Grianan is let out to friends and connections, but the family already account for a good part of the bookings of the season. The rental is not very much, e.g. 300 GBP during the five main months of summer; what is more the family pay half this only! The result is that income for the house, about 4 to 5 K per annum, more or less matches expenditure only in years without major extra items of expenditure.
The rental that we do charge is probably a significant amount less than we could do, given the value of the house, and going by the price of other accommodation on offer on the island. We think we should make some repairs and upgrades to the house in order to facilitate letting the house for a more realistic sum.
The consensus seems to be that we need to generate more income from the house to make the financial viability of the house a good deal more healthy in the mid to long term. Ideally we need to build up a fund so that major (and minor) items of maintenance can be met, and we are not left financially embarrassed, without the obvious means to pay for repairs. The ownership of Grianan is shared between eight cousins, and it would simplify matters if the house could manage to be self-financing.
(My own personal conclusion is that at a minimum the house should generate enough income to set aside on a yearly basis an amount to go into a sinking fund. This amount would be calculated as best as possible so that the ring-fenced sinking fund would provide for all future maintenance and upkeep costs. This is a very standard accounting exercise, and quite widely used. The calculation is comparatively simple, if future costs can be ascertained.)
Missing sill to laundry window. The sill has rotted away. Some foam has been put here as a temporary measure which is what is visible currently in the photograph in lieu of a sill.
The windows proper if I remember rightly came pretreated, pressure treated, from the factory (late 70's) to prevent rot. The sills were added separately by the joiners at the time of installation. These sills however unfortunately do not appear to have the benefit of the superior treatment and are very prone to rot (this happens mainly when the paintwork is allowed to deteriorate to a point when it provides no barrier to moisture). A number of these sills have been replaced already. Once rotted they can become a terrible source of water ingress. (E.g. bad leaks and subsequent collapse of plasterwork of bay window in approximately 1990 or thereabouts, caused by rot to sill of bedroom window ('the dorm') above.)
Around about 1980 the first floor joist ends at the south wall had to be replaced at very significant expense, since these had simply rotted away. You can see I think where the last two floorboards were taken up to facilitate this, especially I think in 'Tante's room' (the west bedroom).
Water ingress is a perennial problem especially on the large, exposed, south face of the house, which gets the most extreme of the weather, coming as this does unluckily from the south or southwest. The pressure especially on this side of the house during gales must be very severe, and rain is forced into the house wherever there is the slightest gap, wherever it can. The most obvious symptom of this is dripping water expressing itself at the ground floor windows on the south side of the house. This dripping only accounts for the visible portion of the water coming through the walls ...
(I remember being told years ago, about 25 of 30 years ago, that 'Mr. MacArthur', father of Janetta, actually made a hole in the floor of the downstairs bedroom, to let water that had found its way into the room drain away to the outside.)
Of course Iona is subject to fearsome weather, especially in winter. The problem is compounded in that Grianan does not hug the landscape like other buildings on the island sensibly tend to, it is stuck right out on the edge of the landscape! These weather related problems are the price we pay for the fabulous views Grianan affords us.
Unfortunately the house does not have cavity walls, I don't think cavity walls had quite arrived at the time the house was built (1930). Not on an island on the west coast of Scotland anyway.
Damp coming through wall beside window in ground floor bedroom, behind bureau.
(Plaster work repair required here, after damp stopped?)
The bad news continues - within the last five years, two windows, one on the west (the window of 'The Shrine') and on the south, the window of the kitchen, had to be completely taken out and fitted back in place by a joiner. The reason for this was because they were no longer firmly attached to the masonry of the wall; for example at points one could simply cause the frame of the window to move inwards by pushing by hand. For the record, the joiner who reinstalled these windows (Colin MacDonald) did not rate the windows at all and he suggested that these should be replaced throughout, outright. The original windows were sash-and-case, and I suspect these were generally a better fit into the masonry of the walls, since the necessary rebate in the wall was presumably designed specifically for the installation of that type of window. If you view the current windows exposed in the aperture of the wall, there is a large space around them. It cannot be easy for a joiner then to fit these and ensure they are wedged in truly, firmly, for keeps. The windows subsequently become dislodged probably due to only the normal force used when opening and closing them.
I have since noticed that the middle south downstairs window similarly is adrift from the wall and needs to be reinstalled. There is a crack in the mastic all the way round, almost certainly letting in water, again the window frame can be pushed in by hand. This perhaps is the cause of the dampness in the bedroom beside this window on the inside, behind the bureau, as in the photo above.
