Self building stress

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

well, along with the build, renting out our current house in Bristol ( i refuse to watch tv about nightmare tenants) moving into rental in Devon, my wife is also changing jobs and being mucked about by lack of co-ordnation by current and future employers. she is also lamenting missing her friends and colleagues here in Bristol so i have to be overly optomistic (which i am anyway) and keep  saying "what could possibly go wrong" (with my fingers crossed behind my back).  My stress is painting our current house ready for tenants , I LOATH painting. 

 

You need a paint spraying machine . There was one for sale but it has gone .

 

I am managing my stress by not going to the Local Council Landlord forum happening next week.

 

Edited September 22, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Declan52]

32 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I think there is also the added issue that some of us self-building have significantly higher expectations than some contractors who build stuff every day.  There are some really good tradespeople around, but my experience is that they are a bit thin on the ground.  There are many tales on this forum, and it's predecessor, that bear this out.

 

One consequence I found was that I ended up teaching myself to do things, rather than contracting it out.  Even if it takes me four or five times longer to do, at least it will get done to the very best of my ability.

 

Finally, a comment about the observations that it's the small stuff that gets to you, in terms of decision making stress.  Many years ago I was subjected to a "management transformation programme", one week a month away on the course for 6 months, that was intended to produce the needed new generation of senior managers for the brave new world of running defence research as an internally-trading "business". 

 

Generally it was a load of BS, but there was one session that was brilliant, so much so that I can remember practically all of it.  It was run by a psychologist, and as well as the usual stuff about personality types, building teams etc, there was an exercise to demonstrate how the importance of a decision was often inversely proportional to the amount of effort put in to the decision making process.  This is the sort of thing we've probably all seen; spending more time researching what new widget to buy than you spend on choosing what house to buy.

 

In this case we were divided into two sets, and sent off into separate rooms, where there was a sealed envelope with a question in it.  These rooms had video cameras set up, so that we could watch how we behaved afterwards.  In one room, the question in the envelope was "How many nuclear warheads should the UK have in order to form an effective deterrent?".  In the other room, the question was "What is the ideal size for a garden shed?".  There was a time limit, around 10 or 15 minutes I think, to come up with an answer.

 

The interesting point was that the team asked to decide on the number of nuclear warheads came up with an answer very quickly, after less than 5 minutes of debate.  The team asked to decide on the best size of garden shed didn't reach a conclusion; they were still arguing about it when their time ran out................

 

 

The ideal size of a garden shed is one that is the exact size of your land that you own. You can always park the car on the street but no chance you will leave the lawnmower out on the street. Only then can you say for certain that you couldn't make it any bigger to fit stuff you should have dumped years ago in. 

[Onoff]

I've been subjected to those management exercise / team building things. Drives me nuts and tbh I'm almost there on a good day. First one we all had a psych test for want of a better word. Me and my governor got 100% identical scores (with no collusion) and profiled the same which pissed him off no end!

 

Second involved role play and I was given a difficult customer / no win situation. I simply stated the assessor needed to stop there and then as in the real world I'd have dragged them across the counter and settled it that way. Nobody argued.

 

Third team building day and we were split into teams. You completed a task then the next team followed you. On some huge country estate. I hung back after completing my teams task and hid a load of the scaffold boards, barrels etc. There was no way the next team was crossing the imaginary lake without the sharks getting them. The instructors were going ballistic.

 

Kobayashi Maru!

[SteamyTea]

I find the trouble with most workplace psychology, and sociology in general, is that people expect a binary result.

I think a lot of this is down to our 'Hollywood' culture in the arts.

We see films and TV shows that create a very complex situation and the hero, against all odds, solves it.

Life is just not like that.  Knowing when to walk away is possibly a more important lesson to learn.

 

The other things that struck me, apart from you self builders are all bonkers, is why we get hung up on small detail.

Small things don't have to be right first time.  I painted my bathroom green, was so vile, I repainted it the next week.

So maybe get a cheap kitchen worktop first, then, if the kitchen layout is not to your liking, shuffle the base units about.

 

I saw a very interesting documentary about the first moon landings.  The main thing that I remember was the design/thought process of the Saturn 5.  They made the big decision first i.e. how to get into earth orbit.  They the rest tended to fall into place.  Not perfect, but did the job several times.

[craig]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Life is just not like that.  Knowing when to walk away is possibly a more important lesson to learn.

 

Agreed 100%, 20+ years ago -  I would have settled something by knocking ten bells out of them (partly due to the rough area I lived in, in Edinburgh.) It's how we resolved things. I then mellowed a rather lot and realised the importance of being able to walk away, not let things bother me in the slightest and generally being a very chilled and relaxed person. It paid dividends.

[Guest Alphonsox]

 

35 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Knowing when to walk away is possibly a more important lesson to learn.

