Getting and Retaining Tradesmen to Work on your London Flat.

Richard Greenland

Last week I showed you how to deal with unwanted Artex. This week I’ll discuss strategies for getting and retaining good tradesmen.

I can get an electrician or plumber at very short notice, for several reasons. The first rule for keeping good people coming back is really very simple, but it’s amazing how many people fail to follow it. What is it? PAY ON TIME! Nothing annoys tradespeople more than having to chase their money, so never let them do it. Always pay on the dot unless agreed otherwise. On occasion it might be possible to arrange credit, but this has to be pre-agreed before the work starts.

The second thing, again very obvious but it’s surprising how many clients fail to do it, is to be respectful. Don’t just tell people when they get things wrong. Tell them when they get things right! They need to know so they know how to get it right next time. Also, most people enjoy being thanked, so it gives them an incentive to keep trying. And if they enjoy working for you they are more likely to come back.

Martyn my electrician

The third thing is to create decent working conditions. This means dry, not unduly cold or dark, having a laborour to tidy up if necessary, and little things like enough tea cups, milk sugar and tea. It’s easy to overlook the importance of little things like this. Once I had three scaffolders arrive on site, and with everyone else present we didn’t have enough cups. Also one of them drank coffee, not tea. So I went off to buy more mugs and coffee. Scaffolders are a breed apart and not used to random acts of kindness. They were so appreciative I got an extra hoist and ladders FOC and the scaffold exactly as I wanted it. Vanessa Warwick wrote an excellent blog about this sort of thing on propertytribes. Even roughty-tufty builder boys aren’t immune to this.

Fourthly recommend good people on. If they see you as a potential source of other work, they will want to invest in keeping you happy.

Lastly, when you have good team, keep using them. Admittedly there is a danger that people get complacent if they think they are guaranteed your work forever. I have an advantage with my background that I know roughly what most things should cost, so if I suspect anyone is overcharging I’ll get another couple of quotes in just to be sure. Even if someone else is a bit cheaper, if there wasn’t much difference I’d still go with the people I know and trust rather than someone who was an unknown quantity.

I’ll discuss problem roofs next week, in particular flat roofs, which as many a landlord has found to his/ her cost, are prone to leaks.

Tags: Blog, rich, tradesmen
Posted in Property on March 9th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Removing Artless Artex from London Flats

Richard Greenland

Last week I gave some tips for durable and easy decorating. This week I’ll look at how to deal with unwanted Artex permanently.

Artex was popular in the ‘80s as a decorative surface dressing to walls and ceilings, and, along with woodchip wallpaper, as a dodge to cover up uneven surfaces. Hence removing it may open its own can of worms. If you are sure that the surface underneath is flat, it can often be steamed off with a wallpaper steamer. Be careful though, as some of the older stuff can contain asbestos fibres as a binder. Some types of later non-asbestos Artex use mica instead, which looks like small metallic flakes. But this still isn’t a complete guarantee that it’s asbestos-free. It’s therefore a very bad idea to sand it back unless you’re sure!

Unfortunately if you just plaster over Artex, even with PVA adhesive, the plaster won’t stick reliably and it may peel away in future.

artex ceiling

A better alternative is to cover it with sheets of plasterboard screwed to the ceiling joists or wall timbers beneath, then skim with plaster. If it’s on a solid wall and there’s no timber to screw to, the best alternative may still be to steam or hack it off and re-plaster. Another alternative is to cover the wall in 2” x 1” battens with the centres 400mm apart, and to plasterboard over them, but this is very labour-intensive. Quicker is to ‘dot and dab’ plasterboard over the offending Artex. Hack off small patches, prime the bare patches with PVA, and use dabs of plasterboard adhesive (a plaster-based mix) on the bare bits to attach sheets of plasterboard to get a flat surface.

Next week I’m going to discuss strategies to get and retain good tradesmen. This is essential if you have multiple rental properties, or if like me you are involved in developing flats.

