recoveringbuilder

First house we decided to build as we reckoned we could build something twice the size of anything we could buy for the same money, most things went well with it but it did give an understanding of what could go wrong, mostly with tradesmen, never ever wished we hadn’t done it. second house had many problems, again mostly with tradesmen but also with money, we built a far bigger house than we could really afford and at times thought we’d never afford to finish it but we did after using every penny we could get a hold of. this house was supposed to be perfect as we thought we’d experienced everything we possibly could, unfortunately not and we faced lots of challenges with things we’d never given a thought to but we worked through them all and gained a whole lot more experience. would never wish we hadn’t built any of them, the original £40k we spent in 1992 has now got us into a house worth at least ten times that which wouldn’t have happened if we’d bought an off the peg house way back then for the same amount of money. I have loved everything I have learned in the last 30 years and would start another tomorrow if the right plot came up!

Neighbour of my brothers had a free oil boiler fitted two years ago on one of these schemes, she has more often than not had no heating, always something wrong with it to the point where she’s had it taken out and paid for it to be replaced

Don’t know what you would be paying for them from eBay but you would get a set from jewson or some of the other bms for around £120 and they would deliver.

Does your architect who got you through planning not have a SE that he works with? that’s how we got our calculations done and it works out fine if they’re used to working with each other.

I think you’re right about Joe Bloggs not having a clue about mvhr, I know someone in a house with it who doesn’t know how to use it, I think even ufh causes some people a problem, we sold our house with ufh nearly 5 years ago, was speaking to the new owner a few weeks ago and they have taken it out and put in radiators as they weren’t happy with the reaction time!

Also have an 8 burner range and I run it off 13kg bottles, I get 10-12months usage from one bottle!

It’s amazing what people will take when they’re getting it free, we had so many off cuts of insulation during our build and didn’t want to pay for a skip to put it all in, advertised as free to uplift and had 3 or 4 people with vans filling them up!

Yes

Haven’t gotten far with it as the installer refuses to admit it is undersized, he is trying to say that the designer of the ufh and the radiators has made a mistake and put too much in. Hetas are about as much good as a chocolate fire guard, want to come out and look at the installation but can’t or won’t do any calculations!

Exactly what my biomass is like and I’ve only had it two years!

As @newhome says I have biomass, it was fitted by an mcs registered installer at a cost of £15k , I am currently in dispute with the installer and Hetas regarding its performance. I have also just had some information come my way from someone else who has the same make of equipment as myself and also installed by the same installer, she is currently having it taken out and replaced with something else, wouldn’t touch it again, if you can’t trust a registered installer to install something that will do the job who can you trust? My husband could have installed us an oil boiler at a quarter of the price but we were encouraged to go “green “!

I have an Instagram account but unfortunately haven’t a clue how to use it! How would I find your build or others for that matter?

If you’re paying council tax you can make your vat reclaim with that otherwise why don’t you get a temporary habitation which you could use for it. Seems pointless to make a temporary ramp which you’ll need to pull apart later down the line.

I have actually been thinking about that myself recently, the hanging space in my dressing room is full, just looked the other day at what was in there and the realisation that I hadn’t taken anything out of there since Xmas 2019!

Reminds me of the mirror wardrobes we had in our first house, when you went into my teenage daughters room it looked so tidy but when you opened the wardrobe doors this is what you saw! She now has a dressing room with beautiful tidy wardrobes!

If you didn’t notice it until you looked at the photo it can’t be too bad however it’s one of those things that once you’ve seen it you can’t unsee it ?

Hardly likely that the person who has just bought it would be willing to sell again. What size of piece of land is it? £30k is not a lot to have sold for if there’s a chance of getting planning on it. Maybe someone has just taken a punt on it on the off chance that they will eventually somewhere down the line get planning. The field next to us was like that, it was bought over 30 years ago and kept by that owner until 3 years ago when they eventually got pp.

In short, no

Totally agree with you there! It actually worries me as to where I’ll live when(and if) I get older, house is too big for a pair of old codgers and you need to be able to drive but I definitely wouldn’t want to be able to hear my neighbour flushing their toilet?

Yes it’s just as good!

This belongs to a girl I used to work with and she just posted these pictures tonight to show off her new lights that she had installed ? she moved in just before Xmas, doesn’t appear to think there’s anything wrong!

How did you guess?? These have just been built in the next village to us, £220k

We did the same as you, our plot was part of the land belonging to a cottage we had bought and lived in for a year. We originally were going to put two bedrooms and a toilet upstairs and had gone through the process right up to getting the building warrant to do the work. We decided against doing the work as it appeared we weren’t going to recoup the cost of doing the work when we sold. We handed over all the paperwork to our solicitor so that the buyer could do the work if they wanted to but when I spoke to them after the sale was through they weren’t even aware of the plans and their solicitor had never handed it over to them so a total waste of time and money on our part.

Buy yourself a cheap staircase from howdens or jewson (£120) it will be money well spent and don’t fit your oak one until everything is done, trades won’t look after it like you would and it’s bound to get damaged.