Workmen starting at 6.30am

It’s illegal to start works at that time of the morning but if you’re happy to let it go that’s your choice. Myself I’d report it to the council if it was ongoing for any length of time. Your local council will have planning rules that contractors must adhere to including fires on site not being allowed. I hope you get your peace back soon.

tanith is correct. The contractor should be working within a certain time frame and 6.30 am would not be permitted .
Environmental Protection at your local council could stop this, if you want.
Do you have other neighbours affected?
You are very kind and tolerant people, clearly, but if there is lots more work to be done, perhaps a warning shot across the bows might be timely.

I didn’t know it was illegal, I don’t think it will be a problem for long, it just another thing about their project that has been a nuisance.
Another neighbour went stomping round to complain about the fire one day but the gardener had gone home and the on site builders (nothing to do with fires) said they would pass on the message.
The new neighbours have been living elsewhere so haven’t had to put up with it like the rest of us.

When builders knocked down the house next door and rebuilt it I went round to the site to tell him that

I didn’t appreciate his men starting work at 6am.

I didn’t like that fact that the builders radio was on, very very loudly, all day in one of their vehicles.

I wanted an immediate stop to the foul language right by my fence as I had the GCs with me for the 6 week holiday ( and I’m talking about very explicit language). If the GCs hadn’t been there I still would have complained.

As the build went on for nearly 3 years I’m glad I spoke up right away and stopped the anti social behaviour at the very beginning.

Why do builders always need loud radios? It drives me mad. The house opposite me had something done that involved scaffolding and the scaffolders had a radio on full blast for ages. That, and the men shouting at one another (presumably to be hard above the radio) was painful.

I doubt it would take long to stamp it out (or reduce the frequency of complaints) if building firms were fined enough to pay for the EH people to enforce the law. The bosses would crack down on offenders, I'm sure. Some noise (eg scaffolding being erected and dismantled, or drills) is obviously going to be noisy, but they should have to take reasonable steps to lessen the impact on neighbours. There is no need at all for constant swearing - specially in front of children.

These sound like really inconsiderate, short sighted new neighbours. The very least they could do is to give you notice of upcoming works. I would write them a letter telling them how it has impacted you and your neighbours lives..

When I watch Homes Under the Hammer I wonder how some of these conversions are done in such a short space of time. The answer is they have, or used to have, rogue teams of workmen working two and in some cases three shifts throughout the day and night, until local councils investigated and stopped it.

I think I've said this before on here, but I dread it when a house is sold in our road. It's not a long road (about 30 or so houses) but over the last 10 years there have been 15 planning applications for major works including extensions, complete gutting and rebuilding, loft conversions, you name it, they've applied for it! These houses are not "doer-uppers" either.

The noise, dust and disturbance have been continual. I know people like to put their own stamp on the house, but I just wish we could have ONE summer without the noise and dust.

The road is also quite narrow and bendy and the contractors and builders always park their vehicles at our end of the road as the other end is less accessible and other vehicles can't get through if the lorries/vans are parked there. It makes it very difficult for residents at our end to get their cars off their drives safely as we can't see past the huge lorries to see what is coming round the bend.

Moan over, but I do think you should insist that the work is not carried out at silly o'clock in the morning and have a word about the fires.

I really think you should contact the council. This contractor probably works like this because no-one complains.
People do what they can get away with.

I echo your first paragraph Doodledog. Builders are not supposed to start work before 8am and should not work on Saturday afternoons or Sundays. They are building a new house on what was waste ground next to us and do not obey these rules. However, they are pleasant and friendly and even gave us a food hamper at Christmas as thanks for putting up with the inconvenience so we overlook the noise.

It's a balance, isn't it? Nobody wants to see houses decay, and repairs and things like replacing windows are necessary, but it should be possible to do them in ways that don't impact on others' quality of life.

We were significantly younger than the other residents of the street (five houses) when we moved in 25 years ago, and the only house to change hands since then was passed down in inheritance, so the daughter of the owners now lives next door. Everyone else has just got older, so by the way of things there will be changes over the next few years. I suspect that the houses will be bought by people with families, as we were when we moved in, and there will be a lot of updating and modernising going on. All of that is fair enough, but it should be done considerately, and ideally with a bit of notice, so people who can are able to go away while it's happening.

But you have been putting up with it for two years - quite long enough.