Tags: artex, Blog, rich
Posted in Property on March 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Robust but Classy Decorating in London Flats.

Richard Greenland

This week’s blog is a continuation of last week’s decorating tips.

I like to emulsion the walls before gloss-painting the woodwork, so that any spray splats on the woodwork can be sanded off when dry.

New plaster should first be ‘mist-coated’ with a 50/50 mix of water and paint and a bit of PVA adhesive. This penetrates the plaster surface better, providing better adhesion. Failure to do so may result in paint peeling in damp conditions in bathrooms and kitchens.

Rollering is quicker if you do it systematically in rows rather than dodging about in all directions. For ceilings use a roller extension handle which is easier than a stepladder. Minimise spray by rollering steadily and not too fast.

Consider silk finish paint for high-traffic areas like hallways and kitchens. It doesn’t collect the dirt like matt and is easier to clean.

For the woodwork there is a definite process. For typical run-of-the-mill rentals the following will give a reasonable finish fairly quickly:

1. All old gloss paint must be sanded lightly to provide a key. Failure to do this may cause new paint to peel especially if it has a rough life in a rented flat.

2. Thoroughly dust off the woodwork with a soft brush and use a hoover to clear the room of dust.

3. Fill any dents with plaster-based filler and use flexible caulk to fill internal gaps such as between skirting and walls.

4. When the filler is dry, sand it flat. Dust off the woodwork lightly and hoover again.

5. Spot-prime any bare wood and filler. I don’t recommend acrylic/ water based ‘quick drying’ paints over old oil paint as they can peel if treated roughly. On new wood they’re fine.

6. Apply undercoat.

7. Lightly sand the dry undercoat to remove ‘nibs’. Dust off again. Probably no need to vacuum as it can just spread stray dust at this stage.

8. Apply top coat thinly to avoid runs.

I never use ‘one coat’ paint. It doesn’t do what it says on the tin!

water-based materials and battery tools stored in the warm

Tip – In cold conditions take home gloss paint to keep it warm for the morning. While working keep it warm in a bowl of warm water. It’ll spread much more easily and run less.

Tip 2 – You can store rollers and emulsion brushes wrapped tightly in polythene bags for several days. Store oil brushes in water, with the bristles completely covered. Flick the water out before using them again.

Tip 3 – Don’t let water-based paints (or any water-based products) get frosted. It breaks down the polymer binders which make it set properly. You can sometimes tell if paint has been frosted as it loses its thick, viscous consistency and seems runny. Likewise PVA dries chalky white, not translucent. Some rechargeable batteries are also damaged by frost.

Next week I’ll talk about getting rid of Artex, the bane of many a renovator’s life.

Tags: Blog, decorating, painting, rich, Tips
Posted in Property on February 22nd, 2010 | No Comments »

Devious Decorating Tips for Flat Walls.

Richard Greenland

Painting and decorating is something many a landlord attempts for themselves at some point. It’s worth having a go yourself for typical mid-range rentals provided you follow some basic guidelines.

First rule – don’t strip wallpaper unless you have to! It may be all that is holding the plaster on the wall. Unless the paper is very textured you can often just paint straight over it. If you have to strip it then use a steamer.

If you do decide to strip, it’s often cheaper and quicker to get them re-skimmed with plaster than re-papered with all the preparation involved in getting the walls flat. But if the old plaster already has existing paint, the new plaster may not adhere properly. So you have two choices. For a more expensive but better finish, chip off the old paint and plaster and start again. Or to save money, sand and fill the walls as flat as possible, then cover them with a slightly embossed paper. This hides a multitude of sins, especially as some papers come ready finished, so no need even to paint! The embossed papers are tougher than the ones with a textured plastic surface coating, which can get scraped off. Woodchip is too dated.

kitchen being installed after decorating

Second rule is to decorate BEFORE you fit things like kitchens and floor coverings. People often assume that the decorating comes last, but then you have to cover up your new kitchen and ‘cut in’ around (carefully paint around) all the cabinets. Much quicker to just paint the walls first.

