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.... to jolt me into reality. Now, I'm glad the wall blew down. Here's why. In case you missed it, here's the backstory. And the analysis of why it happened. But the Loss Adjuster didn't agree (despite being a very nice man) And you might know we parted company amicably enough with our builder. My remaining 8 fingers have been sizzling over the last few days. I worked right over the weekend and looked at what I saw. Hard. Little worrying hints about this that and the other, not quite obviously wrong with the build, but probably wrong with the build. Why was most of the rebar still neatly in its place in the stillage? Is that wall 'out' by more than a country mile? Why is there quite so much shuttering? Why am I noticing and mending quite so many saw cuts in the blocks (they should be perfect)? Why did the pattern of the blocks change mid-course? (Exactly the same error-smell you get when checking a bit of JavaScript or CSS) Peering down corners showed a worrying absence of rebar Why could I see all the way to the bottom of an empty column (no concrete in it yet) of blocks in some corners, but not others? A little bell rang in my mind. What would I have done had I had been similarly worried at work? Ask for a properly constituted Professional Review, that's what. Taking courage in both hands, I rang the Durisol rep, and he came out straight away. The message was not good, not good at all. So bad in fact that I had to struggle to hold back tears. Tears of rage and disappointment. Real, cold rage. So I did what I always do when that happens, did something approaching hard work, and in doing so got really sweaty. Then talked it through. The catalogue of errors are not for telling here. I'll do a full blog about that. Long and the short of it is...... We're taking the house down. I kid you not. Block by block, course by course. We've taken a good 6 feet of it down today, more to come down on Friday. The build restarts on Monday, and ought to be finished Thursday of next week. Know what? I am soooooooo relieved. There were several patches of good work, but lots of bad workmanship. Just bloody laziness and lack of care. Enough to make one suspect that much of it needs ripping out and doing again. And that feels strangely 'dirty', sort of disgusting, revolting even. A careful still and video evidence trail has been created with official written assessments of the work done to date to follow. New blocks ordered and on their way up here. If we had concreted on time, we would never have seen the errors, never seen the cockups, never seen the stuff-it-I-couldn't-careless about building to a line or a plumb line. The blown over wall did us a favour. We would have first realised something was wrong when the cracks started in the corners...... You know the kind of thing. And then where would we have been, bills paid and settling in to a few sunsets on the terrace? Thank God it blew over. So, a quiet pint is in order. Debbie, if you are reading this, we're off down the Patten Arms. Ian