Help! My House Is Falling Down | Series 2 Episode 1

they say there's nothing safer than bricks and mortar [Music] but if we don't look after our homes it doesn't take long for the cracks to appear you can see daylight through the wall i'm absolutely amazed that this roof is still standing in this brand new series we'll be rooting out rot and going up in flames searching out families who fear their homes are about to crash around their ears at some point this whole beam will snap we'll be trying to help them bring their homes back from the brink of disaster but it's certainly going to be a bumpy ride it really is falling to bits [Music] tonight to kick off the new series she thought she'd found perfection it was our dream house it was our forever home what they've got is a major health hazard in two days an incubator it looks like that so that's what you're inhaling what is it no i'm gonna hold my breath he thought it needed a simple cosmetic refurb when we bought the house uh structurally we thought it was sound little did they know it could all fall down the worst case scenario is that you'd have to rebuild the whole end of the house now i'm really worried they've ended up with a property in crisis there's no way the problems with this house are going to be fixed with wallpaper the picturesque village of nabra in leicestershire is home to jamie and charlotte bates and five-year-old son charlie like many people they were looking for an older property they could turn into a dream family home we were looking for something with period features with some character to it not these run-of-the-mill new builds something that needed a bit of work doing to it so when charlotte spotted a grand looking edwardian house for sale she couldn't wait to go and see it from that first step into the house i knew it was the house for us and we had to have it it was obvious that a lot of cosmetic work needed doing wallpaper curtains carpets jamie's a shop-fitter and thought the renovation work looked pretty straightforward i definitely thought to be able to take the work on myself it was stuff that didn't phase us really and when they bought it a year ago for 275 000 pounds they were delighted we actually thought it was a bit of a steal to be honest for the size of it we could just about afford it by scraping all the pennies together but knew that we had to have it really on the day that we got the keys i was so excited i don't think i slept the night before at all little did they know this would become the first of many sleepless nights [Music] soon after moving in their dream home began to reveal a catalogue of hidden horrors when we got in and started to clean you start to look more closely at things [Music] i saw cracks i saw damp patches virtually in every room things weren't hanging quite straight doors weren't staying open or staying shut they were just moving as they wanted to it was then they discovered the shocking truth the entire upstairs floor was rather alarmingly sloping the floor dropped five inches from the bathroom door to the outside wall in fact it seemed the whole house was literally cracking up [Music] you don't know quite how bad it's going to be if it's a hairline crack or whether actually it looks like a wall's going to fall down and i was really really worried then when storm showers hit water started to invade [Music] we could hear a dripping and before we knew it we could see a huge puddle of water on the floor there's a couple of holes [Music] on top of that when they stripped the wallpaper back they revealed sinister looking slimy black mold kind of raises major concerns as to you know why it's there and where you stand health-wise it seems their dream for this house is over this is no cosmetic fix jamie realizes his shot-fitting skills are no match for these problems and they urgently need help i'm not really sure where to go with it this is beyond me these are things i cannot do it does detract from the initial love of the house you begin to see it as a building instead of your home we need a guardian angel to come in and tell us what's wrong with the house how it can be fixed and how much it's going to cost and then we've got to try and find the money from somewhere is there anything that can be done to help this family turn their problem property into the wonderful home of their dreams [Music] it's easy to fall in love with a house and get carried away with big ideas of how to make it look beautiful but there's no point in putting new kitchens and bathrooms in if it could potentially fall into the ground [Music] hi come on how the first thing that jumps out at me is the smell and the black mold in the sitting room perhaps we should not just be worried about the health of the house but also the family have you had any coughs and colds oh yes there have been coughs and cold chatty's got an awful cough at the moment and i had one over when we first moved in and it hung on for a couple of weeks the various different types of black mold and some are more toxic than others if it's one of the worst types then it's not great to be living with it it is considered a very major health risk and you can have long-term side effects from it so we need to get it out quickly it's a sign that there's definitely water getting in and we need to get to the root of why it's wet and dry it out fast some slimy black molds can be toxic they grow in wet humid conditions it can be a health risk when found in the home the mold generates spores that are airborne and invisible to the human eye when inhaled they can cause breathing difficulties attacks to the nervous system and even bleeding of the lungs and nose if you have these symptoms and significant mold in your house it's worth seeing a gp mold is not the only water-related problem in this house water is top of my list of home wreckers and jamie and charlotte's extension is not doing a very good job of