Are the owners using very slow and inefficient builders (and possibly workers without experience and qualifications - but cheap) or does work have to keep stopping due to cash-flow problems?

Round the corner from me is/was a mid-Victorian red brick villa. It's been in a state "renovation" going on 6 years. In the periods when work stops,often for months at a time, the local vandals have a field day and the place has been set on fire twice.

Needless to say, adjoining properties have dropped in value. I hope your problem resolves sooner than ours.

mae no cash flow problems, they have bags of money.
The very large very old house needed gutting and it’s listed. The barns needed converting to garages (they were falling down) , the pond wasn’t big enough, the new pool needs to be excavated. Luckily that is going next to my neighbours garden.
A wide variety of builders with different specialties have been employed. Add in the weather conditions and these things just take ages.

It isn’t necessarily against the law for construction work to begin before 8am. The Control of Pollution Act 1974 gives local authorities power to prescribe construction working hours and if planning permission is required for the work, there will usually be a condition prescribing working hours - typically 8-6 Monday to Friday, 8-1 Saturday and no work on Sundays or bank holidays. Contact your local authority to report working outside these hours or other nuisances such as dust, bonfires or excessive noise. They may already have made local regulations or if there is a planning permission it should stipulate working hours. If there are no existing local regulations or planning conditions controlling working hours the local authority can serve notice to impose controls on how the works are carried out.

It would have been polite and thoughtful if you had been contacted before the works began, especially as it is such an early start. As previous posters have said, there are steps you can take about this but as it only going to be for a short time maybe you feel least said is soonest mended.

Sarnia- precisely. The new people should have come round at the beginning of all this. Our attitude would have been so difficult I think. It is such a shame that they are *** us all off.
Wonder if they will invite us all for a drink when it’s all over?
Will we go.💁🏼‍♀️

We wondered why the builders would disappear for months leaving the work half finished but we were told by a neighbour that they were leaving it for a while so that they could return later to put an extension on which they are doing at the moment. I don’t know about the legality but we were just pleased the land was being built on instead of being left as a dumping ground.

When my neighbours had a big extension built, all lorries etc had to pass my house as we are at the end of a cul-de-sac. The noise and mess went on for about 5 months. I had to keep dust sheets permanently down in my hall because of all the mud on the road, and my car was filthy both inside and out. There was the noise of lorries beeping as they reversed when it was still dark and I was still in bed.

At the end of it, my neighbour came round with a bottle of wine! Actually I could have done with a voucher for my car to be valeted and my hall carpet steam-cleaned.

But they are nice people so I said nothing.

Oh yes, Sparklefizz, the reversing beeping noise!

Last year, one of the houses three doors along from us was having the house completely gutted and gardening work done as well. The frequent delivery lorries AND the two diggers in the front and back garden had beepers and they beeped for blooming hours at a time! At one point we did wonder whether they were permanently going backwards!!

And no sign of occupancy for nearly a year...how do people afford to buy a house, spend tens (or hundreds in this case, I suspect) of thousands of pounds to change it out of all recognition without being on site at least in the later stages? These are family houses, not grand mansions by the way!

PamelaJ1

*Sarnia*- precisely. The new people should have come round at the beginning of all this. Our attitude would have been so difficult I think. It is such a shame that they are *** us all off.
Wonder if they will invite us all for a drink when it’s all over?
Will we go.💁🏼‍♀️

I’d go , just for a nose !

We have new neighbours who are gutting the house... Floor, plaster, everything... The noise has been something else, if anything louder than having the drills and bangs in the actual room... 3 weeks so far

I'm trying very hard to be stoic but the Sundays and bank holiday Mondays make me want to throw things

Oh no, VS. It's really trying. We had this a while ago when next door changed hands and was renovated. It was the son of the previous owner who inherited it, and he did it himself around his work, so it went on for ages. We couldn't complain, as we'd just finished having a kitchen refit, but being unable to relax in your own home is very stressful.

I am sure that 8am is the earliest they can start. In Cornwall last week, the builders started drilling at 7.45 and we had to speak to them. They were apologetic and knew but thought they could get away with it. They should also not work during weekend afternoons. We have had endless building where we live and it is an absolute pain especially the jangling radios when they sometimes join in!

Starting any kind of DIY work at 6:30am is completely unacceptable frankly.