Building Work arrrrgg!!

[MiaMammaMia]

should i let my friend who is a builder do the extension??

No no no OP assuming you want to stay friends? We brought a renovation property had a friend and his partner in to do the building work. Friend is a heating / plumbing engineer and that part has in the main been fine (few leaks and issues with the heating system as it's such a complex system) he has been great even coming out in evenings to get the system working again in the winter (as we have a now 6month old - was 2/3 months old at the time). His partner is dreadful we have had no end of issues and it is looking like we will end up in court - friend and DH have been friends for over 20 years - if we take builders to court friend will also be tied into the litigation

No!!! It never ends well.

Nope - seriously. Our neighbour's done a lot of bits of work on this house and it always ends up with me really narked off at him for bits he's left unfinished (he falls into the trap of "oh they're just next door - I'll pop in and put that bit of trim on one night next week" which means things drag on and on and on). We've now hit the stage where I won't use him for anything big or internal - he's handy for small bits and bobs- but my sanity won't take anything else.

It's really awkward when you need to put your foot down and say something's not done the way you asked for it to be done if you keep friendship in the mix as well.