Two sills on the south side of the house have been replaced in the last five years by a handyman - not a joiner. (Top left, i.e. above the kitchen, and middle downstairs from memory.) The problem with these is that these sills are installed at such an angle that it is not realistically possible to get underneath these to insert mastic between the window and the masonry at this point. As a consequence of this there is a potential for water ingress at these points. This may be the cause of, or be contributing to, dripping at the kitchen window below.
There is some cracking of the harling on the south face of the building by which water could possibly be getting in.
Leaving aside leaks through the roof for a moment, water has to be getting in 1. around the windows or 2. through cracks in the wall. I struggle to think of any other way for water to get in? Once I wondered if water was, during gales, coming over the top of the south wall to arrive on the inside face of the house. But I went up into the roof space, and the top of the wall seemed to be completely dry.
I believe generally that the integrity of the mastic seal around the windows, plus the integrity of the paintwork of the windows, especially on the south wall of the house, is vital to stop water coming into the house.
My own personal conclusion is that we need a strict planned regimen in place for the upkeep of the windows to forestall all or most of these problems that will otherwise continue to present themselves. In the circumstances, the paintwork and mastic need to be in tip top condition, I would argue.
You can't see very well from the photo on the left above, but the ironmongery which controls the locking shut and initial opening of the window lives in a rebate (visible when the window is opened out, as in the photo above) sunk into the underside of the casement of the window. By now these are completely or partly rusted up, and the ironmongery needs to be replaced. The problem is illustrated in the photo above on the right. The window is rusted permanently in the trickle-ventilation position, which somebody has been trying to stop with an old towel, being unable to close it.
Not being able to open windows is of course is a distinct hazard in the event of an emergency, i.e. fire, we need need to rectify this urgently for everyone's safety, as somebody who stayed at Grianan brought to my attention recently.
It transpires that it may be very difficult to extract the old ironmongery out of the rebate. Due to the corrosion, the housing of the mechanism has in some cases expanded and can be embedded very tightly into the timber of the window. Being corroded the surface is like very coarse sandpaper which serves to bed the housing well and truly into its surrounding woodwork. This is happening especially on the south and west side of the house, which as always is most prone to problems. A handyman on the island was charged to refit mechanisms last year but was unable to get the these out of the windows. There does not seem to be a straightforward way to get the old mechanisms out. Not so far as I can see anyway, I did try.
Metalwork of course corrodes very quickly in the salt-laden, corrosive atmosphere of Iona and the Atlantic seaboard.
As a general rule, for any metal fixtures and fittings for the house we should specify wherever possible corrosion-proof or -resistant fixtures and fittings?
On the upside, the rest of the ironmongery of the windows, the major ironmongery of the windows which control the extent to which the window is open, is in good condition. (This ironmongery must be adequately protected from the elements when the windows are closed.)
In future, we should have the locking ironmongery of the window inspected and replaced before it has rusted to a point where it is very difficult to remove as now. (After 15 or 20 years?). At least these items of ironmongery are relatively cheap, and they should be relatively easy to replace - while they are not rusted in.
A damp patch above the door to the East bedroom. There is another leak which seems to occur when the wind is from the north which drips in the north west corner of the dining room.
After a bad winter there may be a dozen of so slates blown off the roof and strewn round the garden. That is what happened three or four years ago, when there was such a particularly bad winter. Some friends of mine arrived in the early spring, there was water dripping from the ceiling of the downstairs bedroom, the house was not really habitable, and they had a miserable time. I ended up reimbursing the rental that they paid for Grianan out of my own pocket. We asked 'Nicky' Nicholson, the island builder who reinstated the slates at the time, whether we should have the roof re-slated. He was of the opinion, no, not yet, at that time.
At least one member of the family has suggested that we simply go ahead and re-slate the whole roof. The nails holding the slates to the roof can be seen to be well rusted now, being 75 years old. The felt underlay to the slates is simply horsehair, it is not waterproof in the way that a modern roofing felt is. A modern roofing felt is a second line of defence, in case slates come away from the roof. But we don't have that advantage, our horsehair felt is not waterproof! If one slate comes off, there is nothing behind to stop the rain coming in.
The virtue of re-slating now would be an end to roof problems at a stroke (at least from the slated part of the roof).
What is more, it appears that Nicky is always in demand on the island. It is very difficult to get him to come, if some slates do need to be replaced. Because members of the family are only there for one or two weeks, if he doesn't come during one's stay, it's hard to know if he has ever been at all.
