recoveringbuilder

We have twice stayed in a caravan during a build but they weren’t even static caravans just large towable vans. First time we bought quite a new model and never had any problems during the 18months we were in it, was always cosy and we spent a New Year’s Eve in it with one of the worst gales blowing. Second time we bought an older van and it was fine until the beginning of December when the gas froze but by that time we could move into the house although it wasn’t quite finished. We really did it this way because we have pets and couldn’t rent anything with 4 dogs and 2 cats but it really helped to be on site keeping an eye on everything

When we built our second house in 2007/2008 that was one of the stipulations that we had to have room to drive in and turn around to be able to exit without reversing onto the highway as well as separate parking bays, so I don’t know when it was brought in but it’s certainly been that way for a long time.

When you paid the money they entered into a contract with you, it’s not your fault that THEY made a mistake with whether or not they had a wayleave. Who are you talking to with regards to this? You need to tell them you are making a formal complaint (if you haven’t already done so) , you won’t get any joy with the first point of contact so you have to ask for the complaint to be escalated and keep doing so until you get to the top.

Just had a quick look at receipt, they came from a company online called discount home lighting, I had already seen them in edmundson electrical but managed to get them a good bit cheaper online, they were £1200 for the two.

We ended up with two of these , my search criteria was that it had to have a 3 metre drop so it narrowed it down a good bit but they are well admired- by people passing by, had a guy come to do the tv aerial and he was excited to see them in the house as he’d seen them from outside when he was passing one night!

Might be worth speaking to a local architect who deals regularly with the local planning department to see his/her thoughts, they usually give you a first appointment for free, this was what we did and he made preliminary enquiries with one of the planning officers who said it would be looked on favourably.

Ours is a Clearwater (made by klargester) , the blower unit only makes a humming noise which you can only hear when you are within a couple of metres of it , can’t hear it from the house and the humming sound is similar to a fish tank.

Just wondering if it would qualify as a gap site, when we bought the land we built house 1 on (started out with an agricultural tie to the glasshouses but later had the tie removed) we had the house in the middle, glasshouses to the right and an acre field to the left. When we stopped running the business from the glasshouses we then got permission for another house on the site of the greenhouses which left us with the vacant field . We sold both houses and moved away leaving the field vacant but we then applied for permission for two houses in the field and because of our original house on the right of it and another unrelated property to the left albeit around 50m away the field had become a gap site and we secured planning on it without much bother at all. The architect we used went straight in with the gap site scenario and the local authority didn’t put up anything to the contrary.

Don’t know if the buildings would be classed the same as glass houses but that was where our second plot came from, it had 3x 100ft glasshouses on it and because it had been ‘developed’ before we got planning on it (it was originally part of a small farm) you say there’s a dwelling on the adjacent plot so what is on the other side?

We had an independent quote but it still wasn’t bringing it down to a sensible amount as it involved road closures etc

They sent a quote for just shy of £25k which totally was going to blow our budget out the water. They needed to bring a new underground line 300m from the transformer at the bottom of the road. In desperation I decided to make a complete and utter pita of myself and kept escalating a complaint ( based on the fact that they stated on their website that they were committed to keeping their system up to scratch to enable new properties to get an affordable connection). I ended up in touch with their top man who agreed to look into what could be done. I was just on the verge of breakdown when I mentioned to him about the pole in our plot and they discovered they had no wayleave for it being there, I had already mentioned this to several of the minions without success but on speaking to him about it and him having no knowledge that I had already pointed this out further back the line, he quickly decided that rather than them having to reroute their whole network on that line they would be far better to give us what we were wanting at a fraction of the cost. Within a fortnight of speaking to him the new quote came in for £4.5k and we signed a way leave for the pole (and they paid us for having it there!) . The work was done exactly as they had first quoted for with the power being brought on a new line from 300m away.

I think you won’t have a lot of luck fighting them on the capacity, been there done that , if you are certain the planning next to you will go through and that the owner will build the houses, that will probably be your best option. In our case it was a builder who owned the land and he must have spent a fortune getting the planning as the neighbours threw everything at him to try and stop it even a petition with over a hundred signatures on it but it went through, we were stunned when after all that he decided to put the plots on the market and there they still are 3 years later, he’s had to renew the planning. In our case they gave in when they discovered they had a pole in our plot without a wayleave and we said they would have to remove it, at that point I would have thought if they were bluffing about the capacity they would just have connected us but they went ahead with the upgrade to the line and we only paid a fifth of the original quote.

