recoveringbuilder

So 16 days ago the builder said he had a weeks worth of work to do, 16 days later he still has, the electricity connection is happening this week and we’ve told them once there is power we’re in but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to them, the plumber said today when I told him our plans, do you really think this will happen, short answer- yes you lot are not forcing me into staying in this caravan any longer my furniture is coming home next Thursday and once it’s here there’s no builders getting in I’ve seen how they treat your belongings, why do they not finish a room at a time, shut the door and know they don’t have to go back in there, oh no that would be using your brain, instead they leave a window sill or piece of skirting to be done and move onto something else and that’s if they bother coming out at all, we’ve had 3 days of attendance the last fortnight, fed up doesn’t even begin to cut it!

You seem to have done more or less what we did, we had self built twice then decided to downsize and bought a cottage with two acres, within a very short time I realised I couldn’t live in the small space so We chanced our arm and applied for planning, it took two applications before we were successful as the two acres was classed as green belt .we are both 58 and working but again we didn’t have long left to take out a mortgage that would be affordable so we split up the ground and sold the cottage with some of the ground and moved into a caravan and that’s where we have been since May however we’re on the home straight now and hope to be in soon, it’s been very tight getting it in on budget (what we got for the cottage) but it is do able and I don’t think we’ve compromised on the spec, we have oak finishings and will have an oak staircase and a bespoke kitchen, it’s been a roller coaster but all in all I’m pretty happy with what we managed to do, a 260m2 house for the price of a 95m2 cottage.Hope all goes well for you,

Yeah they do your head in, try discovering some of your copper electricity fittings (sockets and switches) have taken feet!

I’d hardly say corian was one step up from laminate, it prices in line with quartz, it’s non porous so shouldn’t stain

I have had umpteen samples and the TekTimber was the one I liked best and the price was reasonable compared with some, more expensive than some but you could see the difference, they have now offered a cheaper delivery however we’re thinking we might need to wait until spring before we do it because the ground is like a quagmire after all the rain of the last couple of weeks and we won’t be able to do any landscaping at all, the drive will need to be hardcore for a while!

This saga has gone on since late July, staircase company were out and did measurements, there was a problem with the pitch 42.545 instead of 42 degrees, architect came up with a solution and was to contact firm direct, I thought this was all done and contacted them a fortnight ago for an eta only to be told plans hadn’t been finalised! After much toing and froing between architect, firm and joiners yesterday I received this plan which on first look made me think it was all sorted however the accompanying email has me worried, it states-please note the trimmer was double sheeted and this will have to be removed before fitting stair, I don’t know what that means, I have an idea what it means but with all the plastering done I hope I’m wrong! Any ideas?

Anybody have any experience of installing a sewage treatment tank, in our previous builds we had a normal septic tank with the outfall going to a soak away which my husband did himself however this time we have to install a sewage treatment plant, no soak away, straight to the burn running through our land, just wondering if there’s a lot of difference in the installation method

Our manifold was connected up to a board at the time of laying the pipes

Hi and welcome, how are you planning to go about your build? Are you going to get a builder to do all the work or are you planning on hiring in trades as you need them and do some of the work yourself. Where are you going to live during the build, all questions that I’m interested in !

The staircase company seems to want the onus to be on anyone but them, glass balustrade but they’ll not supply it until the joiners have fitted The newel posts then the joiners have to tell them sizes for the glass, seems like it will be a long process, beginning to wish I’d just gone for a normal off the shelf staircase!