keeping it out [Music] [Applause] as soon as you get any water on top of the roof it's coming down in torrents which why we leave the buckets in situ pretty much all of the time right here and yes and again another one here i mean sort of relatively clumsily built this extension and a flat roof is not ideal for the uk because it's always prone to leaking i thought it was just going to be rip the kitchen out and put a new kitchen in i didn't think there was actually going to be any leaks or anything i thought it was going to be putting my nice wallpaper up and so what was it in reality it's a bit of a nightmare really day-to-day living is just dreadful um you know with buckets and things like that it makes it really hard poor charlotte and there are further problems outside they show me some cracks that have appeared in the walls did you notice any problems with the house when you bought it initially no but as i've been glancing back at the house you don't have to know too much to think well a lot of the bricks are up and down there's cracks which are worrying signs this crack here is a new crack is it all it's something that we'd had filled and it does look as though it's only back out again it hasn't been filled for that long so we're really worried in a basic way you can look at the outside of a house and see if it looks as though it's all straight and square and that's not so far jamie and charlotte have pointed out the obvious problems however on the side of the house there's an issue they haven't noticed which could turn out to be the worst of all now here it feels like it's bowing quite significantly the center of this wall is sort of squashing outwards and this render here is popping off some had you noticed the boeing before i thought it was the render but now obviously standing at this angle you can see quite clearly that it's not the worst case scenario is that you'd have to rebuild the whole end of the house now i'm really worried now we're looking at walls that are bowing to which i have no idea what it's going to cost or how long it's going to take uh you know if there ever was a schedule on this house it's now completely out the window well it's just another structural problem isn't it when before we just thought it was virtually cosmetic yeah upstairs there were further signs that the gable wall was bending outwards [Music] it looks as though this floor here is sloping significantly down pulling back the carpet reveals further worrying evidence a piece of wood has been used to cover the gap caused by the wolf falling away from the joist dens and it's the joists that are holding up the entire first floor the joists are bearing onto this wall but because the wall is bowing out the joists are bearing onto it an awful lot less so as soon as those come off the wall all together because the wall has bowed so much there's nothing actually holding us up up here at all it's quite shocking because obviously if this is moved 20 years ago and someone's just put a piece of wood down how's that going to rectify anything it's not got better in 20 years and perhaps we should move away from here in case we end up downstairs [Music] so many structural problems are a bitter pill to swallow for charlotte who thought shotfitter jaime could easily transform this property into their dream home what made you think you could take a project like this on for jamie's capabilities i thought he could do everything there's nothing that i wouldn't think he could do so do you find there's lots of things that jamie can't do yes and that's what makes me worry because i've always put my trust in him that he can do it for us oh no he must feel he's letting you down because you oh not i hope not i would take him to think that but um yeah it's a bit of a tricky one it could easily cost thousands to put right the plan b would be to pay someone to get it done for us if i can't do it and the reason that pot of money you know it's you know how far do you go with these things have you got any money at all we've got ten thousand pounds that that i'm hoping and praying will be enough to put right the wrongs jamie in charlotte's house has bowing and cracking walls a leaking flat roof and a serious dose of slimy black mold i'm not sure 10 grand is going to be enough to fix the problems personally i think that the building is still moving i think you know you're talking about a lot of money to get it to a point where it's sort of stable and are you more worried or less worried um i suppose it's worse than we were expecting in that actually structurally the house isn't safe this could be massive you know it's it's it's not about decor it's not about cosmetic it's about getting the house structurally right before we start any of it yeah that's certainly true there is no way the problems with this house are going to be fixed with wallpaper [Music] i feel a bit scared because the problems seem quite serious and it actually seems quite dangerous the feelings that we both have towards this house have definitely changed but to discover the severity of some of these issues is right now put us in quite a dark place spending all their money on structural repairs is not something they were expecting to have to do but the problems have to be faced and the first step is to give this house the survey of all surveys the whole wall then is leaning by about the same amount we need to get to the bottom of the problems with jamie and charlotte's dream home it's just gonna cost more and more money the longer you leave it [Music] when jamie and charlotte bates went in search of a period property they could renovate and turn into their dream family home they focused on character and charm and when they came across this impressive edwardian house they thought they'd struck goals edwardian houses were built between 1901 and 1910 designed as family homes for the middle classes at the time of national