to consider letting a builder work on my house while I am out of the country...

[stella1w]

it involves knocking down walls, fitting a kitchen - lots of mess and inconvenience for a month - I will be out of the country so could avoid this but am I setting myself up for more problems eg. security issues, builder taking the piss and not working hard? things getting installed in wrong place despite spec? Haven't managed to finda builder through personal recs, but could take up references on the bloke who so far seems the most competent.
I don't have an option of staying elsewhere nearby.
If I delay it until after my travels, I'll be back at work with all that stress and the poor new nanny will have to cope with upheaval which doesn't seem fair.

no - do not do it

Stella, my mega switched on lawyer sister in law has just been messed about horribly on her building project - turns out she's not on the right contract etc, etc.

It depends whether you want to 'project manage' the whole thing or whether you want someone else, like an architect to be contract administrator. For anything worth more than 15k go for the latter - you'll want a Minor Works contract and there's quite a lot of protection built in. Everyone will tell you you don't need a professional overseeing the work but I'd recommend
It.

I would with my builder, but then he's done lots of work for me and my family and friends over more years than I care to remember, and I've know him since we were kids and trust him implicitly (presumably there's e-mail or phone if he really needed to consult about something?). But, if I were relying on finding someone from an advert, then I wouldn't. (My builder never advertises as he gets som much work from personal recommendations).