in law went through their lives until they were in their 90's relatively pain free & healthy. My father said he had never had a headache. My father in law never seemed to be ill in all the years I knew him. My mother always seemed old to me & in a lot of pain. The older I get the more I think that Genetics has a lot to do with health - I am my mother reincarnated. Fortunately I don't think my daughter will follow my genetics, she has my mother in law's body.

38% of adults in the UK were in daily chronic pain in 2020. Over 8 million people in the UK said they have chronic pain 19.5 million people in the UK were in pain at least once a day. Chronic Pain affects 1 in 3 young adults

https://www.formulatehealth.com/blog/chronic-pain-statistics-uk-2020

 

You would think that statistics like that would mean that there would be lots of research into pain & effective treatments. Versus Arthritis has produced a new report on Chronic Pain this year (2021). The recommendations starting on Page 93 make interesting reading to someone like me, because there is little similarity to our lived experience.

https://www.versusarthritis.org/media/23782/chronic-pain-report-june2021-print-friendly.pdf

Chronic pain is largely unseen, unless like me you have "flare ups". Normally I look normal. During the current episode I have barely been able to walk, stand, sit, lie down, carry anything or dress myself. When it's that bad I look like the elderly woman I am. The pain & lack of sleep is exhausting. You are isolated in a cocoon of disability & pain especially if you live alone. Nothing seems to work.

Doctors prescribe drugs of varying efficacy to treat the symptoms. Alternative therapists can help a lot, but in my experience temporarily. That is a lifeline though. Exercise, distraction technique, pacing & a positive attitude helps a lot. Each chronic pain sufferer has to find what works best for them.

But we all need the medical community to adopt the recommendations for treatment plans sooner rather than later, because living with pain is no fun, however positive you try to be.

Neighbourliness

We live on a crowded island. We don't have a big landmass like France (126% more landmass) or Germany (47% more landmass). That means that although we value home ownership, again in contrast to our European neighbours, we don't generally end up with a big plot of land all round. 51% of Germans owned their homes, 65% of the French did & 63% -73% Brits did in the same period.

This space poverty is particularly true in Urban areas. So it is important that we "live & let live". That we are generous spirited. Covid has shown that we can keep an eye out for our neighbours & often help where we can.

I have only once had a problem with neighbours in the whole 55 years that I have lived in my own home. That was 3 houses ago. The man was very wealthy & very obnoxious. I was actually afraid of him & that is not something that usually affects me. He was simply a bully. However Karma worked against him & he lost a lot of money & had to sell up.

Renovating my house has been a revelation. Most of my neighbours to be have been extremely welcoming, friendly & tolerant of the noise, disruption, dust & mess created by the work - I am so grateful. I am just surprised at the occasional level of intrusiveness & unnecessary difficulty that can be caused. 

The neighbour who stopped work on the felling of my lime tree because she erroneously said there was a  TPO on the tree, caused the whole team of tree surgeons to stop work. There was a lengthy delay while we tried to confirm that we were right & she was wrong. I was extremely worried. Frankly it was self interested & malicious. She just didn't want to be able to see my house from the back of her house.

Then a neighbour informed my builder that she had checked our planning permission & wanted him to know that she knew that the depth of the extension had been reduced by the planners. She would be checking to see that he complied. The reduction is 15cms - 6" in old money! Of course we will comply. Why would we want the hassle of having to remove anything wrongly constructed? What I really object to is the implication that I and my builder are dishonest & untrustworthy. 

 

 

It isn't the first time that we have been made to feel that we would not comply with "building regulations" or any relevant legislation. It isn't pleasant. To be honest it leaves a bad taste. 

I just need to focus on the much bigger proportion of really nice neighbours.

Land Ownership

In theory I own a house & the land it stands on. I've been an unmortgaged home owner for decades. That same plot of land will have been owned by a succession of people way back. If you go back far enough I imagine it was countryside. After I've gone it will belong to someone else.

I don't feel I actually own it. I'm just the temporary guardian of the land & the house that sits on it. I should maintain it in the best possible state.

I watched a really good documentary about the climate emergency showing communities in the Southern Hemisphere who had actually had their islands swallowed up by rising sea levels. They had thought their homes were permanent. They discovered that they are not, because of our lack of stewardship of the planet we live on.

People all over the world are losing their homes for all sorts of reasons. Some are climate related, some are because of man's misconceived belief that we own the countries we live in. That belief starts wars. Population migrations have already reached pandemic proportions. Countries are becoming protectionist. They fail to see that every human being has the right to a home, safety, food & the necessities of life.

People will flee from flood, fire, rising seas, war, famine, poverty & all the terrors which beset the world today. We have to recognise that we cannot be protectionist. We cannot sit in our homes in a relatively secure country & pull up the drawbridge to keep refugees out. It matters little whether they are fleeing persecution, devastation or poverty. They have the same rights that we do. 

The simple fact is that all human beings everywhere have the right to expect other human beings to help them in any way they can. I'm not a Christian, but the "Good Samaritan" story epitomises all religious & moral belief.