[MikeSharp01]

49 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

apart from you self builders are all bonkers

I guess that means you don't count yourself as one - cos we thought you were as bonkers as the rest of us ergo that means there must be others, beyond the self build community who are bonkers to. Or (Can one start a sentence with OR @jack) maybe you include yourself in the renovators category, nuff said!

 

[SteamyTea]

You can start a conversational or statement sentence with 'Or'.

Or maybe not.

 

I am an observer that that will dish out advice, without taking any personal risk at all.

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

Kobayashi Maru

Not sure self building is quite Star Trek, to boldly go where no builder (twit, self disillusioned maniac, inveterate optimist - tick whichever applies) has gone before - nope it would not have caught on.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

to boldly go where no builder

That is a different conversation I think, as in my experience of builders, is that everything comes as a surprise to them.

Edited September 22, 2017 by SteamyTea

[Lesgrandepotato]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

That is a different conversation I think, as in my experience of builders, is that everything comes as a surprise to them.

Yes - this is true, and I think its the crux of why builders can't estimate. They can do the job, its just they don't know how they will do it.

[jack]

26 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Or (Can one start a sentence with OR @jack) 

 

Yes.

 

And you can start one with "and" as well! 

[SteamyTea]

I feel a case of Boolean is called for.

 

"Doctor, Doctor, we have a case of dysentery on the ward"

 

"Make a change for Chablis"

[ToughButterCup]

34 minutes ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

Yes - this is true, and I think its the crux of why builders can't estimate. They can do the job, its just they don't know how they will do it.

 

I hate to try and be fair.

Often, good builders just hate paper work, and handling information. We all concentrate on what we love doing best. It takes guts and self-discipline to do the ancillary tasks. Which reminds me:

I must get that paperwork done.................

[Oz07]

21 hours ago, Onoff said:

I've been subjected to those management exercise / team building things. Drives me nuts and tbh I'm almost there on a good day. First one we all had a psych test for want of a better word. Me and my governor got 100% identical scores (with no collusion) and profiled the same which pissed him off no end!

 

Second involved role play and I was given a difficult customer / no win situation. I simply stated the assessor needed to stop there and then as in the real world I'd have dragged them across the counter and settled it that way. Nobody argued.

 

Third team building day and we were split into teams. You completed a task then the next team followed you. On some huge country estate. I hung back after completing my teams task and hid a load of the scaffold boards, barrels etc. There was no way the next team was crossing the imaginary lake without the sharks getting them. The instructors were going ballistic.

 

Kobayashi Maru!

Grabbed a customer by the throat a couple of months ago after being messed about for some money. Best thing I ever did. Got the balance and like to think I made it easier for every following trade that bloke ever uses! Sometimes diplomacy can only get you so far!

[Onoff]

Just now, Oz07 said:

Grabbed a customer by the throat a couple of months ago after being messed about for some money. Best thing I ever did. Got the balance and like to think I made it easier for every following trade that bloke ever uses! Sometimes diplomacy can only get you so far!

 

Couldn't agree more. I'll help anyone to the nth degree, karma and all that. There comes a point though. Sh!t on me or mine and as Mr Gilbert said "I can be one truly, nasty, fu****!"

 

 

[Jeremy Harris]

I had something similar with a neighbour.  I wanted to keep him on side, so went to a great deal of trouble to minimise the damage to the edge of his garden and restore everything, including some carefully dug up and potted shrubs, afterwards.  I'd budgeted for erecting a new timber fence along the boundary, to replace the 30+ year old broken down post and rail fence that had been there, so went around to see him and let him choose what type of fence he preferred.  He said he'd rather have a stone wall along the boundary, so I bit my lip, had the retaining wall redesigned to accept a stone wall on top, and spent around £4K on having it built (I'd budgeted £1500 for the fence).  We restored his garden, replanted the shrubs etc and when doing this he asked if he could have some of the left over coping stones, to make a set of steps in his garden.  I got the guys to lift around 30 big coping stones up and over the wall, and stack them on his side for him.

 

A few months later he asked when our landscaping guy was coming.  I told him and he asked when his steps were going to be built.  At this point I reminded him that I'd given him around £100 worth of stone for the steps, as a good will gesture, but hadn't agreed to have the steps built for him as well.  At this point he got a bit shirty, saying that we'd caused him a lot of inconvenience, and it should be the least we could do to do some odd jobs for him.  I lost it, pointed out he'd bought his house knowing there was a building plot at the bottom of the garden, knowing that the plans included building a big retaining wall and that I'd already spent a few thousand pounds more trying to keep him happy, but enough was enough.

 

The funny thing was that he just waited until I'd stopped ranting, smiled and said, "well, you can't blame a chap for trying, can you?" and wandered off.

