wow, well where to start. I need help fairly quickly. It's not my own DIY disaster, it's someone else's.
I've just bought a house from an older lady who died. Ex council, mid 50s, solid floors with what looks like bitumen downstairs. Absolutely saturated with tar from years of smoking.
When looking around we noticed a slight unevenness to the second bedroom floor board and a dip in the ceiling in the kitchen diner below. We were told an old leak had caused the dip in the ceiling.
The plan was to move in, strip the second bedroom and look in to see if there was a problem with the joist or just the floorboard. The walls throughout we're going to get stripped, skimmed where needed by a proper plasterer (I'm new to DIY) and then papered with a nice, slightly textured paper to cover any bumps. Then we were going to fix the kitchen ceiling and carpet throughout. Nice little easy DIY start for a first home.
Well, we moved in on Friday and all hell has broken loose.
The toilet has been leaking into the kitchen ceiling for god knows how long and is attached to the wall wrong which causes it to break each time it is used, the bath taps are plumbed wrong so the floor in there and the hall needs to come up and get replaced. We got to know the neighbours and realised it wasn't originally an open plan kitchen diner and the sagging happens to be directly under where there should be a supporting wall/beam (not visible but we're crossing our fingers that it might be hiding in there). All the plaster in the lounge is blown and the patio doors haven't been fitted properly.
Oh, and there are random wires passing in, over and through every wall and plug sockets daisy chained over the walls so I need the wiring fixed too.
I've given up on DIY and am just going to get some pros in to check the safety of the structure but what I don't know is what order should I be doing it all in so that one person doesn't have to rip out someone else's work to check their bit. And I still need to live in it! Any advice?
Also the carpet has been glued to the floor in some places by (hopefully) an animal urinating on it, so what's a good way to clean carpet remains off the bitumen without damaging it? That's one bit I can still do myself.
I've just bought a house from an older lady who died. Ex council, mid 50s, solid floors with what looks like bitumen downstairs. Absolutely saturated with tar from years of smoking.
When looking around we noticed a slight unevenness to the second bedroom floor board and a dip in the ceiling in the kitchen diner below. We were told an old leak had caused the dip in the ceiling.
The plan was to move in, strip the second bedroom and look in to see if there was a problem with the joist or just the floorboard. The walls throughout we're going to get stripped, skimmed where needed by a proper plasterer (I'm new to DIY) and then papered with a nice, slightly textured paper to cover any bumps. Then we were going to fix the kitchen ceiling and carpet throughout. Nice little easy DIY start for a first home.
Well, we moved in on Friday and all hell has broken loose.
The toilet has been leaking into the kitchen ceiling for god knows how long and is attached to the wall wrong which causes it to break each time it is used, the bath taps are plumbed wrong so the floor in there and the hall needs to come up and get replaced. We got to know the neighbours and realised it wasn't originally an open plan kitchen diner and the sagging happens to be directly under where there should be a supporting wall/beam (not visible but we're crossing our fingers that it might be hiding in there). All the plaster in the lounge is blown and the patio doors haven't been fitted properly.
Oh, and there are random wires passing in, over and through every wall and plug sockets daisy chained over the walls so I need the wiring fixed too.
I've given up on DIY and am just going to get some pros in to check the safety of the structure but what I don't know is what order should I be doing it all in so that one person doesn't have to rip out someone else's work to check their bit. And I still need to live in it! Any advice?
Also the carpet has been glued to the floor in some places by (hopefully) an animal urinating on it, so what's a good way to clean carpet remains off the bitumen without damaging it? That's one bit I can still do myself.
