Day 27: Some work on the windows...

Things proceed very slowly on the house. Our windows were due to arrive Friday 14, then were rescheduled for Tues 18, actually arrived Mon 17, when of course the builders weren’t there. They turned up on Tuesday and fitted one of the glazed windows and the (glass) back door, plus the frames of two more windows that will be glazed in situ later. The big sliding door unit for the back wall was a bit of a surprise. Architect drew two enormous sliders, and we specifically said ‘no flyscreens’ as we wanted a view of the garden without any blurring. What arrived was a three part slider, with fly screens. We have decided we can cope with having two sliding doors and one fixed panel, rather than two sliders as it actually gives you a bigger opening if the two doors are slid away, and the two panel effect would probably have been too heavy to move easily. And we have found that it isn’t an issue to remove the fly screens, so we will probably have it installed with the screens, then decide whether to remove them afterwards.

Since demolition commenced way back last year, we have had a temporary cable linking the house to the garage lying across the floor of the back part of the house (originally it ran over the roof, so of course it had to come down when the roof was removed). The back windows couldn’t be installed with it there, so everything stopped again until the electrician came to re-route the cable. And the builders haven’t been back since, so no more progress. We thought they were definitely coming back today to get on with the windows, but no…

In the meantime we have ordered and received a water storage tank to go in the light well. We are installing this not for environmental reasons, but rather because there is no inlet to the stormwater system in the light well, and not enough fall to put one in. For years the water from the entire roof has had to travel the whole length of the house, including negotiating two right angle bends, with the inevitable outcome that we get waterfalls from the guttering if there is any heavy rain. Some of the water from the front has been re-routed down the east side of the new roof, and what’s left will drain into our new tank, then be pumped back up and over the roof. And the plumber was supposed to be coming today to fit all that, but did he? No. The tank will just fit through the window space into the light well provided it goes through BEFORE they fit the window frame, so they can’t finish the windows until the plumber comes. We live in hope for tomorrow.