If we are to get the roof re-slated, perhaps the guttering should be reinstalled at the same time? At least reinstalled where this was originally put in place with steel screws (I have replaced some of the roan with brass screws - still there so far). Every year or two, a different, new, length of the roan is to be found blown somewhere in amongst the shrubbery around the house. Currently the gutter above the north window of 'The Shrine' is absent. These should be (rust-free) brass screws, I argue, in the corrosive environment of Iona, since brass screws only cost a few pence more each.
At least some elements of the family are for scrapping the kitchen units, and replacing outright.
If the kitchen units are not to be replaced, the mouldings look bad currently and should be tidied up/fixed? Perhaps in that event moulding could be 'robbed' from a freestanding table to the right of the cooker.
Problems with the Formica of the kitchen units.
The woodwork around the window in the kitchen is generally in poor condition and does not look very good.
If a joiner is coming it would be good to have the skirting in the shower room tidied up.
Pipework in the bathroom looks very ugly, could do with being hidden from view, boxed in in some way.
The following are some items of problems with the plasterwork around the house.
These two photos are from 'The Shrine'.
These are in the large, east bedroom ('The Dormitory').
The middle
bedroom. It looks very much like the underlying problem of the plaster here
is damp, causing the plasterwork to lose its strength. Note also problem with
the unit of glazing in the window.
The radiators in the sitting room look like they are coming away from the wall.
Crack in the plasterwork at side of bay window. Concern has been expressed,
is this a structural (as opposed to a merely cosmetic) problem?
The floor tiling in the bathroom needs to be replaced.
Repair if not replacement to the floor tiling of the shower room.
Have we decided that we are sticking with the Bosky stove? If so, we need to re-tile the alcove behind it.
There is a rather unpleasant crack in the corner of the fireplace. This crack has been there a while, hopefully the movement has stopped by now. I presume this is a cosmetic problem only, but some way of tidying this up would be desirable, it really does not look attractive.
The concern has been raised that the crack is expressing itself inside the fireplace? (See vertical line three inches back into the fire from the face of the fireplace.)
If we are doing some comprehensive work, we should have the back of the fire rebuilt probably. I don't have an image of this, but some of the fire bricks are missing/loose/in poor condition. Somebody told me that this is a fire hazard, as sparks from the fire can make their way into the fabric of the house if the integrity of the fire bricks is compromised in this way.
Last winter stock were congregating against the east wall of the garden presumably during storms, to derive some shelter. Earlier in the year the ground outside the wall was very muddy and churned up by the feet of the stock. Anyhow, it seems the stock exerted so much pressure on the wall and fence that they managed to cause the top of the concrete gate post to become pulled off. What is more, the east wall now has rather an alarming cant. Somebody has dumped sandy aggregate behind the wall in what looks like an attempt to keep it propped up.
There must be a danger of the wall completely collapsing. We need to take steps to stop that happening, on the principle of 'a stitch in time saves nine'. At a minimum, we should surely reinstate the fence, and put barbed wire or something on the outside, to discourage the stock from leaning against it.
Apparently the National Trust are due to be building a shed for their tenant, Tom Birkett. Tom told me that once this happened this would no longer be a problem, since the stock would be inside during the winter. I asked him if he would have a problem if we put barbed wire on the outside of the fence, and he was fine about that.
This shower is no longer adjustable. It is either hot (very) or cold, and nothing in-between as there was formerly and as there should be.
At least one member of the family has feels that this is an adequate scenario, as far as she is concerned. But I would argue if we are looking to bring the house up to standard in order to charge a more realistic rent for Grianan, things like the shower should be working properly, in which case this would probably have to be replaced? Since we can't guarantee that everybody likes hot showers?
A faction in the family really likes this original old toilet, another faction would like it to be replaced with something new.
On the one hand some people appreciate it for its looks and age, but the downside is because of its age, there are either no replacement parts, or these would be probably be very difficult to get hold of. The cistern gets 'fixed' now and again, in some kind of rather Heath Robinson manner or other. Another problem is that the glazing of the bowl of the toilet is cracked, some find that unsightly, and dislike it because it is not so easy to ascertain that that the bowl of the toilet is clean.
Currently there are two extinguishers, one just outside the sitting room, and one just outside the large east bedroom ('The Dormitory'). There is a fire blanket in the kitchen. However we wonder if provision for fire safety would have to be upgraded as per any Local Authority regulations, especially if the house was to be rented out more officially than currently.
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I have included everything that I can think of, but I am open to suggestion as to anything that anybody thinks I have missed.