Week 65: The Money Pit
No, I'm not talking about the 1986 movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long but my very own not so glamorous hollywood's take on an 80s classic. Difference being it is real life and I’ll be getting peanuts for my contribution and star performance on the set; I mean site haha. I have to improvise and have some fun with it or else I'll never make it to the end. Just when you think things are seemingly moving forward; boom your hit with another obstacle(s). I'll give you the ratio, for every step forward we take, we go back by two. Last week we had the pleasure and the company of a valuer, sent by the bridging company to assess the house to date. With every tick or markings on his sheet I couldn't help but wonder what on earth is he writing? The little visit set us back £714 for what felt like the longest hour and what is even worse you can't even read the body language or facial expression because of the soding Covid ruling of wearing a mask.
Anyway, he kindly pointed out that the roof will most likely need doing.
“THE ROOF DID I HEAR YOU SAY??”
Great how much is this going to set me back by? Bearing in mind materials, specialist tiles, labour and scaffolding; we’re looking at anything between £4000-£5000. To make matters worse this is not something we included in the budget but given the age of the property it's not something we could totally rule out. It's one of those tricky ones as a full structural survey could quite easily have pointed this out but that doesn't come cheap and where do you draw the line? Then why not do an extensive survey to check the outside drainage, soil report and the list can get out of hand. I have to put this loss down to experience I'm afraid. Luckily we have some provisions as another structural job which was on the horizon will give us the means to do so. With careful consideration we have decided not to build the entire side wall but half of the left elevation where the main problem sits. This will save us £3,500 which can be moved across to accommodate the roof. There goes my fancy kitchen or that bit of landscaping I was hoping for.
Property is great, you will learn to work under pressure and how to find solutions to real problems in hand.
The assessor also pointed out the following big jobs will need to be addressed sooner rather than later:
Rebuild or partial build of the left elevation
Old existing conservatory, it will cost us more to take it out than to keep it in
The old existing utility room will need to be brought back into use, floors leveled with a course of damp proof
Excavation of the huge garden to clear out the forest in the back
Erect a fire wall separating our house from the neighbour for safety and compliance
Wood worms in the upper wall panels
The worms! Unfortunately this was discovered after the house was completely stripped. Only then can one identify the full extent of damage to a particular house.
You see I didn't lie to you when I was calling this ‘the money pit’
Once the above list is tackled we can safely say the rest becomes a normal renovation. For instance heating upgrades, new kitchen/bathrooms and decorating basically the kind of project we should’ve embarked on in the first place.