Edited September 23, 2017 by JSHarris

[Ed_MK]

21 hours ago, Alphonsox said:

 

i liked that one ...

 

but my all-time favourite has to be,,,

 

[Temp]

On ‎9‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 08:14, AliG said:

Recently though the amount of input required by me has ramped up such as deciding where every socket and light fitting in the house goes and sourcing items I have specified such as fires where the builder can't really just go and buy them.

 

We had exactly the same. In the end I wasn't able to keep up and had to tell the builder that I would fit out one of the bathroom myself later as I couldn't keep up with the demand for second fix items.

[Hecateh]

On 22/09/2017 at 15:14, jack said:

 

Yes.

 

And you can start one with "and" as well! 

But...

[Hecateh]

Another old post I've picked up on.  Thoroughly (errr ... mostly) enjoyed the reading and, as expected, found myself very much in the minority (Can't quite believe I'm doing this myself). 

 

Stress - Well, I can struggle with stress at times but one stress I'm not going to have is 'another half' disagreeing with me - on the flip side that means I haven't anyone at home to bounce ideas off.  

@MikeSharp01 - You are doing so much right.  The only other thing to do is to remind her - and I'm sure you do - that you love her and that won't change no matter what else happens. 

 

I know there are aspects (lots of) that will stress me out.  I think I am lucky in the builder I have chosen (fingers crossed as the build hasn't started yet) I got a few quotes and, price notwithstanding, they divided into 3 areas.  The first was where the person that quoted was unlikely to be seen once the job started ... NO ... NO ... NO ...  The second were those that were already 'mansplaining' (sorry to use that phrase but it is definitely what some were doing, although I suspect at least one would have done it even if I was male) and telling me what I 'needed'.  The guy I have chosen is young.  Accepts me as equal but different and is happy to come up with ideas about how what I want can be achieved or go away and do some research before he comes back to me with opinions.  He has texted if he is going to be later than arranged when calling.  AND lots of other little things that suggests he knows there are 2 important aspects to his work - The first being quality and the equally important second being communication.

 

As far as decision making is concerned.  I know some of it will stress me out but this is definitely an area where life experience can be utilised.  I am not going to make the 'right' decision every time.  I'm old enough to really know that nothing is ever perfect.  There are lots of things in the house I am living in now that I have lived with for years and am now putting right because I want to get the best price when I sell.  Ok some of them are biggish things but others I could have sorted but became unimportant until I was selling.  Whatever mistakes I maked things will still be much better than in every house I have lived in until now.  Perfect isn't necessary

[Ferdinand]

On 22/09/2017 at 14:52, SteamyTea said:

You can start a conversational or statement sentence with 'Or'.

Or maybe not.

 

I am an observer that that will dish out advice, without taking any personal risk at all.

 

We are @SteamyTea'a substitute for the Great Egg Race, engineering version.

[PeterW]

8 hours ago, Hecateh said:

Perfect isn't necessary

 

Everyone has a different view of perfection .... I built a pretty large extension to our last house and was amused when some friends came over and picked up on a couple of points that I hadn’t seen, or had decided to ignore. Roll forward 18 months and they bought a “beautiful house” from a developer and was asked to do a snagging list for them “to pick up anything they missed”....

 

I had 3 pages of A4, and some were borderline structural issues ..!!! Yet to them it was “perfect”.... 

[AliG]

I am sure that everyone has had days like this.

 

As well as the ongoing saga of getting the completion certificates on my current house I got a call today that basically the stairs won't be ready for us moving in.

 

These were ordered last year. The issue seems to be that the stair maker doesn't trust the measurement he has been given will be accurate and wants to measure the finished floor levels. But by that point it will be too late to make and install the stairs.

 

He suggested installing a temporary stair, but then left a message saying that he will drop everything to finish the stairs by 22 December. Unfortunately our move in date is the 8th. He also had a meeting on site on Wednesday but didn't tell me of this problem until I called him today as the builder was worried.

 

So we can move into a hotel for two weeks or move in with temporary stairs and balustrades. None of us really want to move into a hotel.

 

We also found out today that our wood flooring cannot be fitted until the heating is on, but the gas will not be connected until the 6th of December, so we will have to move in with concrete floors in half the house.

 

I am just about to make my 65th phone call of the day to see if I can get Virgin media installed as I have no faith that BT will install a line by the 8th. Phone reception in the house is poor due to the insulation and not having broadband over the Christmas holidays would make me the most unpopular husband/dad in the country. For some reason the builder organised gas, electricity and water but thought I would do the phone.

[Nickfromwales]

@AliG

What boiler have you fitted? Convert to LPG as a temp measure and say FU to adversity. ?  

In goes the wooden floor and the house gets some heat. ?