Third rule is start from the top and work down. This isn’t essential but just makes sense. Do the ceiling first, then any splats on the walls can be cleaned off and painted over. Do the walls next, any roller flecks on the skirting and woodwork can then be sanded off. When you do the woodwork, don’t bother if it goes half an inch or so up the walls. You don’t want to be painstakingly ‘cutting in’ along the walls with three coats of primer, undercoat and gloss. You can do it later in one process, with the emulsion on a brush.

Old kitchen and bathroom tiles can be painted white or neutral colours with specialised tile paint. It does scrape off if subject to heavy abrasion, but is a lot cheaper than new tiles. You can also get a special white marker pen to draw in the grout lines! I’ve got lots of tips to save on tiling but they’ll have to go in another blog.

Tags: Blog, decorating, painting, plastering, rich, tiles, wallpaper
Posted in Property on February 16th, 2010 | No Comments »

Central Heating that won’t cost the Earth

Richard Greenland

Cheap boilers can look tempting, but in my opinion it’s a false economy. A Worcester boiler might be £200 more upfront, but a cheap make could cost you that on one call-out. They are also easier to fit so I recoup a bit on labour costs.

Radiators have a life expectancy of 15 – 20 years, after which they may leak. On fitting new central heating or draining the system for any reason, flushing with a system cleaner and sludge remover, then adding anti-oxidant by Fernox or Sentinel is essential. It will slow the oxidation process, as well as making the boiler run more efficiently. Build-up of sludge and corrosion inside the boiler effectively insulates the internal pipes from heating by the burners, wasting energy.

worcester boiler at one of my flats

Since April 2005 for gas and 2007 for oil, all new boilers fitted to UK homes have to be condensing boilers. This is a clever system by which energy is recovered from the hot flue gasses with a heat-exchanger. As the gasses cool, water vapour condenses out (hence ‘condensing boiler’), and the condensate has to go somewhere. A pipe needs to drain to the outside. Boilers can stop working if these become blocked with ice in cold weather. Hence you can save the cost of a call-out if the pipe is property insulated with foam lagging.

You can also save a call-out if you have reliable tenants you can educate about bleeding radiators. The top of a radiator may go cold because gasses dissolved in the water vaporise out. The gasses can be released with a little brass key which opens the radiator drain cock – the little square nut in one top corner. Gas escapes, and as soon as water comes out, the radiator is full and the cock can be closed. Alternatively automatic bleed valves are now available, see http://propertytribes.ning.com/forum/topics/automatic-radiator-bleed

If system pressure drops frequently it may mean there is a slow leak which needs investigating. Slight pressure drops due to release of dissolved gasses (see above) can be corrected by opening the cock on the boiler to the mains water. Instructions on how to do this should come with the boiler. It’s a simple enough job but I wouldn’t leave this to tenants as over-pressurising the system can cause problems.

If the flat is well insulated the boiler will work less hard and last longer. Your tenants might last longer too. No-one likes being cold or paying high heating bills. The current standard required by building regs is equivalent to 270mm of fibreglass in the loft. Cavity walls can be insulated in the cavity. Solid walls can be insulated inside or outside, although you probably wouldn’t do this unless renovating. Draft excluders can be fitted. I prefer the heavy-duty type with a rigid rod containing a folded-over flexible plastic strip or a stiff brush. Here’s a link.

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/31780/Ironmongery/Draught-Rain-Excluders/Rain-Draught-Excluders/Heavy-Duty-Around-Door-Strips-White-1025mm-Pack-of-5?cm_mmc=Shopzilla-_-Ironmongery-_-Draught%20and%20Rain%20Excluders-_-Heavy%20Duty%20Around%20Door%20Strips%20White%201025mm%20Pack%20of%205&source=aw

Tags: Blog, boilers, centralheating, rich
Posted in Property on February 9th, 2010 | No Comments »

Smart Floors in London Flats

Richard Greenland

I wrote about floor coverings specific to bathroom floors last week, this week I’m covering polished boards, engineered wood, carpet tiles and underfloor heating.

