recoveringbuilder

Just when we thought it was coming together and the staircase was all sorted out we got word from tf company today to say we’d have to pay another £2k for the staircase, now we paid for an oak staircase with glass balustrade through the kit firm, there’s been a lot of toing and froing between the architect and staircase company as the original site of the staircase wasn’t going to work and the architect admitted he’d f**d up, there now has to be a steel cantilever added to support staircase which the architect is paying for but both he and the tf company think we should pay the extra £2k as had it been right in the first place we would originally have been charged this, however none of this is our fault and at this late stage we can hardly be expected to conjure up another £2k because of their mistakes, I’m thinking about asking how much this staircase is costing and asking for my money back to get one made elsewhere, any ideas how much I’m likely to have been charged for it?

@ProDaveyes aware that new houses can cause problems but for them to say I’ve signed for it and there’s not even an address on the delivery note seems a bit suspicious to me

This is great customer service-NOT I bought a belling professional range cooker convertible to lpg from stoves are us , asked at the time of purchase if the jets for converting were with it and was assured they would be. I have now had the cooker for 6 weeks (luckily not ready to use it yet) no jets with it, I have made numerous calls and sent numerous emails to stoves are us and keep getting told they’ve been dispatched , more or less they’re telling me they’ve dispatched a set every week since 3rd October and funnily enough I’ve never received them, last week I lost the plot and told them it’d I didn’t receive them in the next two days they could come and uplift the cooker as it’s of no earthly use to me! This prompted a call next day saying they’d been sent out on an overnight delivery and I should receive them next day , you guessed it they never arrived. I sent another email on Friday and got an answer this morning with an attachment of a supposed signed by me delivery note apparently from fedex last Thursday, there is no signature just printed signed for by c Walker and there is no address just our postcode which covers at least 6 houses ,personally I think they’re at it and it has never been sent but why would they do this, I bought it on my credit card would I be within my rights to contact them about this ? It’s driving me crazy, I could buy them straight from belling but why should I? They were supposed to be included!

Had a look at your pictures, it’s the blower unit we aren’t sure of, I see your hose coming out the outlet, our instructions say to put it through 110mm duct from the outlet then through the concrete base for the blower unit into unit, all sounds very confusing without a diagram!

@joe90it’s called a Clearwater E6 but made by kingspan

@Redoctober wondering how you got on with this, ours is still ongoing, no diagrams available regarding the air duct connection from the outlet end to the blower housing, any help gratefully received!

I usually quite like this time of year, doors locked and curtains closed early and nice and cosy in your home, this was how it was meant to be and the reason we took on builders who assured us it would be all done by the end of September, the water and electricity delays seemed to give them the license they needed to start mucking about, this is not what I expected to be left with at the beginning of November, I had a picture in my mind of moving in to a complete house and restarting my life, things have moved on a good deal since we let them go, probably better than if we’d continued with them but it’s far from perfect!

Yes definitely tired, living in the caravan during the summer was fine, long days so you really only needed to go in to eat and sleep but since the first wind when we lost the awning the space suddenly got smaller and you’re on top of each other, dark by 5pm , it’s made a bit of an improvement getting the electricity into house but without the water for the heating and traipsing out with the dogs through all the muck caused by the drainage which should have been done during the dry weather exhausts you, I can’t even begin to imagine ever being rid of it all!

Oh no please not 18months!

I am a very strong person, I don’t usually let things get me down, If I think it’s at all possible to do something myself I don’t ask for help, not even from hubby, some of the things I’ve done many a woman wouldn’t even know about never mind know how to do but these last few weeks have broken me. After the major problem with our electricity supply which I managed to sort out I didn’t think it could get any worse but things are all just getting on top of me now to the point where I have cried today. The electricity is now in which should be a good thing but since Scottish Water seem he’ll bent on making life difficult the electricity doesn’t actually help a lot since we need water to get the heating on and this has a knock on effect on painting and floor laying which will now need to wait, every little thing is now annoying me and if anyone asked me if I would recommend self build I’d say a definite NO.however an hour has passed since I started this post and the cry seems to have helped let off steam, we will continue on as there’s no other option!

They refused to do an all works contract said they didn’t do that ! We’ve had 4 visits from them two of which we never asked for they came by mistake! They have changed the requirements at every visit and this latest one has never been mentioned before, I mean how are we meant to organise traffic management when we wouldn’t even know where to start and even if we did how do we know when they want it for when they don’t even come when they’re meant to and miss appointments without any warning, the chap who came yesterday just quoted we’d need chapter 8 he didn’t even say how we went about it!

