When people say not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess they mean that things that seem free always come with a catch. Probably about right.

When we were going through the motions of buying the house Chris went back one day to take some measurements. The estate agent, who was there to open up, offered him a letter that had come through the door. It was a leaflet outlining a grant homeowners in Wales could apply for to make their houses greener and more energy-efficient. Chris thanked her but said he’d already checked out the grant and it only applied to people on benefits. What we didn’t know, and what the estate agent then told him, was that the grant had now been opened up to wider applicants.

Since this lucky discovery the grant officer has been out to visit our house and let us know we are indeed eligible. The reason for our eligibility is amazingly how poor our house currently is for energy efficiency, generously granted an impressive G rating.

But there are of course a few wobbly teeth in the handsome’s steeds gob. Firstly, some of the methods the funders would need to use are different from those we would have chosen ourselves, such as putting in a waterproof insulation rather than allowing a breathable material to be used. But the main issue is that this round of funding comes to a close at the end of June.

Having inspected our already partially deconstructed home, the funders offered to pay for the insulation and plastering of all our external walls. Having weighed he pros and cons, the cons being it wasn’t the type of insulation we had originally decided on, the pros being a massive cost and time saving, we decided to accept their offer. Yet, what this means is we need to have the external walls ready for insulation and plaster much sooner than we expected. This means getting all the repointing, installation of new lintels and electrics done ASAP.

Hm…

Some good news is that our visit from a structural engineer went well, with her stating that only one of the big cracks in the walls was a concern. Having repacked and repointed this huge gap in the corner of the room, we will need to buy and attach another metal strap to stop any movement.

With our deadline looming, the funder arriving on Monday to start installing batons to hold the insulation, this weekend has been devoted entirely to repointing. Even with two of us working on this one task, progress was amazingly slow, yet somehow we finished enough to let in the workmen on Monday.

It will be amazingly exciting to see all the external walls plastered again, but it’s important we don’t get lulled into a false sense of security. After all we still have two load bearing walls to take down and a roof to replace. Still every step is taking us closer to the day we move in.