Sanded and varnished floorboards remain popular with landlords, even though they’re at least 50% more expensive than carpet and underlay. They’re easy to clean, and with three coats of durable floor varnish should last much longer than carpets. Oil-based polyurethane is more durable than acrylic, but very pungent while drying, which it does slowly. Water-based acrylic dries quickly enough to get three coats on in a day, and without the smell, but is only suited to light-traffic, dry areas (not bathrooms). If the varnish wears thin, you can just sand and varnish them again! This second sanding is a quick job if it’s confined to worn areas.

Unless they’re insulated underneath with something draftproof (fibreglass or multi-foil film, not closed-cell phenolic foam like Xtratherm or Celotex), it’s vital to caulk the gaps between boards, or your tenants will be cold. Matching-colour caulk will do, or clear silicone.

sanded floor with skirting and door off

In the picture I’ve sanded the floor with the skirting boards and door off (you can see them upright in the corners), to get right into the corners. Also it’s easier to paint skirtings on a bench than on the floor, and avoids paint marks on the varnished boards. Correct sequencing of work saves time and raises quality.

‘Engineered wood’ is for high-end rentals only. It resembles solid wood but clicks together tightly like laminate. It has a surface of decorative wood such as oak a few mm thick, backed by plywood. Like solid wood, if worn it can be sanded and varnished again. If it gets wet it’ll swell and the joints will blow.

I’m not a fan of underfloor heating as electric heating isn’t very green. It needs to be insulated thoroughly to avoid massive heat loss to the soil below. To avoid problems, it must be taken right to the edges of the floor. If there are cool and warm spots, differences in thermal expansion can cause tiles to crack. Joints in laminates and wooden floors may open due to the desiccating effect of being heated.

Carpet tiles are intended for office or commercial spaces, but are great for typical student lets or other low-end rentals. They’re very hard-wearing and can be replaced square by square if fouled or left with tell-tale iron-shaped scorch marks.

Next week I’ll write about central heating, boilers and insulation.

Tags: Blog, floors, Maintenance, Property, rich
Posted in Property on February 1st, 2010 | No Comments »

Flat out to keep bathroom floors flat in London flats!

Richard Greenland

Last week I wrote about carpets and laminate floors. I said I’d write about floors for bathrooms this week, and waterproof laminate flooring in particular, so here goes.

I never fit MDF based laminate floor in bathrooms. I’ve seen products which claim to be suitable for bathrooms, made of very highly compressed MDF with a high resin content. These products are still not truly waterproof, the moisture always gets into the joints somehow, curls up the edges and they don’t stay flat. There’s a new product called Aquastep, made by Quickstep, which isn’t a laminate in the true sense as it’s entirely plastic, so impervious to water. I fitted a room with it recently for a client and it goes down quite well. It’s expensive at about £25 a square metre, so at that price, it’s worth considering fitting tiles instead.

Tiles are probably the best option for durability in the bathroom if you can afford them. They can’t be fixed straight to a wooden floor, but need a backing board of a minimum 12mm plywood, with lots of screws holding it down to stabilise the existing floor, which also needs to be screwed down thoroughly to the joists beneath. I recommend using powdered adhesive, not ready-mixed, if the tiles are likely to remain wet for any length of time. Ready-mixed can soften if left wet for too long. With the extra work and materials involved, tiles will probably cost a bit more than the Aquastep flooring all-in, unless you can get a very cheap deal on the tiles, but tiles laid properly are incredibly durable. Be careful not to fit tiles which are slippery when wet!

Engineered wood is a bad idea in bathrooms for the same reason as laminate – water gets into the joints and curls them up at the edges.

natural wood floor surprisingly resilient in bathroom

Oddly enough, solid wood varnished tongue and groove boards perform better than you might think. They swell a bit, but the pre-existing gaps between the boards disguise this so they still look OK.