prosperity they were built on sizable plots with gardens front and back these properties were often large with elaborate external decoration and detailing they are now a century old and if they haven't been maintained can be in a serious state of disrepair jamie and charlotte's lovely big house is full of cracks leaks and damp with signs of structural issues and a health hazard they cannot ignore especially when son charlie's around but they only have a budget of ten thousand pounds to fix the whole house right now you know constantly worried about the house you know whether things are falling away the cost implications before we even look forward into you know the decorating and the cosmetic side of things so it's a day-to-day worry poor jamie is looking like a rabbit in headlights so to get to grips with this house the specialists are going to give it a thorough examination [Music] they'll be probing inside outside and underneath this property to find out exactly what's wrong and how much the repairs will cost first on the list is the slimy black mold there are signs of damp all over the house but the worst attack is in the living room where a large area is clearly visible in the corner now this nifty bit of kit is a thermal imaging camera and it tells us where it's hot and where it's cold so if i put it on to me you can see that i'm hot in the room and the room's really cold so look in this corner well we know we've got a problem it's really cold in the corner which would suggest that it's wet and ultimately that is not healthy for the house if you ignore it it will only get worse we're going to find out exactly how toxic this black mold is jeff charlton specializes in the analysis and treatment of mold in the home what i've found is that the amount of moisture that's in the air is similar to that of a flooded home we've got two types of mold that's growing on the wall one is a white furry type mold that looks like aspergillus and the second mold is a black slime mold which is known as stachybotrys this is a serious health threat so i would only live in this house if i were a respirator 24 7. it sounds as though it's a good idea for jamie and charlotte to deal with this swiftly but the problems don't end there a major structural issue is a gable wall it's bowing in the middle so badly the render is popping off structural engineer simon pictures has over 20 years surveying experience his first job is to examine the extent of the movement this is what's really worrying me is that crack up there this is 10 millimeters wide now as soon as you get into double figures you're into the mother of all cracks it's suggesting that this side wall has moved away from the rest of the building we may well have a subsidence problem this is a serious problem that we need to investigate subsidence is when a house starts sinking into the ground it's built on and it could be exacerbating the boeing gable wall the naked eye the signs of movement on this end wall but to be absolutely sure how much it's moving we're using a plumb bob test which means that we're tying a piece of string to the top has a heavy weight on the bottom we're seeing what the distance is at the top compared to the bottom [Music] we've got 40 millimeters up here sarah we've got 100 mil down the bottom so that's that's 60 mil difference which is about that much that's quite a lean the same test at different points along the wall confirms our worst fears the whole wall then is leaning by about the same amount this is not good a 60 mil difference is some significant movement so the question is what's happening with the foundations to find out we dig down to see if the ground around the foundations is solid or not that does not look at all good this is very very soft material i can squeeze it through my fingers absolutely unsuitable for constructing this kind of structure this auger test proves this end of the house is sitting on soggy ground more digging is needed to find where ground firm enough to support the foundations is so this is taken from the hole at a depth of 1.5 meters below the foundations and that is the stuff that actually would be suitable to support that building but it's a long way down we need to find out what's making the earth so soggy in my experience the first place to look is always the drains that's you know oh yes so we've got this fantastic camera there's a camera on the end of it so we're going to stick this camera down the drains and see what's happening and check whether the drains are working or not okay so so it's going down the down pipe and now we're going into the drains themselves okay so what's this here in that's tree roots and there's a massive open joint there that's going to allow a lot of escape water at that point so it's soaking this corner of the house which is why the house in this point is collapsing a further camera check in the main drain by the side of the house reveals tree roots separated joints and a large fragment of pipe which must have left a leaking hole somewhere god knows how they're going to get that out it's going to probably have to be dug out it all points to water leaking from the drains into the ground the house is built on which is causing the end wall to subside if they ignore it this end of the house could eventually collapse they need to know just how serious a problem this is so this is a demonstration to explain what's happening to your foundations where the water is soaking into the ground and the houses is dropping down so the brick represents your house and this is the soil underneath now what's happening every time it rains because the water is not draining away it's basically soaking slowly into the ground and as it soaks into the ground the ground compresses and it turns into a sort of muddy bog as you can see the straw here was sitting on the top and the water forces the air out and your house is sinking if you