A Windows Update

No, no. Not Microsoft Windows. I’m an Apple-phile and wouldn’t consider putting Windows stuff on my lovely, shiny, pretty new MacBook Pro. The house windows.

So. On Tuesday, in rocks a window surveyor, who seems to be much more intelligent than the salesman, and who has no wish to occupy 4 hours out of our day (just as well; I might not have been at work during the morning, but they were definitely expecting me for the latter part of the afternoon and the evening!!). Excellent.

Not quite so excellent - we can’t have the windows as described and arranged by the salesman. They’re not legal. They contravene the fire regulations and the planning regulations. Also, the upstairs ones would be a death trap in the event of a fire downstairs (which, realistically speaking, is where a fire is most likely to break out) if you couldn’t actually open them.

New designs required. The surveyor and The Builder sat down and sorted it all out.

Good news. The building work which the salesman had assured us would need to be done has, according to the surveyor, already been done and won’t need doing again. Excellent. A saving of £680.

All is good :-)

Except that on Thursday evening the window company rang up and said that indeed there would be a saving of £680 on the building work, but that we had asked for a change in the design which would cost an extra £380 making our revised bill ….

I interrupted. We hadn’t actually asked for any changes. We had been more than happy with things the way they were. The surveyor had said we had to have changes. Fire regs, planning regs, that sort of small and inconvenient matter. “Oh,” said the bloke. “So the salesman made a mistake?” Seems like it.

He then agreed that we would get the whole saving and asked if we would pay the full, quoted amount and receive a cheque 21 days after installation for the difference. Now why, I wondered, would we want to do that? Well, it seems, the loan agreement has already been authorised for the original amount and if we want it to be for less it would need to go through again. And the problem with that is? Ah – another week before installation. That’s fine. We can wait another week.

I wonder how much financial trouble the firm is in – that was an absolutely naked attempt to hang on to 680 of our pounds and earn interest on it for three weeks.

And no, for those who have enquired. Not Everest. Safe Style. Same sort of company I think