Quite a setback today. Since we started we’ve experienced a few difficult times, such as wondering if there might be some insurmountable problem with the site which had caused the previous owners to walk away, suffering the planning delays and complications of the bats, worrying about our health and safety responsibilities, watching rainwater pee through the roofs as we tried in vain to get the building weather-tight etc. While all stressful, none of these came about through malevolence or hostility – they were simply the challenges of building or the vagaries of what Mother Earth were throwing at us.
Today’s set-back however comes from the scoundrel of a renderer that we employed. He’s demanded more money if he’s to complete the job, (which he claims is bigger than he’d understood – even though he’d measured it himself!), and all perfectly timed to maximise our difficulty, given how much he’s done, the deposit we’ve paid, and the need to get it finished before the final zinc work which is booked in. We may live to regret it but Chris’ immediate response was to part ways with him. We now have the challenges of finding a contractor who’s willing to complete a job half-way through and then try to recover some of our deposit. It’s the first, and we trust last and only, untrustworthy tradesman we’ve dealt with.
Chris and Bev - Heads in the Clouds 