Starting Work
The first thing I noticed on purchasing the house was that not one of the internal doors closed. Really not one!! I did get a carpenter in to rectify this around week three and he had to plane and realign 14 (yes 14) doors. Some only held on with paint and others that probably hadn't closed in years and then there was the odd one that wouldn't even open!
The other thing I spotted was the holes in the front door where an old rim lock had been removed. These holes were quickly temporarily filled and a permanent solution is still to be completed.
I also had no heating upstairs and no hot water. Week two a gas engineer came in , flushed through the system and sorted the heating and hot water.
Day two of ownership work started on curing the damp.
The first area that had to be addressed was the pool house roof. This was leaking inside and out of the structure and also causing damp inside the house. This was priority day one.
The pool house was re-sealed to the main house, all the guttering was cleared and additional down pipes added plus a hole cut in the guttering where there was a down pipe but no actual hole.
Finally the house roof overhang guttering was sloping away from the down pipe so a further down pipe had to be added. First £ thousands spent!!
Meanwhile I had an electrician in to remove, add and move plug points in the house. Wanted the ceiling light connection in the lounge moved, the previous wiring for speakers and plug point for TV removed and an additional plug point added to the utility room.
While all this was going on I started work on the dining room link.
I also had to replace all the pool equipment (although haven't sorted heating yet) as this was also leaking leading to the whole of that end of the house being damp.