26 Jan 2008

Once again i seem to be talking about the weather but as a builder it plays a large role in my working life. The weather has been kind this week. I have been able to get a lot of work done outside and the project is almost finished. Well, it would have been finished if the client had not asked for extra work.

All of the internals have been completed and the client is happy. I will be posting picture of the renovation from start to finish on my website here www.JericoEstates.com/gallery as soon as i can. this renovation has been one of the most challenging i have undertaken while in Bulgaria. The brief seemed simple at first, renovate an basement apartment in the city of Yambol. However, problems with damp and sewerage made it technically challenging. The problems of damp were two fold; firstly all BG basements are damp as they are below ground level and the second was that it was flooded by faulty plumbing to your knees a few months before i started. This left the actual building structure saturated and difficult to overcome. The next time i do a basement renovation i will insist on specialized materials or decline the work. With specialized materials the job would be a breeze and i could give a 20 year guarantee on the work (i am a registered tanker for Delta membranes).

The second problem was sewerage. Due to the falls of the waste pipes in the apartment being below the mains sewerage in the street, a macerating sump pump had to be fitted. This is basically a large container with a pump with teeth designed to chew up and raise the waste water upwards to meet the mains sewerage in the street. A poo pump in short. It was interesting to watch most Bulgarians scratch their heads when trying to source this, as they had never even heard of it. Although my Bulgarian is now good, it took some creative miming. A large number of suppliers must have just shaken their heads and thought 'another crazy Brit'.

Anyhow, by the end of the week the hard landscaping to the rear of the apartment block was almost complete until the client requested some extra external rendering. As long as the weather holds, i will be able to do this and be able to finish the job and move on the next project. I will be more than happy to see this job finished and get my teeth into a full renovation in the village of Bistrets for my new client Mr T.