Loft conversion - HOW much mess to the rest of the house - is this normal?

[JMAngel1]

Started loft conversion beginning of June - still ongoing. Dry slow but looking good up there.

But the rest of the house - wow - I had not appreciated how it would all be trashed. We’ve had the following:

numerous leaks all over the house which has caused damage to ceilings/electrics. The ceilings will all need reskimminf.

a hole through a bedroom wall - something to do with wall plates being moved?

the skirting on the existing stairs has pulled away from the wall - probably a 2cm gap and all torn. Will all need refilling and repainting.

the hallway/existing landing wall paint is trashed - long vertical water marks all the way down. I had naively thought we could just match the paint to the new staircase and it will all blend in but no, all 3 floors will need painting. Tbh the electrician and plumber have also tunnelled lots of lines into the plaster so those parts would have needed repainting anyway.

ditto the hall carpet - again I had thought
I could just “add to” with the same carpet (the store still has the same one) but the existing one is stained and frayed where it’s been lifted up numerous times for floorboard access.

Is this all normal or our my builders just extremely messy and not very good at sealing the roof area whilst it was off (it was off for 3 weeks instead of 1 due to the awful weather so practically every night during that time we had some kind of leak somewhere in the house).

Please tell me your experiences with loft conversions and the need to redecorate the whole house afterwards.

No, that is not normal they’ve been very careless and I’d not be paying to fix these extra issues caused by them, in would be asking them to rectify them and potentially claiming via their insurance.

Ok thanks.
So it would be reasonable to ask for compensation for the cost of repainting all the areas downstairs and the cost of the carpet on the existing stairs?

The builder has said he will replaster the tunnelled in areas, holes and any areas that have water damage but I don’t at this point think he’s offering repainting. You think I should push for that?

No, that's appalling. It's for them to rectify before they leave, too. Not your problem to fix.

I think I need to put my big girl pants on don’t I? The problem is the builder is very charming and likeable and I struggle with confrontation. My DH is ready to go for his jugular and I’m like “go easy, we still have weeks of them around”. My worry would be if it all turns nasty, they could just up sticks and not come back - we’ve paid for 2/3 of the job already.

Don't pay the balance until everything is finished (I'm sure you wouldn't have, anyway) and all the issues have been rectified?

Yes - was absolutely not going to pay balance until all done but I suppose I just wasn’t sure what “done” would include. Now I know I need to be clear that includes painting of room areas affected by water damage.

Absolutely. It's possible they intended to do it as part of the cleanup anyway, but you're perfectly entitled to withhold any amounts needed to return things to how they were.

I had no roof for the whole of December when ours was done, and we didn't have a single leak. Also no piping leaks.

We did have the hole in the wall thing where they inserted something.

The existing stairs were trashed just through overuse really, materials coming in and out. I could have protected them I suppose but I was planning on all new all through afterwards to match.

We had one small leak and an apprentice put his foot through the floor (so the ceiling of the living room below).

The builders rectified it all. I had to push a bit for the ceiling to be done properly - to look the same as the rest - but they did it in the end.

But otherwise - had two days of total mess when they knocked through to the loft and then the rest all fine.

So get onto them - they need a plan to sort it all out!

@daffodilandtulip gosh so it does sound like my lot were particularly bad at securing the roof at night in between working. If you had no leaks in December over a whole month, that’s opened my eyes to what we’re dealing with. I still don’t have main lignts in the kitchen due to water damage. Needs rewirinf which will be more tunnelling into plaster.

That is definitely not normal! We had very little damage to the rest of the house - no water leaks at all. They need to fix everything they have damaged.

Yeah I can't recall the year, maybe 2018. I don't know how they secured it, but we had snow during the two weeks they closed for Christmas and I was panicking that I'd wake up with a roof full of snow in my bed but nothing!

roof off it a risk water will find its way in anywhere
the best way is to have scaffolding sheeted canopy but the cost of that would offset any damage
round here we’ve had some horrendous downpours in the last few months a sheeted up roof wouldn’t of stood a chance

Yes, we were offered the option for a scaffolded canopy but it was an extra £10K. The rainfall in NW in June was torrential - some major flash flooding deluges so maybe it was just a terrible time to have had it done. We thought starting in June would be a safe time!

I think you’ve just been unlucky took a chance and we’re caught out normally you might of got away with it
that said I don’t think water will of caused 10k of damage so even though it a pain your still better off

I’d take photos of all the things that will need to be remedied and keep them if he disputes it after the build is finished. I’m not sure going in guns blazing is the best idea, if there’s still significant work to be done, but equally, I don’t think it’s reasonable to have so much damage to the rest of the house.

Definitely not normal! The most we had to contend with was dust, our builders were brilliant!

I had no damage whatsoever when I had my loft done, just a bit of dust. Something has gone badly wrong with your build and I'd be getting a second opinion on how sound the structure is!