recoveringbuilder

The one who did ours did a trial run first and identified any leaks which he then taped up but not the trickle vents , they just had to be closed.

Yes we did and they work great

Well, he’s been here tonight! Arrived at 7pm and has replaced two different parts but it needs another which he doesn’t have ? we weren’t convinced that we would get the heat we needed with an ashp, actually spoke to a couple of installers who didn’t think a lot of them!

Just to add , we got up yesterday morning to discover the stove had failed. Both going out to work there was no time to do anything about it but I phoned the installer in the afternoon (it is still under warranty) He went through a few things (fuses) to see if we could get it going but no luck., he promised to phone back later in the evening to tell us who and when we could expect to visit for repair, of course you know before I tell you that he didn’t do I got onto him first thing this morning before I was going to work, he said they had someone in this area that he would contact but I did say I was going to work and would need to know if they were coming. Came out of work in the afternoon to a text from my neighbor saying she had a card through the door from a heating engineer! Called him and he said he was in Edinburgh and would call us when he finished the job, hubby even said (as it’s the motherboard that appears to be wrong ) that if he hadn’t time to do the job tonight he would fit it himself if he could drop it off to us as we didn’t want to spend a weekend without heat, you guessed it, no call! This oil boiler is getting closer?

You’ve made a nice job , love the doors and my hubby insisted on corner blocks he doesn’t think it looks finished off properly without them!

Well I’ve just watched the next episode and I do wonder how many series have been commissioned because I can’t see any house appearing anytime soon!

Well done, would be interested in knowing what challenge you used.

I don’t have any experience of this however I have been watching closely an application near us as I was interested in the plot should it come on the market, the application was validated in January this year and is still ongoing with the latest comments being made by nature Scotland. They have made it clear that they are against the application but should it be granted they are expecting the LA to put a lot of conditions on the pp such as a 15m barrier being erected so that workmen are clear that it is a no go area, they have also stated that should there be the need for any drainage near this area it would have to be hand dug. It’s been a long drawn out affair and I expect has cost a lot of money with no guarantee of success and unfortunately for us should it succeed and be marketed I suspect it would be too expensive.

Ours is an 18kw @Declan52 which I think may be the problem, the installer should maybe have put in a larger one , I do think that the cathedral ceilings in the main living area might have a lot to do with it as these rooms take a lot longer to heat up than the other rooms with normal ceilings, it’s here now but I think it might get an oil boiler at some point to give it a hand.

We also have one however I’m afraid we can’t give it the good write up that @Declan52does. It’s been installed now for two years, we had an awful lot of problems with it to begin with mostly due to the installer not explaining how it worked to us but after we got over that it did start to perform better. In the two years it’s had a new auger fitted and a new igniter. We have never been able to program it and quite frankly the 3 hours that Declan burns his would not heat all our needs. If we let it do it’s own thing and the ufh is calling for heat (usually in the morning) it will burn for around 5 hours before it has heated up the heating and enough dhw in the tank.We tend to only put the radiators upstairs on for an hour or so morning and night. To do all this it is using around 30kg in a 24hour period. We do get the RHI payment which helps a bit but it uses far more pellets than the installer told us it would. The other problem we have found with it is if you are going away, we had a weeks holiday this time last year and as we have dogs we get a dog sitter in, I had to write a list of instructions for her and even at that she still had to phone me ! So it does it’s job but not without a lot of input from you and I wouldn’t ever consider having another one.

Hi Alan, yes very addictive, we also have done 3 and really meant this last one to be the LAST one however there are rumblings of it happening again!

Yup agree with you there, we spent every night lifting things that had been discarded, had enough 8x2 wood left to do the base for a 30m2 deck. looking back I wouldn’t spend £26k on a kitchen or over £20k for the heating system!

We used quite a few of the online ones without any problem, we did have to pre order the bath but it only took a couple of weeks

I’ve seen you mention this before @nod where do you think you made your biggest savings? I know you and your wife did a lot of the work do you think this was the biggest contributing factor? We’d like to have one more go at it but would need to keep the budget really tight as we’ve both hit 60 now and want to keep some cash for retirement.

Hi, have you decided on your build route,? Timber frame? Blocks? Passive house? You need to make your list in some sort of order( my ocd kicked in reading your list?) Once you set it out in order you will be able to see what’s missing,eg; land planning permission building regs utilities clearing site ( this can be expensive if you need muckaway) self build insurance and so on go through everything in your mind and get it down, you’ll have to be able to do this in order anyway if you are planning on project managing so the sooner you get it clear in your head the better as you’ll have to be one step ahead in order to get your trades in at the correct time. Plenty of people on here to keep you right but don’t underestimate the challenge!

When we built our first one in 1992 the kit arrived mid August and we were in by my son’s 6th birthday on November 21st, we did it with 2 joiners , 3 bricklayers an electrician , plumber, heating engineer and how lucky were we that a friend who was a slater/ plasterer had recently been made redundant and he did all the plastering, roofing and rough casting, he also helped us with the drains and tiling and decorating, unfortunately this lulled us into a false sense of security about how easy it had been, we’ve never managed to do it that fast again, it was a 168m2 bungalow and all done for £45k , them were the days!

Looks lovely @Bored Shopper but hubby would never have gone for that as he liked a good stretch out in the bath, I say liked because in the almost two years we’ve been in here neither of us has used the bath, showers all the way!

Is this square then as opposed to long?

Only comment I can make on this having had one similar in our last house is they take a helluva water to fill!

Wow that’s great, how did you find building in Orkney? Were they local tradesmen?

We broke ground in May and moved in beginning of December, there were still bits and pieces needing done but nothing major and of course left to ourselves now we’re still working at the garage and the driveway but once you move in these things go on the back burner

The woman clearly has no taste ?

I have a black bath (black on outside white inside) , black glass whb in a white gloss vanity unit, white wc and white sparkly tiles, I think it looks smart.

Ah but the pets had a log cabin on site! People laughed at us living in the caravan and the pets had the best accommodation. We actually decided to go with a towable van because of the resale value and we did ok when we sold them again, wouldn’t have gotten anything back if we’d rented. I can see why you’d need a static though if you’re both working from home.It’s also good security wise because there’s always plenty of people sneaking around to see what they can take when a new house is being built, saw a blog post from someone who’s build was burnt down.