Vinyl is of course far and away the cheapest alternative. It’s impervious to water, quick and easy to fit, and can be surprisingly durable IF your tenants aren’t too hard on it. It’ll tear with hard use or if heavy objects, such as washing machines, are dropped or dragged along it. Personally I favour vinyl in kitchens and bathrooms because it’s sooooo much cheaper than anything else and I trust my tenants to be sensible, but this is down to the discretion of the landlord.

That about raps it up for this week. Ill write about polished boards, engineered wood and underfloor heating over the next week or two.

Tags: bathroom, Blog, floor, Maintenance, Property, rich
Posted in Property on January 25th, 2010 | No Comments »

Terrific Taps in London Flats.

Richard Greenland

I talked about fans and cooker hoods last week, this week I’ll consider taps.

People pay stupid money for taps (several hundreds of pounds sometimes!) but you can get perfectly acceptable and stylish ones for a tiny fraction of this if you shop around. But be wary of anything non-branded that seems too cheap – you don’t want to be working on them every few months. Rough castings inside certain Chinese-made taps can chafe the washers and make them leak. Also beware of very tall mixer taps anchored solely on a stainless-steel sink. The long body acts as a lever, buckling the thin metal and making them unstable. Short stumpy mixers don’t look as flash but are less trouble in the long run.

I have fitted concealed taps (where the tap body is embedded in the wall and only the nozzles and handles protrude) for clients. They look great! But these are a bad choice for rental flats in my opinion, even at the high-end. If anything goes wrong with them, for instance needing a new washer, you may have to remove tiles and dig a hole in the wall to get them out!

thermostatic shower controller

In my own flats I always fit a thermostatic controller for the shower. Tenants love them because they’re much more sophisticated than a controller that you constantly have to fiddle with to get the temperature right. Also it saves them getting scalded or frozen if someone turns a tap on elsewhere in the flat, reducing the pressure. True they are potentially another thing to go wrong, but they are still much simpler and cheaper than an electric shower (which also contains a thermostat, and is a devilish combination of water, electricity, and moving parts).

And remember – always plumb the cold to the right and the hot to the left! This is because the cold is generally used more frequently and most folks are right-handed. If you see taps plumbed in the other way, you know for sure it’s DIY plumbing. In the summer I helped a friend connect a thermostatic shower to his girlfriend’s bath. When we turned the stop-tap back on, nothing came out of the shower, but water rushed out of the overflow from the loft at high pressure. After a frustrating half hour and a lot of chin-scratching, we realised the problem was the existing DIY plumbing. The hot and cold supplies were the wrong way round! There is a non-return valve on the hot inlet in the shower, so the mains cold water entered the (wrong) hot inlet, bypassed the spout altogether and backflowed out of the cold inlet and through the hot system, to overflow from the tank in the loft!

I don’t think I’ve said anything about flooring so far, so next week I’ll take a look at the different types of flooring available for kitchens, bathrooms, and elsewhere in rental flats.

Tags: Blog, rich, taps
Posted in Property on January 12th, 2010 | No Comments »

Don’t Get Sunk by a Bad Choice of Sink!

Richard Greenland

Well last week I considered the different types of kitchen worktop available and the balancing act between durability and cost that is performed when considering which to use. This week I’ll look at sinks, and in particular the consequences your choice of sink can have on your worktop!

For some time it’s been fashionable to use ‘flush fitting’ sinks as opposed to the ‘sit on’ variety, but I’m delighted to see that ‘sit on’ is gradually coming back into vogue as people realise how daft flush sinks are. ‘Sit on’ sinks are so called because they sit directly onto the kitchen cabinets beneath, taking the place of the worktop. ‘Flush fitting’ sinks on the other hand sit in the worktop, and actually don’t fit flush at all but generally slightly proud.

They are daft because to fit them you take an expensive length of worktop, cut a ruddy great hole out of it, and then throw the cut-out away! Not only is this wasteful, but it renders the worktop very weak where the cut out is, as there is only a thin strip of material either side of the sink. Worse, if the worktop is made of Formica/Chipboard (F/C) or any other wood-based board, it becomes extremely vulnerable to water damage behind the taps, and as a result yet another disposable F/C worktop finds its way to landfill.