Latest update!!! so Scottish Water didn’t appear yesterday for inspection and I called them this morning, they then emailed an other department and requested they come out today, meanwhile after there being traffic lights on the road (for Scottish Power) for the last 9 days they were removed,then comes SW inspector , oh yes your boundary box is fine but we cannot connect you until you implement chapter 8, what the hell are you talking about; well apparently WE have to apply to the council for traffic management and pay for it to enable SW to spend 20 minutes making the connection, this is the connection we paid over a grand for 5 months ago and the same connection that we have had to do all the work for , installation of ducting both on our land and across the road, supply both the ducting and pipe etc, had they come out when I phoned on October 22nd the road was under traffic management, even if he’d come yesterday when he was meant to it was under management but oh no that wouldn’t do that would be too easy! There is now a sign at the bottom of the road saying the road is going to be closed next week for 3 days apparently for bt although we cancelled our connection as it was going to coincide with SP energy, do you think they could take the opportunity to connect us then ? I very much doubt it!

Ours was just put in yesterday through the duct it’s about the diameter of your middle finger went in no problem with the pull rope we had through

We have built on what was classed as green belt we were refused the first application, we had no idea it was green belt it was just land we bought with the cottage, at the same time as we were refused land next to us (also green belt) was granted pp for 5 houses, we got a councillor on side which resulted in a visit from the chief planning guy, we were outside the settlement boundary , however when he looked at the potential site and the cottage with various outbuildings he decided a new house could be placed at a certain position to make it part of the cluster of buildings already there, probably a different scenario for you though but getting a councillor on side definitely helped

This has been a good week, the new joiner started on Monday and he has really gotten through all the odds and ends that have been waiting around forever, the tiler has been on site for two days and I now have a fully tiled bathroom, utility and he has done one of the shower cubicles in an ensuite , I really didn’t think he’d get as much done in the two days, so he’s coming early tomorrow morning to do the grouting and the plumber can now fit the cloakroom, bathroom and one of the showers. The electricity meter was connected today, we should have had power at that point but it’s delayed until tomorrow, the electrician who now has a broken wrist on one side and a broken pinky on the other will be back tomorrow to do some more fitting of lights and switches, the kitchen is all hand painted so it’s ready to go. The only blip is that Scottish Water were meant to be here today for yet another inspection, they’ve been 3 times and last time we hadn’t the boundary box in so another inspection was needed! Of course they never appeared and a phone call at 4 o clock never got me anywhere, they are the worst to deal with, water connection is now holding up the pellet stove and thermal store getting commisioned, my furniture will be back on Tuesday, we had to make a decision on this as it could have gone on forever! The staircase has finally been sorted out but won’t be for a few weeks and we have a new installer for that but the firm won’t send out the glass balustrade until the installer gives all the sizes, he has said he will template it with 1/4” ply but there is a lot of glass and a tight budget now so I don’t fancy having to buy all that ply to be cut up then scrapped any ideas of what else could be used gratefully received

Looking good, I wonder if you get the same response from your tradesmen as we do when we say when we intend to move in- do you really think this will happen? We parted company with our builders last week and are struggling on to get the drains completed, tiling, few bits of joinery work and sanitary ware fitted hopefully to move in a fortnight, I hope it all goes to plan for you

Looking good hope you get the weather to get all the block work done

See Kevin Mc loud is wearing glasses now but clearly they’re not working after watching the build tonight which he thought was beautiful, I wouldn’t like to try selling it!

Hi, I’m not sure I can be of much help but I will ask if your structural engineer has specified what you need for the foundations, they can be one of the great unknowns until you really get into it and can end up costing way more than you expected. Where are you intending living during the build? We lived in a caravan for our last build which took 18months and we moved in before it was all done because by then we were losing the will to live, even on this build we’ve been in a caravan for 5 months now and that wasn’t meant to happen but due to builder troubles we’re a month over, nothing ever goes to plan no matter how well researched

Yes architect designed timber kit, nearing completion, 1.5 storey 260m2, not without its problems and this is our third, you’d think we would have learned by now! Sorry I answered the question which I now realise was not for me?

Hello, I’m in South Lanarkshire also, bit further down the line than you but always good to know there’s another mad person nearby!

So after a no show again this morning after they promised to be here yesterday and didn’t turn up we decided to call them and tell them they were off the job, the main man had the audacity to say I’m not here to come whenever you call! No but you’re supposed to be finishing off a job you took on! At the time of writing this they are here picking up the remainder of their tools and we have a joiner who we know and trust starting next Monday. He wouldn’t take the job on initially as he works alone and it was too big for him but he was coming to do flooring so he now has a bit more to do.

That sounds exactly like my story , it’s a domino effect, the builders are so disorganised they’ve got me in the same state, I look around at everything and don’t know where to start, tiler has been on holiday for a fortnight and was coming this afternoon but he now has car problems! Of course plumber can’t install sanitary ware until tiling is done and all the sanitary ware is filling a room , I too thought I’d be in late September early October but it hasn’t happened, we need to grab back control!

That’s the biggest problem, the staircase won’t be with us for a month at least but I could quite honestly live downstairs but they have stuff lying everywhere there isn’t a room we could store everything in without them using our stuff as somewhere to put their things on top of,I’ve put the chap who’s going to lay the flooring off twice already as the place is a tip and it would just get wasted , we’re truly on the verge of putting them off the job, we could probably finish it quicker ourselves!

Who can tell me at what point we get the airtight test done on the house