Outcome of the Meeting held on Sunday 22nd January 2012

Dear all,
Many thanks to those that attended the meeting held in the Clan Campbell Hotel this Sunday evening. More comprehensive notes will be issued in due course, but in summary: there was agreement that in order to better manage the challenge of maintaining our building and coordinating the works required, an Owners' Association and Committee be formed. The outcome of this is that 3 office bearers (Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) have now been elected in addition to 2 general members. This committee will work initially to develop a constitution outlining the purpose and powers of the Association. (The next meeting, to review this, will be held at 5pm on Sunday 4th March 2012 venue tbc). Thereafter, the committee will work to review the recent Building Survey Report in order to prioritise the various aspects of maintenance work required to protect

• the physical structure and fabric of the building;
• the ongoing upkeep;
• and the general community that is 46 Brunswick Street.

All owners/owners agents of properties in the building are welcome to attend any meeting and are actively invited to comment on any aspect of what has been proposed. (Tenants are also welcome to participate).
In the meantime, thank you from your new committee, namely:

• Chair - Catriona Macmillan (3F2)
• Secretary - Kate Miguda (47a Montgomery)
• Treasurer - Alan Duff (3F1)
• Member - Gavin Dickson (2F3)
• Member - Sharon & Simon Saffery (1F1)
• Member - Joseph Carlini (47 Montgomery)

Block Meeting to Discuss the Survey Report

Hello all, Having by now had a chance (I trust!) to digest the full building survey report that was commissioned and produced in November 2011, it would seem wise for us all to get together as soon as we can to discuss the content and - perhaps more importantly - the implications of it. Clearly, there is essential maintenance work required:

• in the short term (i.e. within the coming months),
• in the medium term (i.e. within the next 2-3 years, say)
• and in the long term(i.e. within the next 10 years)

as well as the (less exciting but just as important) regular ongoing maintenance that we should be doing every year.

I invite you all to join me on Sunday 22nd January 2012 at 5pm.

(So that we have room for everyone, the owner of the Clan Campbell Hotel, 11 Brunswick Street has kindly agreed to let us use his dining room from 5pm-7pm).

Please could you confirm back to me (before Friday 20th January) that you will be able to attend, or if you are unable to be there yourself please let me have the name of the person(s)who may attend on your behalf. It would be helpful if we could get representation from each of the 14 properties within the block.

In addition to the report itself, I would also like to suggest that we consider developing some more formal arrangements such as an Owners'/Residents' Association which would take responsibility for managing the inevitable coordination/communication work that will be required over the coming weeks, months and years. I have noticed that our neighbours round at Dicksonfield on Brunswick Road seem to have an arrangement that we may be able to take some pointers from. Please have a look at their website here before we meet and let me know what you think.

Ok, I look forward to seeing you in two weeks time. Kind regards, Catriona

Happy New Year - Roof Holding - So Far....!!

(Thankfully this chimney on a car was not one of ours - but it easily could have been!)

Happy New Year to you all.

Having just seen these images on the BBC News website tonight of the effects of the strong winds on some Scottish tenement chimneys, I for one am relieved that ours appear to have withstood the gales. I think some masonry did come off a roof in Elm Row and also in Leith, so this really does highlight how important it is that we all take collective responsible for maintaining our building.

As you will by now have seen in the Full Building Survey that we agreed to commission a few months ago, at least one of our chimneys is in a rather delicate condition so we could seriously be said to have had a lucky escape.

Thank you to those of you who have already reimbursed me your share of the fee that I paid on your behalf, and would politely request that others do the same as soon as possible please: as posted on 27 November 2011, the share per property (14 of us) is £42.86.

Many thanks,

Catriona

Building Survey - Invoice

Hello all,

I've now received a letter  with the invoice from DM Hall, which as anticipated is for £600 (£500+20% VAT).

I will pay this just now, and trust that with the support so far expressed by the majority of you, I shall be out of pocket neither by too much, nor for too long.

The share per property (14 of us) would be £42.86 (although please do feel free to round that up to a slightly neater number!).

I am happy to take cash, cheque or the most preferable for me would be a direct bank payment. (If you contact me directly I can give you an account number and sort code).

Many Thanks,

Catriona (3F2)

Building Survey Report

Hello all, I've now received the report from Greig Adams of DM Hall following his 3 hour inspection on 3rd November 2011, and have his permission to share it with you on this blog, so you can read it here. It does take a bit of reading, and of course there have to be caveats as there is clearly a limit as to what can be seen from hanging out a window or prodding the roof....! What this does give us, though, is a much better insight as to:

• what may have been causing the water ingress problems over the years;
• what needs to be dealt with imminently;
• and what we need to be aware of/budget for within the next 5 - 10 years.

