Walls, part 4

Well, I've just had an interesting hour with a professional dry stone waller. He has inspected the damage and thinks I have a good case against the people what done it. He has a fascinating portfolio of his work and there are some lovely walls that he has repaired and built. He was able to describe the construction of this wall in considerable detail, much better that the "expert" fron Oxford & District Building Services. In fact ODBS man didn't even spot that it was a dry stone wall, he thought it was a rubble wall with lime mortar. Obviously there is a difference in estimations for the repair. ODBS reckon that it is about 2 man days, professional wall man said 7 to 10 days depending on the weather. 10 days would be in continuous torrential rain.

The major difference here is that ODBS would simply concrete the old stones back into the wall whilst the professional said that he would need new stone from the local quarry to do a proper job, about 4 cubic metres of it.

Time, I think, to get a claim form from the insurance.