So, Where Are We Now ?

It is a good question.

We did not see the builders at all last week, but that's Ok, as there is not currently much for them to do. One gutter is not working right, with water running out underneath it and dripping down the wall, so they will need to deal with that, but there is not much else for them until the staircase comes..........

........ which should be happening tomorrow. Delivery at lunchtime apparently. It is coming in 5 pieces, so should make for an interesting assembly project.

Now to cover a few things that happened last week.

Three electricians have now been round. One asked us for some detailed plans, which were posted to him Monday. He is going to quote against those plans, both for doing the work, and for certifying DIY. Another one told me he does not do quotes. He works as a subbie for builders, and other repeat business, so bills his customers on a day rate plus materials basis. They trust him to do a good job for a reasonable price. Having to do quotes just increases his costs. This chap was very impressive, but I am not sure I am willing to just leap in without some form of quote. Jan is even less keen. The final chap is going to give us an estimate of the cost, again based on the plans we have prepared.

A couple of things that got mentioned that may be of interest :

1. Apparently 30% of the new light fittings have to be fitted with low energy bulbs, otherwise we won't pass inspection.
2. We shouldn't have to conform to the new rules about socket and light switch heights.
3. We can replace our external earth spike ("TT" system) with something called "PME" (Protective Multiple Earth). I have not done any research on this but, apparently, if your supply-line is PME enabled, you can pay your electric supplier £75 and they will enable PME on your line. This allows the earth to be routed back to the distributor via the Neutral line. Our electric supply comes by overhead cable, so I checked the local pole. It has a plate nailed to it saying "PME System", so it appears our supply is enabled for this. It would be good to make use of this because the earth spike is rather unsightly.
4. If paying an electrician on a day/hourly rate, it makes a big difference if you (i.e. the customer) marks the position of every socket, switch and light fitting physically on the wall. This saves the time usually spent discussing where things should go - they just come in and start drilling !
5. I offered to save some time/money by cutting out the pattress holes myself in advance. However, it appears that the "modern" electrician has a gadget for doing this, and it only takes about a minute for each one. No saving there then !

Plumber coming Monday with a view to quoting for extending the central heating system. Again, this is something we could do ourselves, but we want to get things moving. Jan has taken a full-time job recently, just to help cover the costs of these things to try and speed things up.

We also have someone scheduled to come and look at extending the alarm system to cover the new rooms.

So, not much has changed, but a lot of things in the pipe-line.