That’s exactly what it feels like! Builders have said they have a weeks worth of jobs to do, there’s been a hold up with the staircase, nobody signed it off, the architect came out and did all the calcs and I asked him to contact staircase firm with them, at the same time I emailed them and told them architect was going to contact them but I did feel they needed a visit to see what they were dealing with, this was on August 29th , they never answered me and I took it all was in hand, however I decided to phone them last week as they had said it would be ready beginning of October, f**k, the architect didn’t get back to them and instead of them getting on to me they just let it lie. So now we’re looking at another 4-5 weeks for it appearing, it’s odd that a hand built kitchen can be done in a fortnight but a staircase takes so long. Since I’d not been upstairs we got a cheap staircase and joiners fitted it so I was pleasantly surprised at how the upstairs looks, my mind had been playing tricks on me regarding this but all was well. Hubby has taken over the drain installation as when the builders started to dig with a small machine it was quite obvious they hadn’t a clue what they were doing, a lot of them seem to be jack of all trades! The kitchen is in and we await the corian, once this is done the painter comes along to hand paint it, it’s just under coated at present, it’s a mix of oak and painted, looks good so far and the installer spent 6 days installing, a lot of attention to detail. The electricity is coming on October 22nd , we almost lost that slot because BT were booked in for the same week and wouldn’t work with SP energy, this was going to be a problem because the next available date for the contractor was end of November, in the end I had to cancel the phone connection to enable the power company to get in first but the chap who’s the contract manager has been fantastic and has agreed to put our water duct in at the same time. Most of our problems on this build have been with the utilities, something we’d not come across before as we had water and power on site in previous builds. It’s not been easy living in the caravan this last 5 months and oddly enough we have had little help from family who pay a duty call once a month, most of our help has come from people who were strangers until we started this, I don’t know where we would have been without the lovely lady who bought our cottage, she has provided water, power and even her shower in the cottage, it just makes you reevaluate things!

Another question for him on Monday morning ?

This is what we’re wondering, unfortunately the joiners were just leaving when we came home from work today so haven’t had a chance to ask them but it just doesn’t look right!

All my lovely oak doors have now been fitted but I’m not happy with the gap left at the bottom, they’re roughly 30mm off the floor and don’t look right somehow, even once the floors are finished which is going to be 10mm laminate in most of them I still think the gap will look odd, any idea what it should be?

Just weather conditions they wanted it water tight before the weather got bad , I thought they did pretty well

It was the

Think I’m going to have to look for a supplier locally, if I could get it through our builders merchant I’d get free delivery, it’s a shame because I’d looked at a lot of samples and I liked theirs and the price was ok but hey ho

Pallett delivery for tiles was £50 per pallet from one company but I ended up going to another company and got free delivery as I was expecting with an order of over 2k unfortunately cant collect as they’re in Leicester but if I had the time I’d be cheaper hiring a van and going for it!

What about impossible builds on more 4 , I’m stunned, builders working through the night ?

Pallett delivery for tiles was £50 per pallet from one company but I ended up going to another company and got free delivery as I was expecting with an order of over 2k unfortunately cant collect as they’re in Leicester but if I had the time I’d be cheaper hiring a van and going for it!

I’ve never been a fan of decking, too much maintenance to keep it slime free and therefore it’s not been something I’ve ever wanted however this composite decking has really caught my eye and I can get it to match my windows, cills etc so I’ve had lots of samples sent and finally decided to go with a firm called TekTimber, I can get 36m2 and all the joists etc for around 2.5k which seems ok to me . This morning with everything else under control I decided to start the process, was going to send them my plan to make sure I get exactly what I need so went onto website, that’s when I noticed a delivery calculator, ok put in my postcode- £400 delivery! This can’t be right! I then go onto live chat to query this, I’ve just spent 20 minutes of my life I won’t get back, the person I was chatting to didn’t even know if I was in Britain,”is this a uk postcode?”. It all ended with her telling me someone would phone me within 24 hours, I’m sorry but when I decide to take the time to sort something out I want to do it now, who knows in this crazy self build scenario what I’ll be doing 24 hours from now!

What I was told by the rep was that the heavy 3 all come from the same quarry whereas a lot of the other companies call them a name but they are sourced from different quarries

My friend and I were just talking about this the other day, when we were young and indeed our children you very rarely heard of all these allergies, also obesity was very rare in children too but then again we and our children were out playing whenever we could, I can remember rolling down hills which had been newly cut for hay , playing at burns (streams) dabbling in the water and generally getting mucky ,it was a fantastic childhood, not sitting in front of a screen!

What about cupa heavy 3 , a good heavy slate, we were all set to use this after researching all the different Spanish slate it came out best, our problem was the roofer came in the build package and had not priced for slate which has to be sorted into different thicknesses so was going to cost us extra for fitting.