leave it to continue to think you're going to find there's more and more damage that needs to be overcome on the house itself so it's going to cost more and more money the longer you leave it one side of the house is quite literally sinking down into the ground so the job can't be done quick enough as far as we can yeah we've got to stop it now haven't we are you quite worried about it yeah yeah because at some point could it go like that leaking drains are more common and harmful than you might think and they can go unnoticed for years cracks can be caused by tree root penetration continual vehicle pressure and the weight of the ground above even the tiniest crack will allow water to escape and once water escapes under foundations it will weaken them and potentially cause subsidence possible signs of subsidence are cracks which appear in the same place inside and outside of a building cracks that appear at weak points such as around doors and windows and cracks at the join where an extension meets an original structure when you buy a property chances are the drains are the same age as the house jamie in charlotte's house is a hundred years old and at this age it's not surprising some of the drains are shot i mean the reality is if you don't deal with this the house will only continue to sink so there's quite a lot of drainage work that needs to go on which in reality is likely to cost somewhere up to probably about 5 000 pounds is that something that you're expecting at all no it's a lot of money but doing this will stop their home from sinking it will also stop the moisture that feeds the mold growing in the living room we sent samples of this to a laboratory and the results are back in a petri dish in two days an incubator it looks like that so that's what you're inhaling um yeah what good is it no i'm gonna hold my breath this is quite highly toxic it's linked to asthma and even neurological diseases and breathing problems because it's just not a very nice mold to have around so really you want to get it out yeah as soon as possible really don't we the thought of charles and well all of us breathing that sort of stuff ins yes you're not going to get rid of it unless you dry the place out though because that's how it grows is it likes nice wet walls so there are specialists who would get rid of it for you and that would cost you five thousand pounds to remove the mold and fix the drains could cost about ten thousand pounds which would be charlotte and jamie's entire budget but they're both issues that cannot be ignored the fact that the mold could be a cause of breathing problems respiratory problems asthma makes me feel hugely guilty that i've moved my family in here i'm worried that it may be linked to some costs and calls that all of us have had recently and that's really really scary to try to make their money go further jamie rings his insurance company to see if they might pay for the trains to be repaired we've got some uh tree root damage at last good news for their finances the drainage of the uh the water that is buildings insurance is a requirement for most mortgages but even if you own your home outright it's worth considering for peace of mind we've spoken to the insurance company and they've agreed that they're going to send somebody out to get this work dealt with we're only having to pay the excess which frees up a huge amount of that money the fact that this money can then be put to not necessarily a better use but another use within the house is is certainly of great relief to both of us the workmen arriving to fix the drains is the first step of getting jamie and charlotte's house on the road to a healthy recovery rather than dig up the whole driveway they use a less disruptive solution to fix their main drain once a section of pipe has been removed a liner soaked in resin is inserted into the drain when this is in place a plastic sock is inflated inside which expands to the size of the drain the resin is allowed to harden and then the socks deflated and removed leaving a tough hard lining in the drain and no leaks fixing the other drain from the downpipe involves replacing a short section of pipe finally the ground can start to dry out and the house stops sinking drop should be a good as the rainwater can now flow away freely it also means the living room walls can start drying out here jamie is getting rid of the black mold himself if you're doing this at home you can use a mold eradication kit they cost about 50 pounds and are available from specialist suppliers obviously this will only work if the damp causing the mold has been dealt with before he tackles the mold he needs to remove the old damp wallpaper first uses a product to kill and clean all visible signs of mold then he coats the walls in a mold barrier to prevent it from regrowing when they come to redecorate this room adding a fungicide to the paint or wallpaper paste will give it a further layer of protection the main things that the mold's gone now so i will be breathing easier knowing it's done fixing the drains was essential repair work jamie and charlotte weren't expecting to do and they still haven't tackled the boeing wall or the leaking roof which means they can't get on with any of their planned renovations the impact on the family is absolutely huge we don't feel like we're living in the family dream at all which we expected um to be moving to the new house it feels really restrictive it feels like our life's temporarily on hold it also makes me a bit upset thinking well how long is this going to go on for if it was temporary then that would be fine but at the moment i can't see an end to it coming up this family are faced with yet another structural problem because it's not tied in ultimately back wall of the house will collapse which means even more work for jamie time is always against you one way or another [Music] when jamie and charlotte