CLADDING CONTINUES

It’s day two of the cladathon. As nice as these guys are, I am seriously beginning to wonder about their cladding credentials.

My expertise in these matters may be zilch but I’m sure you don’t cut cement fibre boards with a jigsaw. The clue’s in the name, Numbnuts. Cement. If I was cutting those boards myself, I’d probably be using an angle grinder or circular saw with a nice sharp diamond blade. It’s no wonder progress is slow. I keep schtum as I hand over the tea tray.

And whose clever idea was it to send a 16 year-old lad to smash an asbestos soil pipe into pieces in the middle of my slowly recovering lawn without so much as a stitch of protective clothing or a tarpaulin to catch any of the debris? Really?

Our surveyor repeatedly warned us NOT to scrape, drill or crack the pipe because any kind of damage releases the hazardous toxic material for which asbestos is much maligned yet Vlad seems happy to sign a death-warrant on his pimply apprentice and contaminate my garden without a care in the world. Any considerations of potential human or environmental impact clearly missing from builder brain.

Slowly recovering lawn cluttered again

I shake my head in disbelief and go back to my knitting. Mutter, mutter, mutter. Don’t worry, as soon as you lot have buggered off, I shall be out in my hazmat gear to pick up every single little bitty piece of piping and black paint flakes, I tell myself. If I had a grass hoover, I’d vacuum the lawn just to make sure every particle of A-dust is gone.

After a second labouring day, the cladding tide has only just reached the spare room window. According to Dr Google, cladding the apex on a house takes on average one day making the productive output of these dudes look like that of a sausage dog.

Cladding tide continues to come in slowly

Has reached the window on one side

Hope you're doing something to hide those ragged edges

Back in the workplace, I’d have said this looks like a clear-cut case of ‘stringing it out.’ Perhaps this is how some trades justify charging extortionate prices for this type of work by billing you for the week instead of for a couple of days then working at a leisurely snail’s pace instead of cracking on.

VLAD THE CLAD

Bumped. How dare you!

Whilst I appreciate builders can’t control the vagaries of the English weather or be expected to expose themselves to sunstroke in temperatures that make San Tropez feel a bit nippy, I was not best pleased to be told weeks ago that my job was being sidelined in favour of a more lucrative indoor project. But such is the reality of employing external trades. If a better paying offer comes along then expect your job to go to the back of the line.

After weeks of waiting, Vlad the Clad is back with his band of merry men to finish what they started months ago – cladding the exterior side wall of the house.

‘Really appreciate you letting us do that other woman’s job first’ said Vlad, disarming me with a cheeky chappy Jack-the-lad smile in a face browner and crinklier than a sultana. Hmmphh! Didn’t really have a choice in the matter, did I? Simple builder economics. Her £6,000 job trumped mine and provided shade so muggins here just had to suck it up.

But they’re here now, ladder and towers in tow, turning the front drive into a makeshift cladding workshop whilst I pop the kettle on for periodic refreshments. And yes, stereotypically they do drink their tea ‘builders’ – that is strong and sweet.

Just make yourselves at home

Is that singing I can hear? Sounds like they’re having way too much fun out there. Too many tenors, not enough cladding. You better hope I don’t find any defects or you’ll be singing a different tune when I fail to pay my bill in full.

Whole lotta nothing going on

It’s now 3 o’clock. Vlad and his crew have mysteriously vanished without so much as a goodbye. Probably seeking shelter from the sun’s rays so they don’t turn into a pile of ash. When I’ve established the coast is clear, I venture out to check on progress.

What the ….? Three of them spent an entire day faffing about outside, crooning to Shite Radio and all there is to show for their industriousness (or lack of) is a strip of metal trim and a couple of rows of cement fibre board nailed into place. Exactly what am I paying for here?

Metal ventilation trim

All in a day's work

Hours later, a text pings into my inbox. Guess who? Yep, job is being bumped yet again as now rain is on the forecast. Seriously?  Grrrr!!!!

BUTT MANIA CURED

Just look at these two beauties. 

They’re everything I could hope for in a water butt – strong, sleek, a pair of dark sentinels standing guard in the back border. Wow!

Cor blimey, they're huge!

Carping the diem this weekend starting with these stratas. No good having loads of water butts unless they’re connected up to the guttering so stop farting about as it’s time to get them into their new home.

