Period Renovation Blog 13: Ground Source Heat Pump Prep

I have always advised anybody embarking on a renovation to have plenty of schedule contingency and to be prepared for the unexpected to knock you off track.

In March, this came home to our project – and many others – in a way nobody could have imagined, as Covid-19 stopped the nation in its tracks.

At Old Barnstaple House, the most immediate problem was that our underfloor heating installers were booked for the day after lockdown commenced.

This had to be delayed until some unknown future date. While we waited, we had no usable floors in the ground storey, having already dug out the old concrete.

As a result, we couldn’t undertake any other internal work until May, when the UFH contractor was eventually able to return.

Period Renovation Blog 12: Electrical Wiring

With the pipework in, I was finally able to crack on with laying the sitting and dining room floors, which I’d decided to do myself. For the kitchen, I’d engaged a different contractor to lay a lime screed, but they didn’t return to work until mid-June. So the delays continued to build.

Even worse, our listed building consent application – submitted way back in February 2020 – couldn’t be determined without a site visit. Historic England actually tried to assess the project without coming out, resulting in a report that was wildly inaccurate and negative.

One of the unfinished areas of floor that led to work stalling during lockdown

It was clear the inspector had never seen the building, knew very little about our project and even less about our approach to the work.

Thankfully, the local authority sensible pushed back any pronouncement until a site visit was possible. However, this meant we had to agree to an open-ended extension of the decision timeline. While we waited, we set to work with our architect on overcoming the misconceptions of the Historic England inspector.

We finally managed to hold a site meeting in late June and consent was granted at the beginning of August. But we’d already experienced huge delays in the project, causing a lot of extra work and cost – not to mention stress.

We had follow-on trades booked throughout May and June, all of whom had to be cancelled and then re-engaged in August. Fortunately, all were very accommodating and we are now progressing very well.

Digging the trenches

While we were banished from the interior during lockdown, I wasn’t stuck for jobs on the project. It just involved some creative rescheduling along with a stroke of luck, as the remarkably good weather was ideal for outdoor work.