bates bought an edwardian house they thought a little cosmetic work would turn it into their dream home little did they realize it was full of leaks and cracks and mold and that slowly but surely it was sinking into the ground now they're well on their way to putting the action plan to fix their home into practice so often when you unearth one problem it can reveal another lurking behind the scenes and this is what's happening now it turns out the roof is sagging what i'm looking at here is a purlin this is a large piece of wood which supports the rafters of the roof and this purlin is actually sagged quite considerably that suggests that these rafters are moving outwards and downwards and so we're getting what's known as roof spread roof spread means a roof is starting to splay out and collapse a conventional roof resists failure because the timbers form a triangle holding it together jamie and charlotte's roof isn't a conventional construction [Music] the front elevation is higher than the back elevation and so there's nothing to hold these rafters in place as a result the roof is spreading and if it's not fixed and tied together it will ultimately collapse and i'm worried that's a very real danger for this house wow this is fantastic when you're a bloke who looks at cracks look at the width of that and that is showing us how this front wall here has moved away from this partition and that really is the best evidence i've ever seen of roof spread in my life well simon might be excited by this discovery but i have to break yet more bad news to jamie and charlotte if you leave it eventually it'll become a very serious problem which means you have to take the whole roof structure off and start again so the bad news is that for a new roof you're probably looking at about ten thousand pounds is that in any way what you're expecting um no not really we haven't got that much of a budget to be honest jamie and charlotte are taken aback when you're trying to live the dream it's disappointing to any homemaker to have to put all of the budget into invisible structural work but to show them how worthwhile investing in the roof is i'm bringing them to the biggest building testing center in the country in watford to show them how roofs work what we have here is a scale model of your roof so we're going to put weights and load onto the top of it to show what will happen over time if you do nothing about it so i think we better stand back here the weight of jamie and charlotte's roof in itself is already causing it to spread but the situation could easily get worse if extra weight is added in recent years we've suffered harsh winters with increased snowfall in this country a five centimeter layer of snow sitting on a roof could increase the load by as much as a ton that could push a weak roof to disaster [Music] so now we're at about a quarter of a ton now you can see it's starting to give this is at nearly half a ton you're starting to rotate from the second block up that's effectively a brick wall and it's pushing the top of your brick wall over and you'll find that the course of bricks just under the end of the rafters will start to move out those bottom joists are falling out because it's not tied in you're going to end up with total roof failure it's terrifying isn't it to think that you could possibly live with this above your head literally it just makes me want to run away and sort of hide running away isn't going to stop jamie and charlotte's roof from failing and they don't have the thousands of pounds it would cost to redesign and rebuild it but there is another option it involves a bit more work on jamie's part but if they're up for it it could save them a lot of money so now this is a another scale model of your roof this is the support that we'd suggest that you put in tying the rafters together this is the quickest cheapest and easiest way to prop the roof so that the ridge can't drop and the roof can't spread it's something you can do yourselves for not very much money and then you can sleep easily in your beds at night knowing that the fact that this triangle isn't completed is not the end of the world to prove this is going to provide enough support to stop the roof from spreading further we're going to perform the same test on the reinforced model this is the point at which the other roof fails you're about triple your failure load of last time four times your failure loaded last time and it's beginning to fail [Music] as you can see from this experiment the central prop means that it can take far greater load than you're ever gonna have with some slates and even a load of snow on the roof and that will keep it sound and secure so that you don't need to worry about living inside the house the solution at this stage is really very inexpensive the solution if you leave it will be very very very expensive do you feel sort of relieved there's such a simple easy fix for this yeah definitely this job is not one job that can be delayed it's got to be sorted now now we've been shown the problems with the roof and how to put them right it's of paramount importance to deal with it as soon as possible the good thing is that it can be done pretty quickly and pretty cheaply which are two words that we like at the moment because we're running out of money i have every faith that jamie can do this himself he's already doing much of the work on this house as well as juggling a full-time job family life and worrying about mounting costs but here's another job we're going to take on together we're going to secure this roof in two directions one by propping the ridge up so it can't drop any further and also by putting a a cross beam that's going to tie one roof slope to the other roof slope and also bolt into the vertical prop for the ridge and that action together is going to secure the entire roof and stop it collapsing it's vital the post sits on top of