new beeny series of help my house is falling down

[sm_jamieson]

New beeny series of "help my house is falling down" starts tonight. First series was quite informative - hopefully not swamped by boring human "interest" stuff in this series ! Simon.

[Davey]

Would you please explain that first sentence to somebody who has just returned to the UK after many years abroad? Thank you.

[sm_jamieson]

Oh, sorry. Used to be common currency in this group. beeny =3D Sarah Beeny, who is apparently an angle-grinding man's crumpet. A TV presenter who does actually know a bit about construction / renovation as she has actually done some ! Simon.

[Man at B&Q]

Much over rated.

MBQ

[Davey]

Sounds a bit like the assistant to Tim Taylor in US's "Home Improvement".

--=20 Davey.

[sm_jamieson]

Oh no, she is very much the boss ;-) Simon.

[jgharston]

...and seems to be permanantly pregnant.

JGH

[Davey]

SWMBO with a hammer and a nailgun. Ouch.

--=20 Davey.

[Martin Bonner]

There was a series about her renovating her own house. The builder said to her husband something like "If you could make your mind up as quickly as you have babies ..."

[brass monkey]

Oh no, she is very much the boss ;-)

Yes, as is Kirsty Young ;)

[Andy Champ]

Just caught part of it (SWMBO is watching). Fixed a roof with a prop from ridge to ceiling to stop it spreading. Only after the demo at the building centre did they mention in passing that it was quite important that the prop should go onto a supporting wall. I was imaging the entire roof weight going onto the ceiling joists.

Andy

[sm_jamieson]

Yep, I thought that. Houses like that usually have a spine wall holding up the ridge. But as always, so many questions are not answered. Arrrhhhh !

What was all that brickwork they had to clamber over in the roof ? Chimneys ? It looked rather like that should have extended to the ridge and would have supported the ridge. Seemed to be 2 such walls in the loft, but not sure how they would relate to the house structure beneath.

Was that house on the left hand side part of their property - probably not.

What did the other 3 big downstairs rooms look like ?

I also wondered where the original kitchen would have been since there did not seem a place for it. In one of the back rooms ?

Simon.

[Andy Burns]

Started watching it partway through, didn't immediately recognise the house, but then one of the overall wide street shots they used into an ad-break looked very familiar, I thought "that's Narborough" and when I checked the EPG, yes it was

It was a bit "doom and gloom, could cost 10's of thousands to fix" most of which turned into "you can fix that yourself in a day" or "you can get someone in to fix that in a day", not bad, but not earth-shattering.

[Tabby]

I thought the advice to replace the whole roof very poor. As she soon admitted, a bit of woodwork sorted it out.

NT

[Owain]

Possibly (and not a very big kitchen) or was there a basement?

Suppliers list:

was rather surprised - I assumed the bifold doors on the back wall would have been a 'special offer' from a D/G company.

Owain

[Bert Coules]

I walked around my place afterwards, wincing at every tiny crack between walls and ceiling.

I also winced at some of the moronic questions thrown at the unfortunate couple. "Is that the sort of cost you were expecting?" "Did you ever think that something like this might happen?" And of course the ever-popular "How do you feel about that?"

Mind you, the stupidity wasn't all on one side. Did they really buy a property that size and that age without having a decent survey (or indeed a survey at all)? And wouldn't it have been a useful thing for the programme to have pointed out the value of doing so?

Bert

[Man at B&Q]

Full of alarmist nonsense. Another one was =A35000 to fix the mouldy wall after the drains were done, which magically turned into a =A350 kit. Personally I would have left it to dry completely and cleaned up with bleach.

MBQ

[dennis]

That assumes the survey will actually tell you about those things. Most surveys will just say "not inspected due to lack of access" or some such thing.

The really interesting question has already been asked.. who took the roof's supporting walls down in the first place?

[A.Lee]

If they paid £275k, then they got a cheap house. 1960's 3 bed semis are £150k+ in the area. At the price they paid, they should know there are going to be problems with it. Alan.

[Bert Coules]

A fair point, but the programme made it quite clear that they *didn't* know. Of course, if they had, there would have been no programme...

Bert