Monday 17 October 2011

Progress report (not!)

No photos, because there hasn't been any progress! Extremely annoyed with all the companies supposed to be doing work for us.

The general builder hasn't shown up for weeks, despite promises. Apparently people are sick. They still have to excavate the cellar floors, lay new waste pipes, pour a new floor, remove the rest of the old kitchen floor and optionally install a rainwater cistern and excavate the field for a heat pump collector. To mention just a few things.

The window company that we met many weeks ago, and that was supposed to come back with a revised offer (relatively minor changes) STILL hasn't come back with the new offer, so we don't know when they say 6-8 weeks, will it be 6-8 weeks after receiving the new offer or after they measured up the windows.

The tender for the external insulation and facade work still hasn't been published (although we did take a long time considering what materials to use). Winter is coming, and it's already frosty here, and that's not good for the lime render we'd like to use. That, and the fact that the dormers are lined with wood-based insulation that should only be exposed to the elements for a few weeks, means I'm getting extremely impatient.

We have an offer for the heating system, which is relatively expensive, so we should go to tender, but that also seems to be going nowhere, so I'm tempted to simply take the offer (with me doing much of the installation of floor and wall heating to save as much as possible) just to get something moving!

And then we're told this is normal! I had high hopes for the German building trade...

2 comments:

  1. Another one for the "Myth of German Efficiency" file. Hope things get moving again soon.

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  2. I've several of those, dating back to our first few months in Germany. As someone said, it's not so much a builder's code, more sort of non-binding guideline. And clearly international!

    Still, did a bit of demolition this evening and saved ourselves another 270 Euro. Tomorrow evening it's beam-cleaning time! Love that job :)

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