For a while no we’ve struggled to get people in to give us quotes on the little jobs that needed doing around the house, just to stop it falling in around our ears really, the odd bit of plastering her, a couple of plumbing jobs there, some window work. you see when you try and get people to come out and do these small jobs, they never arrive it’s not worth their trouble (why i went and got a degree and didn’t just become a plumber or plasterer i don’t know.. well i do, I’m not very handy).

In the end it all got a bit frustrating, so we decided to go for the other extreme, get all the big jobs done, so over the last few weeks we’ve got quotes for the windows, the roof, and replacing the boiler. It’s amazing how easy it is to get these quotes when the costs run in the thousands.

The Roof

The roof has holes, and it’s the original 100 year old slate roof, with no lining, and lots of slipped slates, when a slate falls of ,we quite litrially have a hole in the roof, you can see the sky from the loft. there’s nothing wrong with the slate, slate is slate it doesn’t degrade, but it’s not fixed on very well.

We’ve had two Quotes so far, one from Lacy Roofing, and another from Chestnut Roofing, Lacy just did a drive by quote, while Chestnut at least looked around the back of the house. this is important because we have a huge wooden bit at the back that is totally rotted and needs replacing Lacy just missed this bit off.

Lacy where a bit funny too, the quote they gave us was for concrete tiles, which have a life span of around 60+ years, we want to use the slate, after all it’s nice and it lasts forever. so when i rang Mr Lacy and asked for the quote with slate, he was all uppity, “it’ll cost you more” (this is because they sell your slate on!), “and you’ll be using a second hand material”, yes the slate it’s billions of years old, it will last many many more, so lacy are losing (despite being cheaper) anyway i think we need more quotes the Chestnut one was way of the scale, and no one has yet looked at the underside of the roof, i want to know that the main struts are OK, before i let anyone start the job, otherwise it could spiral quite quickly.

The Windows

The Windows are a bit easier, we want to keep the sash windows, because well they are nice (if a little rotted) for sash windows you have two choices, find a joiner (who you trust) and get him to repair the windows,or get Ventrolla a sash window company to retrofit the windows with some modern gadegetly and make them all nice again. we’ve gone with ventrolla, it’s not cheep the quote for our 12 windows has come in at ?7,500. but at then end we will have fantastic windows.

True we might move out and then the next person will just replace them with UPVC, but I’m not sure, one they are repaired and lovely, you would want to keep them, besides, i think Sash windows (fully repaired) will add value to the house. We don’t know how much UPVC would cost (and we are not about to invite a windows sales man into the house to tell us) but i think we are only talking around ?1,500 difference so we are going with the sash.

Besides UPVC can have a life span as little as 25 years, our windows are 100 years old, they are shot, but they can be repaired, UPVC units have to be replaced.

The Boiler

The boiler is dying, he last people to have the house before, put the cheapest heating in they could find, hence the radiators are to small for the house, and the boiler is constantly having problems, and because it’s cheep tat, no one will touch it. So pre-empting the total failure on the coldest day of the year, we are going to get a new boiler, some of the radiators changed, and a warmer house for all.This is probably the first thing we will get done summer is the best time to get a heating engineer before everyone turns there heating back on, it brakes and they are on 24 hour call out all winter. we’ve had a very good quote from Merseyside Central Heating, so When i remember we will be calling them and arranging a time for the work to be done.

Potentially if we get our act together we could have a totally new roof, windows and heating system by the end of September.