(By the way, if you still insist on using F/C worktops with flush sinks, you can improve their performance massively by coating the whole of the cut-out very thoroughly with a good one-part silicone sealant, NOT acrylic sealant.)

sit-on sink

The photo shows the ‘utility’ sit-on sink I fitted from B&Q (£49) at my latest flat. Ikea have nicer sinks for £150, but I didn’t think it necessary. That sink is fine, set in basic and inexpensive granite worktops which still manage to exude quality and will never need replacement.

Other types of sink are the ceramic Belfast, briefly popular a decade or two ago until people realised the folly of fitting such an anachronism into a modern house, with its leaky seal against the worktop and lack of a drainer. Piles of rejected Belfast sinks now languish in reclamation yards as a result.

For high-end flats, you can’t beat an undermounted sink as a great way to show off your granite, with few of the sealing problems associated with Belfast. You can have drainer grooves cut into the worktop, or even a recess scooped out as a drainer. But the cutting, polishing and fitting is expensive!

I’ve had to write this blog very hastily as my computer was down, so not quite sure what I’ll be tackling next week. Possibly kitchen cabinets or taps? Unless anyone reading would like to put in a special request which relates to topics covered so far – kitchens and bathrooms.

Tags: Blog, Maintenance, Property, rich, sinks
Posted in Property on December 15th, 2009 | 3 Comments »

Thinking your Way to Low Maintenance Flats

Richard Greenland

I’m a landlord, but I have also got thirty years experience in the building trade behind me. I’m presently converting a large very run-down semi-detached house into three flats. Before that I did a major renovation of a smaller house (roof off, walls stripped to bare masonry, new floors, significant layout changes) which I then sold. I’m a carpenter by trade, but have done just about every job involved in maintaining houses and flats that you might imagine, plus a few that you might not! I’ve also worked as a shopfitter in London, as well as building scenery and props for pop promo videos (also in London). Other experience includes working as the master carpenter on a major renovation of a 400 year old Grade 2 listed farmhouse in Devon, and in the same role on a high-class conversion of a stable block to four high-spec flats at a Buddhist monastery in South Wales. I’ve worked on many down-market projects as well, so have a wealth of experience at both ends of the market. I don’t know everything about buildings (no-one does), but I know where to look for what I don’t know, so I can generally find it very quickly.

The key to saving money on maintenance is in the thinking.

Greenland Building Restoration and Conversion Project

When doing any work on a property, from a light refurbishment all the way to a major renovation or conversion to flats, or even a new-build project, it is vital to ask yourself what could possibly go wrong and then take steps to prevent it. Be proactive not reactive. Money spent wisely at the outset could save thousands later by future-proofing the building from unnecessary faults. For example consider where leaks are most likely in the plumbing system and put access hatches there. Use appropriate materials, for example use the right type of silicone sealant around a bath and shower tray – a perpetual source of minor repairs for many landlords.

Tenants aren’t as careful with a rented flat as they might be if they owned it themselves – I will show you the many ways I have learnt to make buildings as resilient as possible to the kind of use and abuse that rental property can suffer.

Richard Greenland – Landlord, Developer, and Builder – will write here every Tuesday about building low maintenance flats.

Tags: Architecture, Blog, Flats, Maintenance, Property, rich
Posted in Property on October 27th, 2009 | 7 Comments »

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Getting and Retaining Tradesmen to Work on your London Flat.

Removing Artless Artex from London Flats

Robust but Classy Decorating in London Flats.

Devious Decorating Tips for Flat Walls.

Central Heating that won’t cost the Earth

Smart Floors in London Flats

Flat out to keep bathroom floors flat in London flats!

Terrific Taps in London Flats.

Don’t Get Sunk by a Bad Choice of Sink!

Thinking your Way to Low Maintenance Flats

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