There’s not a great deal of space to work in back here plus access is impeded by a few existing shrubs. Going to have to dig up the hibiscus first before we can do anything else. Amuse yourselves for a few minutes.

You'll never squeeze those into that jungle

Several sweaty minutes later… It’s all about the base. Butts need a nice stable spot on which to place the plastic stand they sit on. Somewhere they won’t rock about once full of water and where you can access the tap. Having levelled off the dirt at the back of the border, I’ve made a butt platform using some chunky old planks dumped behind the shed.

Make a nice level platform 

Pruners please. A bit of emergency bush surgery is needed to clear back the undergrowth as gap between fence and shrubbery is still not quite wide enough for my own lard arse let alone a large water butt. There! That’s done it. Now I can get the stands in place.

Stands fit perfectly

With both stands in situ, next step is to prepare the butts for linking. To connect three butts together, you need 2 connection kits. (£11 each at B&Q if you can’t wait for an online delivery). Each kit contains a length of hose plus a couple of adapters, washers and nuts. (I don’t mean us either!).

Water butt connecting kit

Using a hex shank drill bit or a router, make a couple of holes large enough for the adapters in the specially indented circles on each side of the water butt. Push the adapters with washers attached into each hole then tighten into position by winding the plastic nut onto the thread from inside the butt.

Circular indentations to drill adapter holes

Now the adapters are in, place butts onto stands making sure the sides with the adapters are facing each other and you can get to the tap. Lifting one of these beasties over the garden greenery is certainly not the easiest of jobs in a space smaller than the defence budget. Good job I've had my three shredded wheat.

Tricky to lift over greenery

Once you are happy with your butt position, push the hoses onto each adapter. We have lift off. We’re gonna do the butt conga. Oooh. aaahh. Seven hundred litres of rain capture capacity. Get in!

All linked up

All I need is love and rain. Lots and lots of the lovely wet stuff so I can corner the garden water market. Butt mania cured – for now.

BUTT MANIA

Since the heatwave I’ve been dreaming of butts. Large butts, small butts, perfectly formed butts, space saver butts. Cute builder butts. Okay, not those but essentially dreaming of any kind of large receptacle in which to capture rain water. I’d even go as far as calling it an obsession.

Dry weather has naturally pushed up the price of butts because now everyone’s realised how bad the effects of a prolonged droughty summer were on all things green then demand for rainwater tanks, butts, buckets or anything else designed to hold lots of the wet stuff is now greater than ever. Even the grandson’s paddling pool has been conscripted for rain capture.

Lots of rain captured in one of these

I already have 2 water butts plus an oversized water collecting tank in the garden but this barely touched the sides during the summer scorcher. Be prepared is my motto. It’s not for nothing that I have a Domesday cupboard just in case the four horsemen of the apocalypse unexpectedly drop in for tea.

A quick consultation with Dr Google on my butt fixation. Diagnosis – expensive. For £130 there’s a magnificent 350 litre beauty called a Harcostar Magnum. Wow! What a whopper but perhaps a bit too large for the space I have in mind. There are more budget friendly options out there such as a 227 litre Harcostar (£70) or a smaller 210 litre cheapo butt (£59) available from Amazon.

Harcostar Magnum - nice butt!

Of course, the big question is how much do I really want to spend to cure butt mania? Naturally, my answer is I want the biggest capacity for the least capital outlay. The butt that appears to meet these requirements is a Strata 250 litre water butt. Spacious, reasonably priced and not so monstrously sized that it can’t be squeezed in somewhere. Rather than being short and squat, it’s tall and slim.

Strata 250 litres - come to mama

I have a perfect little ‘butt hole’ in the back border where I hope to conceal a couple of these Stratas behind a few manicured shrubs. The plan is to link the two new butts to the existing one which is connected to the shed guttering. It never ceases to amaze me just how much water can be collected from a shed roof during a downpour.

The perfect 'butt hole' at the back of the garden

It’s not for nothing that we work in a builder’s merchants – staff discount. Handy little perk when it comes to DIY shopping as I can now really push the butt boat out without needing to sign over my soul to Satan.

I’ve packed the other half off with an envelope stuffed full of tenners and strict instructions not to return home empty handed. Basically – it’s butts or else!