And another flood

The last two blogs covered the trials and tribulations of getting our sewer connection successfully made despite the efforts of Thames Water to scupper our plans with burst water mains and closed roads.  This week started a little better, but Thames Water were again soon to figure in our build.

The builders are now on a mission to get us moved in before we must leave our rental of two years in about 10 days time.  This meant that there were people working on site (including us) on Saturday which was a first.  We had 3 electrician and 2 brickies as well as one builder, and the builder's boss.  Monday was also a first in that we had 17 tradesman on site, all tripping over each other and moaning about the mess left by the 'other tradesman'.  In summary we had:
    Main contractor's company: 3 (site management and labourer)
  Electricians             : 2 (second fix electrics)
  Joiners                  : 3 (doorframes, architrave, skirting boards)
  Decorators               : 2 (sanding and painting)
  Brickies                 : 3 (garage construction)
  Excavator driver         : 1 (site levelling and trench digging)
    Stove fitters            : 2 (fitting the wood-burner)
  Bathroom fitter          : 1 (fitting bathrooms!)
It was also the hottest day of the year so far, so it cost us a small fortune in ice-creams to keep the workers cool and to stop them biting each others heads off.

Stove installation on a hot day!

Tuesday dawned with only a slightly reduced number of people on site.  It was however clear that the sun and heat were taking their toll as 3 tradesman called in sick.  Nevertheless, work continued apace.  The carpet fitters were meant to start their work today, but still with a house-full of people we had managed to delay them for a few days.  Western Power are due to come to the site tomorrow and change the temporary power supply they installed a few months ago to a box on the wall, to a permanent supply to the house.  This meant that yet another trench to carry the cable to the house from the power pole patiently waiting near the corner of the garden.  More ice creams were distributed to keep the workers happy!


At the end of play today, most of the upstairs is complete with some minor work required in the bathrooms and a little joinery outstanding.  The lights need to be fitted in the bedrooms which Lesley and I will do, but we need to find a time when we are not in the way - not easy!

Whilst the joiners are busy fitting the door-frames, skirting boards and architraves, it means that they are not busy finishing off the exterior cladding, so we still have our scaffolding up.  Hopefully they'll get back to this in a day or two.  We are really looking forward to see the scaffolding gone!

Cladding and scaffolding

Come 4:30 in the afternoon, most people had left and the site was then secured, warm and dry until tomorrow morning.  At least, that's what we thought!  Soon after 5pm, we had a phone-call warning us that we had water flowing through the site - again!
One of the advantages of living nearby is that we can fairly quickly hot-foot it around to the site, and clearly this was necessary on this occasion.  It turns out that the water main on the neighbouring Red Lion Street, had burst again.  Water was streaming down Red Lion Street and along our lane.  Until we construct the raised access gateway (soon!), the water found its way on to the plot where it dived under the garage but fortunately avoided going anywhere near the house.  The various drains and pipes included to handle such events as well as the two small springs and the odd drop of rain seemed to cope admirably and a soggy disaster was averted with the water eventually finding its way into the canal.

Water flowing down our lane

Red Lion Street - the source of the water

Near the source 

One of our neighbours appeared with a garden fork and spade and set about clearing the inundated drain at the bottom of Red Lion Street which was partially blocked with debris.  Thanks to his efforts, this intercepted most of the water running down our lane.
A quick look a little later in the evening showed that the flow had become a trickle and it can probably be assumed that Thames Water have turned the water off again.  So that will be another night without water for some of the residents, although oddly, the properties on our lane still have water.

Postscript: Just checked today, and the burst has been repaired with the hole filled but not yet patched with tarmac.  However, the water bubbled up from several places which means that the road was damaged across a wide area with several dips and bulges which must require attention soon.  I wonder how long it will be until the next flood?