I recognise that this will play havoc with our own little lives. It will devastate the world economy & big business. But if we don't truly understand this there will not just be civil unrest. The world will suffer a huge upheaval. Again I'm not a Christian. But maybe that's what Armageddon was warning us about.

We have heard he message. We have to come together to find solutions.

Vaccines & Vaccine Refusers

I've got an arm full of Covid & an arm full of Flu. The whole thing went like clockwork. So easy & efficient thanks to the NHS & a lot of volunteers. Doubt the Government had much to do with the organisation given their track record.

As a child I was vaccinated against Diphtheria, Smallpox, TB, Polio. Not sure if I had the Measles, Mumps & Rubella. As an adult I have been vaccinated every time I have travelled abroad to places like Africa & the Middle East. I've regularly had Tetanus injections. As a medically vulnerable pensioner I have been vaccinated against Pneumonia & Influenza. When I've had hospital procedures I have been injected with anesthetics & been on drips. Here I am at 76 & I've never had any of those diseases. The vaccines worked! I have not had any ill effects at all. I am extremely fortunate that vaccines were available.

 

All through my life I have had health problems which needed medication. I have taken everything from Morphine to Paracetamol to control symptoms.

I do not know what was in any vaccines or medications. I never asked. I was just grateful that they were available.

What is so different about the Covid vaccines? What on earth justifies all of the "conspiracy theorists", the "Covid deniers", the "vaccine refusers". Have all of them never had any vaccine or taken any drug? Have they chosen to suffer all through their lives when they have been ill? If they have had vaccines or taken drugs, have they known exactly what was in them? No - of course not. 

The whole thing is so difficult to understand, because it seems so irrational. Why has it happened? Is it the prevalence of Social Media & Fake News? Idiot politicians like Trump who suggested drinking Bleach. 

I accept that there are a small percentage of people who have a good reason for not having the vaccine. But the majority are simply misguided & frankly gullible.

The problem is that their refusal affects everyone else.

Keeping my Head above Water

Swimming helps me on so many levels - fitness, range of movement, distraction from problems, calm meditation. I love it & do it 3 times a week. I would do more if I had the time. I'm happy to have my head in or under water.

It's so different to life at the moment. Sometimes I do just about feel that I am keeping my head above water. Sometimes, although I'm not drowning, I need a lot of advice & information. Normally, I know stuff. I'm within my comfort zone. Not so renovating my house & building an extension.

I just don't know the answers to questions & I'm beginning to feel that I must be a pain as a client. It's all quite technical & there are so many areas to research. What do I know about groundworks, underpinning, modern building techniques, wiring...? I can do the selection of fixtures & fittings. I know what I like. But the more complex things mean I don't actually know the right questions to ask, never mind the answers.

Getting 3 quotes for everything has been a revelation. Each person you talk to gives you different information, so by the time you see the final one you do, just possibly, know what to ask.  Take the driveway. I want it to be permeable & as eco as possible. One company say I need to have all the concrete dug up & removed & then start laying the resin based gravel. Another company says no, not all the concrete needs to go, only the poor stuff in the front garden. The side drive can just have 3 drainage channels. Well, how do I know which is right? I just want the rainwater to get into the soil.

I don't think I have ever had to make so many choices in such a relatively short period of time. It is daunting. Thank goodness for the internet. Thank goodness I don't have a "proper job".

Planning Consent & Tree Preservation Orders.

I have never liked Rollercoasters. But that is what I am on, holding tight, closing my eyes & trusting that the whole structure won't collapse & send me flying into the abyss.

Dealing with the City Planning Department during Covid isn't easy. They have problems, mainly staffing issues I think. So yesterday afternoon I was on a high. An email from my lovely Architect finally came several weeks & several supposed dates late. I have got full planning consent. Huge relief. The groundwork for the extension can begin. Hopefully it will be quick to build. But that depends on whether we can get the contractors who do the specialist standing seam cladding in before Christmas.

Today my tree surgeon team arrived with 4 vehicles & a mass of kit to take down the huge Lime tree in the middle of the garden plus 3 smaller trees. I've waited for months, because they are really busy over the summer period & there are rules whilst birds are nesting. A neighbour apparently came round & told them there was a Tree Preservation Order on the Lime. She said she liked watching the birds, (there aren't any to see in the Lime it's too dense), & she didn't want to see my house. She lives at the back I think. Frantic phone calls to City Planning Tree Department by the main tree surgeon & me. Also a call to my solicitor, because I don't have any of the paperwork for my house because Land Registry have a backlog. The 2 planners dealing with TPO's are not in the office, they are out in the field so a really helpful lady left them both voicemails. 

Both the tree surgeon & I were fairly sure there was no P O on the lime, but we couldn't take the risk. A long stressfull delay until we finally got the go ahead. Huge relief, again. When they started work they discovered, as we expected that the whole of the middle of the tree was rotten. Lime's are very prone to that. So it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Meanwhile I feel shredded. This is a big undertaking, requiring a lot of time & effort. Nothing is going smoothly. 

By the time I move in I think everyone involved will feel a huge sense of relief & achievement.