recoveringbuilder

@newhomeno we’re in between! Getting all the flooring laid and the staircase should be this coming week, we drink coffee in the house but still have to eat in the caravan until the gas is connected to cooker, just so many little bits and pieces to do but hopefully in a week or so in time to get the Xmas tree up!

Yes all sorted now @Pauljg79 thanks anyway

I think it’s well documented how much SP energy quoted me-almost 25k! There was no capacity left in the existing transformer, they couldn’t even give me 12kva as was suggested on here, there are 5 plots next to me which they said if they eventually asked for a supply (within 5 years) I would get a partial refund. We went back and forth trying to find a solution, we got a quote from another contractor of £8k to do the digging but we still would have had another £10k to pay for the cable.Just when I was losing the will to live I had a eureka moment and threatened to serve them notice on the pole that was on my land, the outcome of which was they did everything for under £5k!

Yes @Nickfromwaleshose is now gone!

Heating is on! Suddenly it started to flow on Friday night and all is now well with the world! But my god can that pellet stove eat those pellets! we were told we would use 1and a half to two tons a year but I can’t see that happening, installer has said it will use a lot until the house is heated up and then settle down, I really hope so or I’d have been as well with oil. It’s a funny piece of kit, set the water temperature to70degrees and it burns away at the top setting until it gets to about 68 then gradually cuts down its rate of burning till it eventually goes very slowly, you then see the temperature drop gradually and when it’s down about 50 degrees it starts working it’s burn rate up again but this can take quite a while and I do wonder why it gets so low before ramping up again, I’m just not sure of it yet but I suppose time will tell, hope it’s not been an expensive mistake.

Oh how I wish I hadn’t got carried away with energy saving, 20 k light between ufh and pellet stove and still no heat! If we’d put in an oil boiler and radiators we’d be laughing by now ?

Our plumber who did everything including the radiators seemed to know nothing about ufh so was no help at all, this system seems to be so different from the one we installed in our last house, hubby did it all himself and there was a comprehensive manual you could work through, this one has a couple of sheets of paper regarding manifold and that’s it!

We have tried isolating the radiators and only putting on the ufh to no avail, I believe they do share a tapping

Exactly my thoughts re the installers, I thought when I paid for installation it would include actually getting the thing working but apparently it was only the actual installation of the pipes and manifold then you’re on your own, there is a pump on the TS which is for the radiators upstairs and the UFH, works ok for radiators so I’m assuming the valves are fully open, yes a visit from @Nickfromwales would be great pity he’s so far away! And by the way it’s IRN bru?

Yes @ProDavethey are we’ve tried that!

@Nickfromwalesaffirmative to everything you said

@Nickfromwales all actuators are open and flow gauge there are no flow meters @ProDave just hex blanking plugs can’t hear the pump but can feel it

We’ve had it at various positions anywhere from 20-50 but we want to keep it down as the slab hasn’t been heated before

No blending valve just a thermostatic mixer apparently

So the guy from Greenflame came on Tuesday and set up the pellet stove and thermal store leaving us to get it feeding the underfloor heating, that’s two days ago and still no heat, the stove gets up to 70degrees which it is set at and this should suffice for all the heat and hot water, it then cuts back and ticks over, the problem is the hot water is not getting to the manifold, the flow pipe is hot but everything else is cold, many wasted hours have now been spent with no results- help!

Are you going to lose a lot selling the house without some of the garden, we did this, took more than half of the ground that was with the house but still left a reasonable amount and we only lost 5k , have you checked out the value of what you want to sell?

@vivienzyes the backhander could have been either a smack or some cash! Really don’t know how I’m managing to control my temper but the air was blue! Unfortunately the architect is all paid up , he was paid for everything way back at the start, we will wait and see what today brings but we have to bring this thing to an end it’s been going on since July!

When I read this and take into account our own experiences I wonder what on earth possesses us to put ourselves through it and I also cannot believe the British builders work ethics- they have none!

So last Tuesday saw us eventually getting the track inspection passed and we were told 5-10 days for connection.This morning I decided to phone to see if they had a date for us and was told 19th November but could be earlier.Half an hour later Scottish Water draw up so I go to see what’s happening, well I was here to make your connection but I won’t be doing it, firstly the hole is full of water- oh really well we did warn you this would happen! Secondly you have to get a chapter 8 - you can then imagine the explosion that happened mostly by me as hubby seems to be able to keep his temper better than me, so he goes back to his van and I go into the caravan to phone them, a lot of good that did me, as far as that department was concerned they’d done their bit and passed it! I was exasperated where do you go from there,? However mr jobsworth had been phoning his gaffer and came back to tell us if we got road signage etc he would come back and do it, even gave us his phone number to phone him, admitted it was a 10 min job , I was actually pondering giving him a backhander just to do it but considering SW have had over a thousand pounds from us for doing nothing I reconsidered. The signs are ordered and hopefully he will come back by the end of the week to do it. The other problem of the staircase rumbles on, we told the kit company we couldn’t and wouldn’t pay any more for it since it was the architect who made the mistake and he refused to pay. He then came back out and a new plan was put together for a reposition of the staircase with the architect agreeing to pay for extra balustrade since it was no longer beside the wall, he had been going to pay for the cantilever which would have been needed if we’d gone with the first plan. Today I was given the new over cost which is £1100 which I duly sent over to the architect who then back tracks and decides he’ll only pay the amount that the cantilever was going to cost and it was going to be a sidey from a friend of his.Tomorrow someone has to take responsibility or I’m afraid it’s going into the hands of our solicitor.

Welcome, have you a plot in mind and if so what are you planning on spending on it? Can you do a lot of the work yourself and where are you going to stay during the build? please be sure your utilities are close at hand in any plot you consider, our plot had an electricity pole in the garden which lulled us into a false sense of security and we got the shock of our lives when we were quoted £25 k for a connection as the line was at capacity. I t depends what kind of spec you are looking at as well, personally I wouldn’t like to try it for 200k including land, utilities and fees but I wouldn’t say it couldn’t be done, you’d have to do a lot of shopping around for materials.

@IanAnd me please, just was wondering about insurance

@Thedreameroh no the application went well back in April, they took our money very quickly and charged us £200 for building water! Since then we have had 5 track inspections every one telling us something different, they keep moving the goalposts, in inspection 4 we were told we would have to dig a hole at the opposite side of the road which my husband said yes he would do if they told us exactly when it would be needed otherwise if he did it now and it was left for a few weeks it would fill with water given the weather, that wasn’t acceptable so on Tuesday morning he and a friend dug the hole, inspector comes out and at last passed it, 5-10 working days before connection apparently so we await the connection but with the amount of rain yesterday and today the hole is filling with water!

Can I ask what sort of money we’re talking here oak and glass, since ours was priced within the kit price I don’t have a clue what price we’ll have been charged but they’re now wanting an extra £2k because of a mistake the architect made