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So near but so far away

recoveringbuilder

Entry posted by recoveringbuilder

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That’s exactly what it feels like! Builders have said they have a weeks worth of jobs to do, there’s been a hold up with the staircase, nobody signed it off, the architect came out and did all the calcs and I asked him to contact staircase firm with them, at the same time I emailed them and told them architect was going to contact them but I did feel they needed a visit to see what they were dealing with, this was on August 29th , they never answered me and I took it all was in hand, however I decided to phone them last week as they had said it would be ready beginning of October, f**k, the architect didn’t get back to them and instead of them getting on to me they just let it lie. So now we’re looking at another 4-5 weeks for it appearing, it’s odd that a hand built kitchen can be done in a fortnight but a staircase takes so long. Since I’d not been upstairs we got a cheap staircase and joiners fitted it so I was pleasantly surprised at how the upstairs looks, my mind had been playing tricks on me regarding this but all was well. Hubby has taken over the drain installation as when the builders started to dig with a small machine it was quite obvious they hadn’t a clue what they were doing, a lot of them seem to be jack of all trades!

The kitchen is in and we await the corian, once this is done the painter comes along to hand paint it, it’s just under coated at present, it’s a mix of oak and painted, looks good so far and the installer spent 6 days installing, a lot of attention to detail.

The electricity is coming on October 22nd , we almost lost that slot because BT were booked in for the same week and wouldn’t work with SP energy, this was going to be a problem because the next available date for the contractor was end of November, in the end I had to cancel the phone connection to enable the power company to get in first but the chap who’s the contract manager has been fantastic and has agreed to put our water duct in at the same time. Most of our problems on this build have been with the utilities, something we’d not come across before as we had water and power on site in previous builds. It’s not been easy living in the caravan this last 5 months and oddly enough we have had little help from family who pay a duty call once a month, most of our help has come from people who were strangers until we started this, I don’t know where we would have been without the lovely lady who bought our cottage, she has provided water, power and even her shower in the cottage, it just makes you reevaluate things!

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vivienz

I sympathise entirely!  I've been caught out with waiting times on a couple of things recently, particularly my roof windows and a fire rated door to go between the garage and utility room.  I confess, it hadn't even occurred to me that the architect or BC would need to sign off on a staircase - is this normal? 

 

The imposed downtime has given me useful forward planning time, though, and enough time to catch a cold and get over it without having to be snuffling around on site for a week.  It's life's little luxuries that count, isn't it?!

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Declan52

They will check things like the gap in the spindles and if it's open tread that gap. To stop little ones falling through. Same goes with the height of the Bannister. All health and safety aspects. Bound to be more though.

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recoveringbuilder

The staircase company seems to want the onus to be on anyone but them, glass balustrade but they’ll not supply it until the joiners have fitted The newel posts then the joiners have to tell them sizes for the glass, seems like it will be a long process, beginning to wish I’d just gone for a normal off the shelf staircase!

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newhome

Staircases have to be right though so it'll be worth the wait I'm sure even if it doesn't feel like it just now. At least you have the temporary one allowing you to keep your eye on things upstairs or you'd be downstairs stressing about that too :)

 

 

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recoveringbuilder

This saga has gone on since late July, staircase company were out and did measurements, there was a problem with the pitch 42.545 instead of 42 degrees, architect came up with a solution and was to contact firm direct, I thought this was all done and contacted them a fortnight ago for an eta only to be told plans hadn’t been finalised! After much toing and froing between architect, firm and joiners yesterday I received this plan which on first look made me think it was all sorted however the accompanying email has me worried, it states-please note the trimmer was double sheeted and this will have to be removed before fitting stair, 

I don’t know what that means, I have an idea what it means but with all the plastering done I hope I’m wrong! Any ideas?

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Edited by Christine Walker
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