a load-bearing wall and it's a really tight fit to give the roof maximum support with the crossbeam screwed into the central post and the rafters this is a positive step to keeping the roof propped up and so a number of these down the length of the roof is going to secure it and make sure the ridge can't drop and the roof can't splay fantastic one less problem to worry about but how's everything else going you're at the moment trying to juggle a full-time job during the day and doing building work really because you're a shot fisher aren't you and they're coming home at night to a building site and you've got a family yes are you you finding that tricky yeah it is very tricky um really struggling with the lack of time with my family at the moment work wise to be doing the same thing in the evening as you are in the day seven days a week it's starting to drag a little i must admit and also the you know the lack of cleanliness throughout the house you know everywhere it's covered in dust all the time and you know it must be driving my wife mad you know and then when you add on to that the financial restraints with not having much money or much time to get it done is very very difficult i think jamie is proving himself to be a real hero by shouldering the lion's share of the work to take care of his family i do offer to help but he doesn't tend to take much help from me because i don't think i can do things as well as he can six more cross beams later and the roof is props but there's no chance for jamie to lay down his tools we're straight on to fixing another problem the roof is secure and subsidence has been stopped and now we need to fix the boeing gable wall that's coming away from the floors which could collapse to avoid that happening we're going to tie it all together and hold it in place and whilst that's not going to undo the damage that's been done it will hold it rigid and stop it get any worse that's really all that matters right yeah to get someone else to do this would cost around a couple of thousand pounds but there's a bargain basement way to make sure the floor joists are rock solid we're going to use this wall tie which looks like a screw but actually is very carefully engineered to be able to go right through the center of every joist and a normal screw would really struggle to do that we're going to fix the joists to the wall using specially engineered reinforced ties these ties are drilled through the wall from the outside into the joists securing them to the wall this will stop the gable wall from bowing any further and the first floor from collapsing and along with the fact that this it happens on every single joist as you go through the house together that bracing action is going to secure your house how would you describe how you'd feel when this is all finished i feel like we should cool weren't it like the house actually tied together and yes we've got lots of other work to do but at least it's a solid structure the consequences of not dealing with it are just massive aren't they the good thing is is that you have coursed in time and that's that's really exciting because if you'd left it another 10 years would be having a very different conversation the wall ties are inserted from the outside of the house you need to drill a guide hole through the brick but it's important to stop as soon as you hit the joist perfect [Music] the tie will embed itself into the joist and secure it to the wall ensuring the floor won't fall to the ground and it's gone oh yeah as simple as that i personally would drive these into every joist because then you've got a completely secure house which you never need to worry about again on this wall so are you up for doing all of that yourselves yeah absolutely yeah that's it less than 100 quid how secure yeah sounds like a ball game at last we're really winning and can start on the interior charlotte's been waiting a long time to get to the decorating stage have there been moments where you just thought you know what i just i can't face it just walk away sometimes i'm sort of lying awake at night thinking i'll just sell the house to sell the house and buy some menu but we've got to follow our dream through we've pretty much got as low as we're going to get and we're slightly on that upturn now how have you found that the work so far has it been has it been exciting moving forward or yeah yeah it's really exciting moving forward at least we can actually start doing a bit more of the fun stuff and picking out some nice interiors you will make it at home it will be lovely it's just it's persevering really isn't it definitely making this house safe has been an ordeal but at last there's just one big job left fixing the leaking roof on the extension to make it watertight for this they're getting in a specialist company in just one day they add a slight pitch and cover the extension with a durable pvc that as well as providing weatherproofing blends well with the edwardian exterior problem sorted with the drip stopped the buckets make way for a shiny new kitchen [Music] i've had a kitchen for about a year so it does feel very strange but it's great to see the progress and i'm looking how i imagined it to look and tireless jamie cracks on with decorating the entire house which after all he's been through seems almost a break from hard work once you're painting you know that everything structurally has been finished and just been trying to make it pretty suppose coming up six months after first meeting jamie and charlotte it's time to see their house finished and find out if it managed to become their dream family home wow goodness [Music] it's six months since i first met jamie and charlotte back then the gable wall was sinking the roof was in danger of collapsing and the whole house felt unsafe i've come back to see if they're finally living the family dream they'd always hoped for jamie's been