Sorry I haven’t posted recently. The good news is that the rebuild has been completed. Sadly the last few bits and pieces needed to seal the completion took much longer than either we or Executive would have liked. The main issue was with getting hold of some of the trades folk, breaking them out from their new big projects to carry out our itty bitty ones.
So here is a reminder of where we were back in July …..
The old conservatory was beset with problems pretty much from the get go. The Self Fit, the build company, went bust before it was completed. Last works were carried out under the supervision of the Official Receiver. What this meant was that we had no ability to approach the builder for all of the subsequent issues that developed. The 10 Year Warranty never materialised and would not have been worth the paper it was written on. After construction, over the next 25 years, the conservatory slowly subsided in one corner, the one nearest in the photo. The whole structure slowly moved away from the house. All this movement caused leaks to appear, disappear, reappear. Leaks that ranged from small weeps to full on waterfalls. I replaced the flashing and then applied triple overlapping flashing which seemed to pretty much seal the join with the house. We still had leaks along the outermost wall. The patio doors were so out of kilter that for the last two years they had been sealed around with gaffer tape because you could see daylight around the rubber seals. The multi point locking system was pretty much defunct. I had lashed the door handles together using 80lb strain fishing line.
Anyway, that is all past history as we have a nice shiny new conservatory …..
Of course we still have to sort out the garden. The wilderness we laughingly called a lawn was pretty much trashed by all the workers feet and the digger brought in to dig out the footings as well as storage of all the raw materials. As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. The garden is a the project for next year and I’m sure much of the grass will have grown back by the time we get started in the spring. In our climate, unless we have a real hard winter, our grass never stops growing.
Here is a view of the interior of the old conservatory …. minus carpets and most of the furniture …
And here is a view of the interior of the new conservatory ….
Nice shiny tiled floor which is actually level, unlike the old one. So to compensate we bought furniture with wonky legs.
Just look at how much extra light we are getting even on a autumnal sunny day.
We are spending so much more time sitting in our new room. We made a lot of use of our old conservatory, and I know there is a novelty element, but the new room is so much more inviting and more comfortable as there are no drafts.
Every day this is the venue for our morning cuppa and quite often where we have lunch.
Having clear glazing for the roof means I spend quite a bit of time just watching the clouds scudding overhead or the trees swaying in the wind. Very relaxing.
I’d like to offer my thanks to our neighbours for their patience and tolerance while we created noise and dust during the build. For allowing the various contractors to park their vans on their drive, and they even allowed us to take down their fence to give access for the mechanical digger.
I have enjoyed the whole process of knocking down the old conservatory and watching the new one grow, somewhat like the phoenix rising from the ashes. I know that my wife has not enjoyed the experience. All she could see was a mess but it has all been worth it to see the smiles now.
Now its time for us to enjoy, looking forward to spring and summer next year to make full use of the bifold doors and the deck.
So I would like to say a huge thank you to Executive Windows for such a brilliant job.
WrAnTz 