Rebuilding in your 70s: How defective concrete stole a Donegal retirement dream - Donegal Daily

The owner of a defective concrete home in Letterkenny has told how he will be paying for its repair into his 80s.Philip Boulton is originally from Bristol and m...

The owner of a defective concrete home in Letterkenny has told how he will be paying for its repair into his 80s.

Philip Boulton is originally from Bristol and moved to Donegal in the early 2000s for work.

Keen to put down roots, he and his wife, Michelle, bought a house in Solomon's Hill in Letterkenny in 2006.

The house was constructed around 2001 and the couple had 'no issues,' with the property in the first few years after moving in.

When a front bedroom started showing signs of damp, Phil and Michelle assumed it was 'water penetration' and kept 'cleaning it up.'

However, the dampness and mould in the room continued to get worse, and then the cracks began to appear on the walls

Phil and Michelle soon realised they were 'in real trouble' and had joined the thousands of Donegal homeowners impacted by defective concrete.

Phil is now 73 and invited Donegal Daily to his home this week to show the impact of defective blocks on his property.

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The front room, which was the first to begin showing damage from defective concrete.

It has been approved for demolition under the Enhanced Defective Concrete Block Scheme and he and Michelle are currently living in a mobile home to the rear of the house.

However, this accommodation isn't insulated. The couple tried to keep warm during last year's bitterly-cold February and March by 'wearing fleeces' and covering themselves in blankets.

Despite this, they 'just wanted to get out of the house,' because the conditions there were so much worse.

Phil attributes a persistent cough to the damp and mould that has seeped into every corner of his home.

While specialists couldn't determine its cause, he thinks 'it's a pretty big coincidence it developed while the house was deteriorating'.

The room in which the damp first began is now completely cracked and crumbling.

There is mould on every surface and plaster is peeling off the walls.

Books that Phil collected for many years had to be thrown out due to the damp.

A large, wide crack in the wall extends right up to the bedroom above on the second floor.

Additionally, the dampness has caused an electrical socket on the wall to repeatedly 'shorten out'.

Phil said Michelle was the first person to notice the mould on the living room walls.

It had crept around a high bookcase, which, when pulled out, exposed even more spores, along with cracks and peeling plaster.

The outside walls are much the same, with cracks following the classic pattern that many defective concrete homeowners recognise.

Phil and Michelle applied for the scheme last year and were granted full demolition in January of this year.

Part of the living room wall. The mould and cracks were discovered behind a bookcase.

"There was no other real solution. Outer leaf wouldn't have worked. On one of the walls there, you can see how the whole front corner is just going to fall out soon."

Upstairs, in another cold, cracking room, Phil has a document open on his laptop, that is full of figures and costings.

He explained he is working on the assumption that the cost of repairing the home will be around €70,000 or more above the grant amount.

"I'm 73, so I can't get a loan from the bank, or a mortgage," he said.

"We're hoping we'll cover the shortfall by utilising the SEAI Energy Grants, where you can get up to 30k and then a Home Energy Loan Scheme Upgrade, where you can borrow up to 75k. So, we're hoping that should cover what we need."

Phil told how he feels 'lucky' because he has a State pension and a portion of a pension from the UK.

He hopes this will help cover the €740-plus a month he and Michelle will have to pay back on the home energy loan.

Because it is up to a 10 year loan, Phil will be in his 80s by the time it is paid off.

"I paid off the mortgage on the house in 2024, but here I am, paying another loan now for 10 years," he said.

"You don't really expect to be looking at rebuilding a house and looking at plans in your 70s.

"The intention was to sell this house when I retired, but now we have this."

Michelle and Phil own a camper van and 'get away as often as we can - more than we originally intended to."

"It's so that we can get away from this and from looking at it every day," Phil explained.

"It's like having something hanging over you all the time. You can't escape it. Even when we do go away in the campervan, it's still there.

"There's so much worry about what has to be done, both from a financial and health point of view. You just don't know the effect the house and the stress has had on you, physically."

Phil and Michelle hope to begin reconstruction of the house early next year.

While this is good news, they are facing another winter in the mobile home.

"There is no other option - where is the accommodation? There is nowhere to rent. You also don't know how long rebuilding is going to take. Will it take a year? More? The up to 16,500 you get for accommodation wouldn't be long in being used up."

Phil is part of the DCB Silver Circle (OAP and Retired Owners) Group, who are meeting today with the Donegal County Council's Defective Concrete Committee at County House in Lifford.

They have a number of key points and issues they want to highlight.