working round the clock ever since i first met them and i can't wait to see the results [Applause] gosh this looks amazing is the rest of it as gorgeous as the hall we think so we're really pleased entering the house it smelled damp and was a little bit dingy the wallpaper in the living room was peeling away and behind it looked slimy black mold now every trace of that has gone and they've got a sitting room to be proud of this is completely unrecognizable it's fantastic is this how you always imagined this swim to be yes i think in some ways it's a bit better than i imagined it to be because it was the grottiest room this wall here was completely and totally covered in mold and you did say that your son had been a bit unwell since we've sort of dealt with the mould and everything else it is noticeable to realize that he's not coughing like it was before how do you feel about it now well as soon as we discovered all the problems we sort of evacuated the room because obviously we didn't spend any time in here at all but now i want to spend time in here do you see yourselves relaxing on the sofa with your feet firmly placed on the table glass of wine in hand now yes absolutely i'm uh i'm definitely downing tools now for the summer and you know is going to be a house to enjoy i think well it's unrecognizable it's fantastic the roof of the extension at the back of the house was leaking making this whole space unusable now it's been replaced and they've created the ultimate family living space with a state-of-the-art kitchen any cook would be proud of wow goodness how absolutely fantastic thank you please tell me this is better than you ever imagined it to be it absolutely is you know to have a kitchen that we can now use is one thing but this is so much more than that isn't it yeah it really feels like one space whereas before it did feel like a bit of a dark kitchen and a stuck-on extension off the back and considering that you had a shower in the middle where the roof was leaking not a sign of a leak now so it's going to be a fantastic space for your family to hang out i think this is where we'll spend most of our time this will be the family room jamie and charlotte's house had problems below with leaking drains causing subsidence problems above with the roof spreading and problems at the side with a gable wall bowing out dangerously really there couldn't have been more things happening to the house to make it fall to bits now they've repaired the damage and redecorated and are well on their way to transforming this house into a very comfortable home and how does it feel now because all of that work you've done yourself haven't you you've tied the house together yeah absolutely we know for a fact that everything is secure now which is a big relief for us i think when you started this project you had about 10 000 to spend how much does it end up actually costing you uh probably about thirty thirty thousand pounds will be told so where was the extra money come from was it really hard to get hold of yes we had to borrow from everyone my mum and dad anyone who would give us any money basically they've had to beg and borrow and have promised to pay back generous friends and relatives true family spirit has helped save this house from rack and ruin to get this house to where it is now for that amount of money is really impressive along the way they've gone the extra mile and added an impressive skylight and bifold doors that lead out into their lovely garden and there's a bonus that if they did decide to sell they'd be likely to make their money back obviously now it's all beautiful and you can forget all the blood sweat and tears a little bit but would you do it all again no definitely no as far as i'm concerned we're never moving from here but you know to bought this property which you know initially we fell in love with and i think compromising your time with your family has been probably the most difficult part of it you're kind of doing it for your family but in the meantime you're not getting any time with your family so it's a difficult one to try and juggle i think but worth it all now definitely worth it all now yeah living the dream now pretty much the only thing left to do with the house is to render the outside the only thing i would say is as you've done lots and lots of work to the building and it's now completely shored up i'd be tempted to leave it a year before you re-render it just to let any natural settling that it's going to do happen so it doesn't crack today those generous friends and relatives are over to see what all the fuss was about the transformation is just amazing the space is just delightful a family house that you would just dream of they both work very hard it's real total commitment and i'm very very proud of what they've achieved [Music] well congratulations you guys i i can't quite believe that you've managed to pull this off but it is an unbelievable transformation so well done to you cheers when charlotte and jamie first saw this property they saw a grand edwardian house they thought jamie could easily restore but lurking beneath the tired decal were a catalogue of serious structural problems that left them not knowing which way to turn six months later they've tied the house together repaired the damage and now finally they can get on with living in their family home [Music] you

Channel: HomeStyle

Views: 82,886

Rating: 4.8587089 out of 5

Keywords: home style, homestyle, daytime, daytime tv, british tv, fashion, building a house, house transformation, styling guide, restoration home, restoration, home flipping, lifestyle tv, Sarah Beeny, crafts, diy projects, DIY room decor, before and after, sarah beeny renovate, sarah beeny tv, home projects, run down, home improvement, property, makeover, interior design

Id: WIlHsXWtpms

Length: 46min 30sec (2790 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2020