A day in the life…
Article appeared in Professional Builder, January 2008
In association with HBXL, we take a look at a typical day in the life of a builder. Here David Stayte, general builder from Evesham describes his work following the recent floods which hit the area.
28th November
10am – Meeting with an insurance engineer in the little village of Alderton the day I should be starting work there. The job seems straight forward enough, caused by the floods. What had happened was that the excess water had somehow washed some of the hardcore away from under the kitchen floor of the property, which then sank in places. There were fractures in the stairwell wall, big enough to get a finger in and the kitchen units had dropped by 15mm. Fortunately, the water did not get inside the house at all.
29th November
6.30am – Next day my alarm is buzzing away. I feel worse than I did when I went to bed, but I know, following my tea and toast, I will be back on form.
8.15am – Back at Alderton. First job was to remove some plaster diagonal across the cracks to make room for some strapping. When this was screwed and bonded this should be sufficient to stop any future hairline cracks appearing.
10.00am – True to form it’s builders break time, and this time I have not got ‘Holly’ the family dog from the previous job to help me out!
10.30am – Try to remove the downstairs loo, which has been leaning slightly one way since the floor moved. Despite my best efforts it cracks on removal so I decide to get a more up to date one.
11.20am – its off to the merchants to get wall plate straps for the wall fractures, bags of latex self levelling and a close coupled pan and cistern to replace the one in the downstairs WC. I also got bonding and multi-finish to make good the walls.
12.50pm – Back on site and its time to clean the WC floor, which luckily for me, was bare concrete. I then gave it a coat of PVA, which I let go almost dry before applying the self levelling.
2.45pm – Helen, the lady of the household, calls in with a well times cup of coffee. Why does it taste better when somebody else makes it?
3.00pm – Time for ear defenders and safety glasses as I decide to finish the day chipping plaster from more of the cracks in preparation for the straps.
4.30pm – Time to have a clear up, pack the tools away and head off home. I enjoy my job as a builder and today has been no exception, especially as it means helping other people get their lives back on track after suffering from flood damage. After dinner, with the next day already planned, I usually do some books or go on the web.
USEFUL LINKS
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