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Thursday, February 09, 2012

Garage problems

Late last week I rang EQC and found out we shouldn't be using our garage, and they said they'd refer it for urgent action.   In the meantime I've contacted a couple of garage building companies to find out about replacing it plus adding a wee bit on and the first who got back to me suggested I visit the local Hub as the garage is a health and safety concern.  Considering Ian's lack of danger sense I had to agree so this morning I headed in there.
First problem, no sign of a referral on the Fletchers system.   They went to check the EQC system, no referral there either; I can't say I'm that surprised, but I am disappointed.  The lady at the front desk came back with a Fletchers guy who wanted to take a look at said garage and could be there in 10 minutes, was that ok?   My answer was for some reason a yes!   He arrived about 5 minutes after I got home, had a look around and confirmed what we thought; structurally unsound and needs to come down.   He said he'd be back to me and headed back to the Hub.  I dropped into work, and then came home and went for a bike ride (trying to get fit), 5 minutes after I got home another knock at the door; this time it was EQC guys.   They had a look too, same conclusion and agreed me treating it as yellow stickered building and they've gone back to get things moving.  If I don't hear anything in the next few days I'll be following up.  Waiting to hear back from the insurance company too and in the meantime this weekend we'll move what we can out of the garage and into the conservatory and deck areas.

Thomas has decided he wants to take advantage of it and add 2 rooms to the garage when it's rebuilt.   One for my sewing, one for his gaming so the total building will be 12m by 6m.   We will need resource consent; one set of neighbours has already said that's fine with them, just so long as it's not going higher (which it won't be).  There is one other set of neighbours to give permission, they have a huge hedge between them and us though, so hoping the fact that they won't be able to see the building will mean they'll approve it too.  Wish us luck with this process.   There will be complications, for a start all the power for the house is fed through the garage first; so we'll be without power while that gets sorted, hopefully only for half a day or so though.

The good thing is if we do get even one more room off the garage then the boys will have separate rooms in the house and we can stop using the Melatonin for Ian as he won't disturb George.   Hopefully this will result in 2 well rested boys.

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