The down side

Starting a house-build project and signing a contract with a builder, especially in a foreign country, is definitely an exciting event, an event of a lifetime actually. It’s tempting to think that when you’ve reached that stage, surely it’s just a matter of sitting back and enjoying watching things happen, until the big day arrives and you move into your new home.

Well, no, as readers who’ve been following my project may already have begun to understand. Things are not that straightforward. For one thing, as has become quite apparent, just getting the builder to start work is a challenge in itself, as their main priority is to have a bank of projects in hand that will ensure them a regular stream of work and income and they don’t worry about actually completing them until there’s a threat of missing the legally enforceable twelve month term that is written into projects like mine that would mean their then having to pay daily penalties to buyers like me.

Only then when the reality hits them do they start to get wheels in motion to grind the project out and one suspects that in that event, there might be a real temptation on their part to cut corners and take shortcuts to get to the finish line. With this in mind it’s worth staying really observant to watch what’s going on and checking on the quality of what’s being turned out, which is helped in my own case by being permanently on site by virtue of living in my caravan.

Now, I’ve tried to emphasise to the builders that my purpose is not to spy on them but on the other hand, I’ve made no secret that I’d be keeping a permanent eye on progress and that’s why, as well as wanting to have a visual record, I’ve been going up onto site once or twice a day to see what’s been going on. It’s also why, when I’ve been able to, I’ve taken my own tools and measuring equipment and physically checked to make sure that what’s been done not only meets my plans to the letter but also comes completely up to scratch.

You might therefore be thinking, what would happen if it didn’t – come up to scratch that is. Well now I can tell you, because that’s precisely what has happened, and bear in mind that as stressful as this might be dealing with contractor problems in one’s own country in one’s own language, here in France there’s also the potential added complication of the ‘language barrier’ increasing the stress level quite significantly. If you let it.

First, what has happened, you might be wondering. I’ve dropped clues in my previous posts about various things that I haven’t been totally happy with, like my having to go around and correct some work after the workmen had left for the day, the concrete oversite not being properly level, the contractor delaying the project start for so long that it means the house will be built at the most unfavourable, coldest, wettest time of the year, things like that that wouldn’t necessarily impinge on the form and quality of the house in the long run. However, the red line is anything that does the opposite, and that’s what has just occurred.

Work on putting up the exterior walls started last week and I did a post at the time showing when I went around with a level to check the first course of blocks that had been laid, I found it to be perfectly level all around. This allayed my fears about the oversite because that meant that if I had to I could insist on a second screed of concrete being laid on the oversite to make it perfectly level throughout the whole house, which I will do if it isn’t offered automatically when the time comes.

The first course of blocks is critical to the accuracy and integrity of the final wall structure, and after it had been allowed to cure for a couple of days, the ‘maçon’ returned to continue working. I watched from a distance and was impressed to see that he was carefully checking his lines horizontally and vertically and concluded that I could confidently leave him to his own devices without any unnecessary interruptions from me.

But then fate took a hand. After the second day, the original ‘maçon’ was replaced by another. I wasn’t too concerned at the time as I concluded that the building company evidently hire workmen all to the same high standard and that the second workman would be as discriminating as the first. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Whereas the first ‘maçon’ took care to ensure that all of his vertical and horizontal lines were true, the second appears to have assumed that his eye would be perfectly adequate. And whereas the former maçon ensured that blocks were all cut and placed accurately, the second apparently thought that just sticking them up would be good enough.

Well it’s not. After considering my position I thought that rather than escalating matters directly with the office, a call to Didier, the new clerk of works, would be in order and a site meeting between us was agreed for 9.00 am this morning. At 9.05 am I got a call from Didier telling me that he couldn’t make it because of an ‘urgent matter’ and I made it clear that when I arrange a meeting with someone I expect them to show up. He said that he’d come tomorrow and I ‘suggested’ that he might like to come this afternoon, which he did.

Before getting involved in the detail with him I explained that my father was in the building industry as a surveyor and senior clerk of works for the whole of his working life and I’d been in and around building projects from an early age. I told him that from senior school through university I’d worked for a building company for three years and a plumbing company for almost the same amount of time and had worked on site with both together with other workers and on my own account.

I explained that I’d also worked for Ready Mixed Concrete Limited during the project planning and on-site phases of projects with its clients, that I’d bought and sold six houses, the last one in France, all of which I’d carried out projects on, some quite extensive, and this house in Fleurac is my seventh. I think that by the end of it he understood that I’ve been around the block a bit construction-wise and I then went on to show Didier all of the problems that had led up to our meeting.

My description of the second ‘maçon’ was not very flattering and I said that on no account would he be permitted to come back on site. Didier said that the first workman would be returning to see what could be done to correct the more minor faults left by the second man but he accepted that part of the structure would have to be taken down and rebuilt. He said that he’d also like to bring the second man back to show him the problems that he’d created, which I agreed to.

I won’t go into things in any more detail but instead I’ll report on what happens next. I also pointed out that the site was in such a mess that it looked more like a demolition site than a construction site. I’m sure Didier got the message and I’m betting that under the circumstances the office will also have been made aware of what’s going on because there are cost implications for the company, of course.

However, I will mention one thing. The separate WC has a floor-mounted toilet positioned in the middle of its shorter wall, the waste outlet for which was put in place months ago in the form of a fairly large diameter plastic pipe before they laid the concrete floor screed. Now that the house’s front wall is in place it’s apparent that it is totally incorrectly placed some way off-centre towards the wall itself.

I said to Didier that that’s a big problem because there’s no way that I will accept having the waste pipe visible out to one side of the toilet as it was supposed to be hidden behind it. Poor Didier’s face fell, because as a new employee he had nothing to do with the positioning of the pipe in the first place. However, regrettably he’s inherited the problem along with all the others and it’ll be in his hands to resolve it.