I recently posted on this forum aboutiIMF therapy for MS and stroke sufferers. I should have put a bit of background.
I was diagnosed with MS at the age of 36. Up until then I had never come across it. and was advised to think about changing my career from building It didn’t look good in what is a physical demanding but fulfilling occupation when you aredoing something that came naturally. I was born to build . Mostly residential New build, extensions, renovating period properties from stone built cottages to period terraced My favourite was renovating being shown by time served tradesmen how it was done applying render to internal walls to get a flat smooth finish to a wall that was 4” to zero out was an art on a natural stone wall. In the cellar of a Victorian terraced working out how a cast iron range system was installed to supply hot and cold running water using only the natural thermal properties through a 2” bore steel pipe from the basement to the loft to a cast rad in every room a rise of over 30 feet with no mechanical pump. Victorian buildingskills at there best using what is now called a “sustainable renewable source ”WOOD. All sadly vanishing by importing cheap labour from countries that have no concept of a DPC what it is or for. When Charlton law and stiles came to the end of their sporting lives. Would they have taken up darts
Determined to stay in building enrolled into building related courses in a residential training college in a town called pity me near durham a working mans club on every corner in the northeast . The college had its own bar and was full of students from all the trades. Where I was introduced to bottled” newky brown ale” amongst other things. There were guys in there from all over the UK Banff in Scotland isle of wight and whitehaven It was surreal. I was on a quantity surveying course ( the old way cut and fill )and achieved an NVQ (not very qualified) level 3 in database spreadsheet.
Never needing to use social services during my whole working life until now. We were advised to contact them about an adaptation grant. Waste of money It’s staffed with people who are interested in only climbing the corporate ladder looking of a job with a contract and pension. You wouldn’t believe the suggestions they came up with. A group of them came to my house all they could come up with was a through the floor lift. Told them this will make my home structurally unsafe. Suggested converting my garage to a ground floor bedroom and wet room their answer to this was we can’t do that It would be considered as a home improvement at this point I lost it. Said they should all be working for ALDI, The only way of justifying their existence is by meddling in other peoples lives creating internal refferals to each other. We now avoid contacting this service It’s the councils way of covertly cutting services by employing idiots The cost of a lift alone is around 4000£ treble it with installation costs We had to pull out all our savings to pay for the garage conversion total cost around 10,000£ What pyzxes me off we had the money to get IMF . If I was an ethnic minority they would screaming from the rooftops fighting for my human rights. I am english male and paid my dues.
The result is I am now able to create scheduled working drawings and project management spreadsheet that includes a fully itemised detailed priced bills of quantities with estimated labour costs & project duration. I have successfully submitted drawings for both planning and building regulations I’ve been building and revovating them now I’m drawing them. specialising in disabled accessible who better than a builder in a wheelchair sre a full refurbished Victorian terraced with at least one floor fully disabled accessible and a 3 bed holiday home/lodge which is fully a disabled accessible for family and or carers. Examples attacheddemolition of period property that could easily have been modernised into contemporary dwellings or H.M.O.’s. In some cases it was an improvement people having a go at home improvement underthe hammer has got alot to answer for I suppose it keps a lot of B listed TV presenters working ending up with the whole building collapsing then you have a street scene like the ” chatty mans” grin All we have left are open brownfield sites for gypsies thanks to the council
I may not be able to run to raise unding but I can offer this service. It’ll really upset “RIBA”. myidea is in return a donation is made of whatever the person feels justified plus any council fees and other documentation obviously Good grief I’ve just read this over sorry about this epic post got carried away. I’ve turned into my worst nightmare a sad grumpy bastard. I’m not looking for sympathy hate it. Got the time on my hands to do something positive