The problem with that is: will the op be building the houses himself? We had this Scenario when we were handed a quote for £25k for connection, there is a piece of land next to us with pp for 5 houses and we approached the owners of it to see if they would be willing to share the cost of the new cable required but they had no intention of building the houses so weren’t interested although they didn’t tell us that straight out, just disappeared off our radar. The energy company weren’t interested in the fact that there were going to be more houses requiring connections either, they said until they made an application for a connection they could only charge us for it and when or if more applications were made for connections (providing this happened within 5 years) we would get a refund. Luckily it all worked out for us as I have documented elsewhere and nearly 3 years down the line the other plots remain undeveloped.

Unfortunately I have come across this attitude before but quickly nipped it in the bud by talking about the build process and using words they didn’t expect a woman to know, can’t stand men like that and certainly wouldn’t give them my business. Hubby had put some of them in their place too when they tried to address him instead of me and he turned round and said there’s no good talking to me you need to talk to the boss!

Never had a problem with gas before, the woman said they just can’t get it, she said we put in an order but they only send out what they can, usually I don’t need it until December but it’s run out early this year .Prices are just the same though

Rings on our range cooker use propane gas and of course they ran out last night, local petrol station had none of the size we use and they won’t give you anything other than the size of bottle you’re exchanging so off I went this morning to the main calor dealer in our area, luckily I got one of the only two bottles they had, she told me that there is a shortage, they just can’t get it and they aren’t allowed to sell you a bottle without an empty ( normally charge a fortune if you have no empty but not even doing that now)they can’t get butane at all ! She said to me if I had another empty I would be as well taking the other propane they had left but since a bottle lasts me around a year I took the risk that a year down the line things will be back to normal?! On the other hand heating oil prices are so low that the suppliers are phoning their customers to see if they can take some, my brother told me this and he’d had a delivery last week at 26p a litre!

Cathedral windows, how are you meant to clean them ? If I stand on the floor the top of my windows is around 5.5m high, had to clean them a couple of weeks ago, standing on top of a step ladder with an extending window brush!

Our kitchen was hand made by a company in Fife., it came primed and once it was fitted a painter was sent out to paint it, then followed by a visit from the project manager who picked up on a couple of streaks inside the doors and a handle which he wasn’t happy with, so their installer and painter returned to sort this out. After this was attended to they wrapped it all up to avoid any damage by the builders who were still on site, They even told us to call them in after 6 months in case there were any adjustments needed once the cabinets had been loaded although we didn’t do it as they were all fine, we were also left a pot of paint in the colour in case we needed to touch anything in. Of all the installers we had in they had to be the best , everything on schedule and no problems.

Hubby used to do it and it was a square metre price.

The other thing I found odd was that halfway through they said the budget was gone and they were working to pay for things but when asked at the end they said they had brought it in on budget?

That was my thought, remarked to hubby it could be bloody cold in there!

Ha ha , I had just been for new tyres last week and it reminded me of the unit that the tyre company operates from!

Maybe I’m not the right person to answer this as I have an interior design qualification but I think self builds are a very personal choice, we have all put a lot of time and effort into the design and build and have already made a lot of choices regarding materials and have a vision of what we hope to achieve and this includes the interior. In our last build I had the interior designed before the house was completed, this time we were once again refurnishing the whole place other than beds but I decided to live with the basics until I got a feel for the place and within a few months I had it in my head how it should look. I think most self builders work to a very tight budget and as the build progresses and things don’t always go to plan , unforeseen costs crop up and very few would have the spare funds at the end of the build to then engage an interior designer.

Whatever you do don’t screw into the floor!

We have an insert pellet stove however originally it was to be a double sided wood burning stove, we have no chimney so a false wall was built using the attached product , this went right up to the ceiling (cathedral) with the flue inside then the black flue out through the roof, we then tiled the false chimney breast