newhome

One born every minute! Eegit! Are you sure you went to grammar school?

Hi and welcome to BuildHub.

I remortgaged my old house initially to pay for the build as it was on the market but hadn’t sold at that point. The old house didn’t have a mortgage so it was straightforward to do. My old house sold a few months into the build so the mortgage was repaid at that point. So there is risk involved but you could remortgage your existing house for whatever you can secure, use that money to make a start on the build and then try to sell the house in the meantime and move into rented for a bit or a caravan or even get a few rooms habitable so you can move in, but selling a house during building works may be difficult. 550k is quite a big budget. Assume you have verified that this is in the right ballpark for the build?

Do away with the tiles and use rubber backed carpet. Shag pile. Could be multi use ?

Still you have to hand it to the guy, 2 jobs like that and he gets to spend the rest of the time on the golf course or whatever. Someone must pay or he wouldn’t be in business.

OMG that’s crazy! I’m not sure what construction method you are using but we had a basic design in mind and the timber frame company did all of the plans, SE calcs and certificates and provided the actual frame for a lot less than that!

I read somewhere else that HMRC has just taken on 2 more people due to the backlog so if that's true maybe @lizzie may not wait as long.

I've edited it for you. You would do very well indeed without me . I however enjoy watching the life and times of @Onoff's bathroom brought to life by photos. It'll be a shame to finish it really .

Maybe you have a photo of the difficult access? It's always easier for people to advise if they can see the issue.

You are joking right!!! I got my letter last Sat saying that the claim would be paid out (no idea when) some 20 weeks and 4 days since submitting the paperwork.

I will do, and I hope you get the same person dealing with yours who dealt with mine . Hopefully you'll have the cash ready for Christmas!

We had an utter nightmare with the scaffolders and years of litigation to deal with afterwards. Just thank God our insurance covered it all.

Welcome @Square Feet I can’t advise on the access but I am from southern Scotland too.

Sounds like you’ve had some great trades so far @Redoctober. Great to see it going so well.

I know people always say ‘you get what you pay for’ but in my experience that’s far from the truth when it comes to trades. I’ve paid quite a lot of money for trades that using a polite term were worse than cowboys whereas some really good trades were almost too cheap and could have charged a lot more. Recommendation is always the best way to go it seems, as long as you trust the person recommending. I’ve been caught by that in the past too.

I always thought that if trades didn’t really want the job they would sometimes come back with an OTT quote and if someone was prepared to pay then fine, happy days ?. These days they seem not to quote at all in the main.

It was the transport costs that put us off going down the static route. We had a large touring caravan so used that and hubby lived in it for 9 months before some rooms were habitable (I went back there at weekends). I had an apartment in Edinburgh during that time as I think the Taggart classic line ‘there’s been a murder’ may have come to pass otherwise ?. We had a 3kw fan heater and an electric blanket and were never cold even in the deepest snow.

I don’t know what this one is like as I found them on Google but they have showrooms in the north. https://www.expressbifolds.co.uk/our-products/windows

There are some amazing plots on here and this is another one. Definitely has the wow factor.

When I first moved here someone told me they were going down south for their holidays. When I asked where they said The Lake District ?

Definitely skim, and by a decent plasterer.

Have you checked your insurance policy? Is yours definitely with Alpha? The FCA dictates that firms must treat their customers fairly. In this scenario it could mean that if one customer received advice well after others in the same position and it put them at a disadvantage they could be able to cite that they were treated unfairly. Firms are also obliged to ensure that consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect. When did you buy the policy vs the date that CBL's credit rating was significantly downgraded on 26th Feb?

Good progress! That’s an interesting way of doing it. We did a floor at a time, then the roof. How come you’ve done the 2 ends first and left the middle?

But that's no use if mortgage companies won't accept their policies because frankly that's what 99% of people have a warranty for.

Mood hoovers. Don’t let them grind you down. Choose to be positive and use their negativity to motivate not discourage.