To be fed up of renovations on a nearby house

I wasn't criticising your opinion Maw. I was saying that what your daughters did sounded different to the major renovations I was talking about.

I don't think all the DIY TV programmes help either. Do they ever consult the poor neighbours?
One of my neighbours died recently so his house is bound to be sold. His only relative lives in the S of England. I am now scared in advance
I am scared because this corner of the town is older, interesting houses but they tend to be doer-uppers.

Apologies Vintagejazz - that wasn’t how it came across

Thanks Maw.

only thing I can suggest which might have been mentioned check your council's web site for noise times, mine allows building/DIY noise Mon-Fri 08:30-17:00 and Saturday 09:00-13:00, no noise Sundays/bank holidays, it might relieve some of the stress if you can get a quiet weekend/bank holiday

If only this was all there was to worry us !

All your stories are relatable, please pardon my long post: I have had 2 sets of neighbours doing building work on the same house on and off for 8 years!! The first couple with young children completely gutted the unmodernised house next door, in stages, over 4 years, so we had constant noise, dust, etc. At one point, I had just come home from hospital after surgery and was in pain; I texted the owner if the builders could please work away from the area near my bedroom window because the noise was terrible, but no luck. My partner had to call him to politely insist. They later sold the completely renovated house to another, even younger couple, who have decided to excavate their basement to build a playroom for their two children who are both under 5, because their parents said there were too many toys strewn around the house..the in laws also thought they should do some extra work to the wet room, do some landscaping, and so on.
I agree with the other posta above, especially with the ones about having an agreement as to costs for damage, as that is another issue I have to address.

GrauntyHelen

If only this was all there was to worry us !

Would you like me to give you a list of all my current worries, including bereavement?

Or perhaps you could give us your list of things we're allowed discuss on here?

Or could you just have some manners and let people vent about other things that are also annoying them.

Have just found out my house requires a complete rewire which is noisy and messy. I am going to move into a house opposite for the duration. I will tell the workmen to be as noisy as they wish, bang and drill to their hearts content. And play their radio if they wish in order to annoy my whinging NDN.

Check with your local councils for when builders etc can start noisy work each day, and when they should finish! There are laws about them using noisy machinery. And if these rules are ignored, the council can stop them working - not something the new people would want, so they should keep within the working hours!!

Oh no! The house two doors away from us has been sold. It was completely gutted previously, a two storey extension built plus loft conversion as well as a one storey extension to the kitchen. The the work took over a year before the current owners moved in. Inevitably the new owners will decide that the layout is not to their taste and start knocking down walls, refitting bathrooms and the kitchen with all the noise and dust that entails. I really dread houses being sold in our road

SIL was woken at 5am yesterday by a neighbour scraping flaking paint off window frames and sanding them, not major work but annoying at that time of day.
He went and told them it wasn't neighbourly at that time of the morning, they thought that as they were awake they would get on with it

I used to have an underneath neighbour who complained that I was walking around my flat upto 1 am! She liked to go to bed early and even though I had carpets down she could hear me flushing the loo, boiling the kettle, and so on. Normal household noises and in no way a breach of my lease. I told her that when I was on a late shiftt she often woke me running the hoover. So I offered her a compromise that if she left off hoovering til 10 am I would be extra quiet in my flat after 10 pm. At first she just carried on hoovering at 8 am but on those nights I used to bang about, slam cupboard doors, and run the shower at midnight. She eventually learned.

Try living in Australia, where a common model is to demolish. In my immediate area, i.e. backing, neighbouring/opposite side of road, four houses have been demolished and re-built and five have had lengthy and noisy renovations. All this in ten years. I should add all the properties are detached, and it's still annoying.

I eye the properties left, and predict which will go under the bulldozer (three) when the current owners leave, with trepidation. The road has lots of older retirees so it will go on and on. And the ugliness of the new houses! The least offensive have been bland; most look like hospitals. One cheering thing lately has been an increase in renovating, keeping the older, outer shell, so much more in keeping with the earlier aesthetic of the neighbourhood.

All keep within Council rules for working times, but the worst are absent owners who don't have to live with the consequences of their endless building.

I think some of us are discussing totally different types of 'renovations' and there is just no comparison.

Minor works, like a quick loft or garage conversion - or a small extension are one thing, tolerable and a brief disruption.

What I'm talking about (and what happens here) is the original house being demolished down to just a few feet of walls (endless skips and massive clouds of dust) then half the garden's excavated - more skips and mud everywhere. Next, the suspended floor (and half the garden) is replaced by concrete, pumped in through a big tube from the mixer lorry.

Walls go up, including the 8 meter extension, the two storeys become three, roof dormers emerge, windows doors etc. - and we think it's nearly over - but no. The concrete floors are then 'drilled out' for underfloor heating (horrendous noise and more dust) and they begin to build the garage. We start to lose the will to live.

Meanwhile the owners live elsewhere, the builders break all the rules - and the local council simply don't care. They have private (lax) building regulations inspectors. An injunction (obtainable from the magistrates court) is the only way to stop the work for a few weeks.

The plans are ignored (that's if there's any planning permission at all), there's no consultation with neighbours, no fines for ignoring it all - and a retrospective grant of approval. Any hitches and the owners just plead poverty (can't afford to change it now) or wait 4 years and it's 'legal'. They know exactly what they can get away with!

That program Grand Designs makes it all seem so glamorous!

Hetty58

I think some of us are discussing totally different types of 'renovations' and there is just no comparison.

Minor works, like a quick loft or garage conversion - or a small extension are one thing, tolerable and a brief disruption.

What I'm talking about (and what happens here) is the original house being demolished down to just a few feet of walls (endless skips and massive clouds of dust) then half the garden's excavated - more skips and mud everywhere. Next, the suspended floor (and half the garden) is replaced by concrete, pumped in through a big tube from the mixer lorry.

Walls go up, including the 8 meter extension, the two storeys become three, roof dormers emerge, windows doors etc. - and we think it's nearly over - but no. The concrete floors are then 'drilled out' for underfloor heating (horrendous noise and more dust) and they begin to build the garage. We start to lose the will to live.

Meanwhile the owners live elsewhere, the builders break all the rules - and the local council simply don't care. They have private (lax) building regulations inspectors. An injunction (obtainable from the magistrates court) is the only way to stop the work for a few weeks.

The plans are ignored (that's if there's any planning permission at all), there's no consultation with neighbours, no fines for ignoring it all - and a retrospective grant of approval. Any hitches and the owners just plead poverty (can't afford to change it now) or wait 4 years and it's 'legal'. They know exactly what they can get away with!

Yes I agree.

Anyone who lives in a house for years will probably, at some stage, extend a but or put in a downstairs loo or convert the garage.

That's very different from people who buy a house That's absolutely nothing like what they want but on a road they'd like live on and then turn the place into a building site for a year, causing huge inconvenience to neighbours while they live elsewhere far away from the noise and dirt and the whole road being taken over by trucks and diggers and lorries.

Some residential roads have to deal with this over and over so that their once quiet residential road is now permanently in a state of messy upheaval.