RetroPHit

By ArachneToo

Problem, big problem

I tend not to look at my personal phone at work and I don't have audible notifications but something made me look at it at 9.56 this morning. Four minutes earlier the site manager had posted in the site management WhatsApp group a series of disastrous photos and three videos of the state of my bay window. They showed that the stone cill (thickly covered in black waterproofing gunk) was not attached to the bricks. Already (see here) the bricks were barely attached to each other. There was almost nothing holding up the roof of the bay - the wood was completely rotten.

The site manager is a master of all trades and very phlegmatic. His motto is 'Anything is possible.' In the third, four-second, video in which his hand rocks the stone away from the brick, the only sound is his voice saying 'Shit'. He wrote, 'Hi all. We have a problem, big problem. Roof structure and parts of the wall is in very bad condition. I need decision. Windows cannot be installed.'

I imagine he was relieved that my reply, 'Obviously I have to pay to get this sorted out. Have to leave the technical side to others,' was only four minutes after his post.

Four minutes after that the building firm manager posted, '[The site manager] is going to remove the top four courses of brick and rebuild them. Remove the roof, new timber and then retile it. Windows installers will come back to fit the windows once completed.'

24 minutes later the site manager wrote, ' After carefully checking the condition of the roof... We will try to fix within one day.'

This was how the bay looked when I got to the house at 3.30 today. The windows installers were already starting to install the new bay window - you can see them inside..

The repair is not to the quality the site manager usually works to, nor is it my ideal, but it will stand up and it will be weatherproof. I am hugely grateful that my skilled builders are responsive problem-solvers.

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