My interpretation of the report and recommendations is that the greatest prioity is the re-rendering of the chimney stacks (mutual ones to Montgomery Street, especially) as these are in very poor condition. Despite the challenge of dealing with all of their owners as well as ourselves, we will have to address this in the short to medium term. Although this is not really new to us, the extent of deterioration to the stone is probably a bit worse than I think we'd been aware of, and so we must be prepared for what may be uncovered when the preparation work for the re-rendering actually takes place. I was certainly rather alarmed to witness just how easily a substantial chunk of stone came away with barely a touch from my kitchen window area which I'd always thought looked just fine! I do now have a greater appreciation for why it is so hard to assess the condition until you get up close. Anyway, please read the report and let me have your comments or thoughts. This is going to need more careful consideration as to how we move forward from here, and I suspect we may need to aim to hold a meeting and/then engage professional services to help us. I'll see if we can get a date in within the next few weeks to maintain momentum. ****************** For clarity, it is my understanding that Greig's references to the chimney stacks correlate to our labels like this: West Mutual Chimneys (i.e. the ones we share with our Montgomery Street neighbours)

• South West Mutual = the one we have labelled G,
• North West Mutual = the one we have labelled H,

Chimney Stacks to Montgomery Street = the ones labelled E&F, Chimney Stacks to Brunswick Street = the ones labelled C&D, North Mutual Chimneys (i.e. the ones we share with our Brunswick Street neighbours)

• North West = the one labelled A,
• North East = the one labelled B.

I hope that helps it all make sense. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Catriona (3F2)

Building Survey Carried Out

This is to thank all those of you who expressed support for getting a full building survey done.

So far as is possible at this stage, (i.e. without erecting scaffold and literally going over the building brick by brick), a survey of the building and roof was carried out this morning (Thursday 3 November 2011) by DM Hall.  This will always be a best judgement, but it should give us a clearer idea of what work is required urgently and what might be appropriately planned/budgeted for in the future.

As soon as we receive the final report, which will probably be in a week or so, we'll let you know and share it with you.  We'll collect your share of the fee from you when we are invoiced.

Kind regards,

Catriona



    

Latest Update on Roof Work

Dear all,

We promised to aim to keep you as up to date as we can with developments, so here goes:

As you may be aware, it is now a month since we communicated with all our neighbours (in both this building and those on either sides) giving notice of our intention to instruct Bolton's to undertake repairs to our chimneys and roof, as per their quote dated 28 June 2011.  (Copy available to view here)

Since then, there has been limited communication back from anyone. We have, though heard from the Montgomery Street block, who are currently having their own work done on their roof and stonework. Their residents' association spokesperson suggested that a quote that they had received for those same mutual chimneys (G&H on the map) was less than our quote, but as we have not yet seen a copy, it is hard to assess if it is a comparable quote or not.

Next door have been using the surveying services of DM Hall and I have spoken to the senior surveyor Greig Adams. He has since forwarded information that confirms that the state of the chimneys at the Montgomery Street boundary are in a very poor state of repair. (It seems that they had opted not to do that particular bit just now because it was too complicated to involve all of us, but I think that they may now be planning to take action - although we have obviously yet to be notified of anything).

However, in the last month, Andy Anderson has had even more water coming in to his flat in 3F3 - but confusingly, this is in an area (to the front Montgomery Street side of the building), that is not mentioned at all in the Bolton quote. This makes us hesitant to actually instruct Bolton's, as clearly we want to ensure that we are paying for work that will not leave any leaks behind!

Alan Duff (3F1), Andy Anderson (3F3) and I (3F2) have therefore concluded that we need to know, once and for all, exactly what we are dealing with. We have therefore instructed DM Hall, as independent surveying professionals, to undertake a Full Building Survey to be completed as soon as possible. (See their website here)

As winter fast approaches and in the interests of maintaining momentum (and potentially making the most of the opportunity of our neighbours' scaffolding) Andy, Alan and I are prepared to cover the costs of this between us just now (estimated around £500 + VAT). We hope that as ultimately we may all benefit from it, others will agree to share that expense (It would be less than £50 per property if we all agree).

This action essentially takes us to where we would have been some years ago when we all agreed to the concept of the Edinburgh Stair Partnership, which would have provided such a survey, enabling us to plan and budget for short, medium and long term maintenance and repairs. An advantage of DM Hall is that they pride themselves on having remained independent of the Council and of any particular contractors.

Anticipating that work will be required, and that we really would benefit from professionals coordinating it, I have also requested a copy of their fee structure for further services such as co-ordinating further quotes and/or contractors.


So, to summarise where we are and what actions are and are not being taken at this stage:

• DM Hall have been instructed to undertake a Full Building Survey by Alan, Andy and myself.
• All those of you who agree that this course of action is wise and are willing to share the cost of the fee are invited to contact us.

• Bolton's have not yet been instructed to undertake the work detailed in the 28 June 2011 quote, pending the outcome of the survey.

I hope that helps keep everyone in the loop for now - happy to try and answer any questions if I can.

Kind regards, Catriona

PS If anyone else would like 'author rights' to be able to post messages on the blog, just let me know which email address you'd like to use and I can add you.