Mess

[Dave Plowman (News)]

A house a couple of doors down changed hands recently and the new owners are having a cellar conversion done before they move in. Still lots of money around, apparently. ;-)

It's being done by the London Basement Company who are a pretty large firm judging by their own trucks delivering building materials etc.

They've rigged up a conveyor belt to take the large quantity of sub-soil etc removed from the cellar, and this goes up and over the pavement and drops that material straight into a skip. And you can just image the dust this causes...

They have got a token tarpaulin partially round the skip - but this is more to stop large lumps falling out, I'd guess.

Is there a way of them reducing this dust - or is it just something we have to put up with for the next few months? I don't remember it being anything like this bad last time such work was done in the street.

[Huge]

Sprinklers & regular cleaning up. Report them to the council.

[meow2222]

I looked at their website a while ago, the conversions look very sucessful, but only worthwhile in higher price areas.

A water spray onto the soil as its put on the conveyor would surely help. If its being done under the party wall act then they will be required to be quite thorough about minimising nuisance - but if its not a PWA job I dont know whether there's anything you can do if they don't wish to. If they won't oblige, a polite complaint to the new neighbours might help, as they likely won't want to piss you off on day 1. But I expect you know all this, and I dont know what youve already done.

NT

[George]

Bugger all to do with the neighbours,after all they are not the construction workers.

I see a complaint to firms diretor is in order in a reqeust for his house being cleaned up after the jobs complete.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They certainly look very professional and they've done others in the area which I've not heard any complaints about on the grapevine.

I dunno the economics of these conversions - the houses in this street already have working attic rooms so it's about the only way to expand the area dramatically given the small gardens. I suppose it must be cheaper than moving to a larger house. Certainly many have done it.

It will I assume involve the party wall act since it's a semi. I have had (polite) words with one of the workers, and they do sweep up regularly but without wetting down first. Not seen the new neighbours - they've not moved in yet.

Perhaps I'm being too fussy - but I washed the filthy car yesterday evening and it was filthy again this morning.

[Owain]

Sprinklers as had been said. The houseowner is probably liable in law for commiktting a nuisance, so you would be able to claim the cost of carwashes etc.

Owain

[Ron Lowe]

Austrian immigrants?