Minor D-I-Y Crisis...Suggestions please!

We contracted a Brit developer/ property renovator to carry out the complete renovaton of our inland Granada property, a small end terrace village property. Whilst the majority of the work was completed, certain finishing touches were completely missed not least of which was decoration. We had made it clear to him that we would undertake the decoration of the property, since the project which was supposed to take 10-13 weeks overran to such an extent that six months after starting work it was still unfinished. For various reasons he was paid all of the original quote for the job; when he came looking for more,  we decided enough was enough and refused to pay any more money. Needless to say, work stopped almost immediately and we havent seen hide nor hair of him since. I am now finishing the place myself.

My DIY crisis arises in respect of the plastering on the ground floor, this was new plaster over the original. This was done in Oct / Nov 2006. We left the plaster unpainted until March which I would have thought was ample time for it to dry out. We painted the plaster using a plaster sealant first and followed it up with three coats of Vinyl Matt paint  supplied by him. It was a very cheap vinyl paint (about 25 Euros for 15 Kgms) but being desperately short of money after he left us in the lurch, we were just thankful for what we had. The paint was incredibly difficult to apply, drying almost immediately it touched the wall and lifting straight off again if we tried to work it to eliminate brushmarks. My wife and I are not new to painting and decorating having had between us something like 20 odd houses, but this was something we hadnt come across before.

To cut a long story short we eventually got three coats of the stuff on the wall and breathed a great sigh of relief when we finished. However, three months on, the paint is cracking and literally just falling off the walls leaving the bare plaster exposed once more. The wall appears to be dry, with no signs of damp or salts bleeding through.

To say that we are pi**ed off is putting it mildly. I am reluctant to buy a more expensive paint at this stage in case the same thing happens again. We dont know whether the fault lies in the plaster or the paint; Im tempted to believe its the plaster reacting with the paint . Rather than throw more money at the walls,having them replastered again or adding  stud walls (the room in question is small enough as it is!), I am thinking of applying that good old British standard bodge 'Artex' if I can find it or its Spanish equivalent.

So, suggestions please people. Is there a Spanish equivalent to Artex, and if so what is it called? Failing that, if anyone out there has any thoughts on the matter can you please let me know so that I can get on with the job? Your assisstance wuld be greatly appreciated.

I have a sneaky feeling that the 'gentleman' in question may be aware of this website and forum and will probably recognise himself. I am obviously not going to name and shame him (he's a lot bigger than me and has a lot of mates...), but if anyone out there is in the position of looking for a builder in the Greater Granada area, I'd be happy to let you know who not to use.... 

Foxbat

Name Him and Shame Him, make sure he doesn't do it to anybody else.

Nobody is that big.

PM Me I will

John

Crikey Foxbat, That is a dreadful experience.

Let Johnone name & shame him, go on, please!

My only suggestion for the problem is a plasticised (not sure of spelling, but it is plastic based!).

this is applied via a spray machine and gives a bubbled appearance.

It is a very nice effect and is slightly shiny and wipeable.

We have it in our apartment.

Not sure of the name, but go to any Ferreteria and ask, they are most helpful.

We had some building wrok done recently by a British builder and he used this on our walls, which where formerly outside walls covered with tiny stones. The stones are not set in the plastic paint and don't fall off like they used to!

It's a wonderful paint and may solve your flaky falling off problem.

Hope this helps,

johnone and Fibby

Sorry folks but unfortunately there are certain aspects of this renovation which are still outstanding and to go ahead and name the gentleman in question would I fear jeopardise any prospects of getting a satisfactory solution. Unfortunately therefore I have to stay quiet until the matter is resolved. You dont need to be a rocket scientist to be able to trace things back to this forum and this thread in particular!

One of the side efects of the delays in completion is that when we ran out of capital, we were left with  just three very small company pensions to survive on, (I dont start drawing a State Pension until 2008); whilst we can just about manage on this income its not enough to be able to do what we want with the house just yet. I am considered to be too old to work in the UK at age 64, as I found a couple of years ago when I was made redundant.  My wife, being a lot younger than me has actually gone back to the UK to work to raise enough money to get us back on our feet. This really wasn't what we intended when we moved over here. Even with cheap airfares its expensive to fly out for a weekend, (the airlines have cottoned on very quickly to the prospects of Spain/ England commuting and who can blame them!), there is the cost of transport to and from LGW which invariably costs as much if not more than the airfare. She did manage to get over here for a week recently, but the costs involved equated to a two weeks pay, something we can ill afford when the name of the game is actually trying to save money! We have set a deadline of the end of August for her return home, by which time she will have been away for five months.(Her employers dont know this yet....). All I can say is Roll on August...

Fibby,

Thanks for the suggestion re the walls, I will check it out.

Oh poor you Foxbat, I feel so sorry for you reading about your wife and all the troubles.

If I can ever help her out with a lift to Gatwick, we are only 25 minutes run from there.

I too begrudge paying a taxi firm £28 to get us there!

PM me with the area she would travel from and I would be happy to help (I am female and safe by the way!!!)

Thanks for the offer Fibby, its most appreciated and we will definitely keep it in mind.

We are both twice married and her family are Portsmouth based. Its thanks to them that she has somewhere to live in England, since we sold up lock, stock and barrel so to speak when we moved here. Taxi fares to from Portsmouth work out at between £95 and £100 per return trip. We did give some very serious thought to weekend commuting from England to Spain but its just not viable; whatever she earns during the week would just go on fares so its a bit self defeating really. She used taxis when she came over a couple of weeks ago and its just as well she did for the trip from LGW to Portsmouth, because the Monarch flight from Granada left three hours late and arrived Gatwick long after the last train had left! Quite apart from this Guildford station is definitely not the place to be after 9pm on a Friday or Saturday night, not if your a lone female....

Aw no! Portsmouth is the other end of the A3 from where I am, drat!

We are off Junction 8 on the M25

Still, never mind, the thought was there..............................

Fibby.

Thanks again for the offer. Its nice to know there are still a few people in England that do actually care about others.

Pitby

Thanks for the commiserations. As I said one day I'll get around to posting the whole story on this site. Im going to call it 'Caveat Emptor' or How Not to move to Spain. We read all the books, followed most of the rules, made all the plans, and decided to go for it.... It was at that point it all started going pear-shaped!

I have to say that some people would have given up, but we are still smiling (or is it a grimace). Our neighbours are delightful people, helpful and for the most part have welcomed us into the community. We are in a little village with just two other Brit couples. Its impossible to hold onto the Brit way of life here; manana means manana or proxima semana or even proxima mes or just maybe not at all. We love the life, despite the problems and wouldnt trade it for the world. Maybe in September we can actually start living the life we came out here for, just one year later than planned....