recoveringbuilder

Yip, problem being most of it is inaccessible!

It’s back! Got up this morning to find all had been restored.

I also had a quote for £25k , mine was Scottish power, like you I was shocked when it came in and they said the same that there was no capacity in the line. I ended up lucky because the pole was on our ground without a wayleave so as soon as I mentioned them having to remove it things changed. Unfortunately you don’t have this leverage but I would advise you to go through their website with a fine tooth comb. During the negotiations I was having with them I discovered a post on their website which said something along the lines of; we are under obligation to upgrade our network and provide new connections to new homes at a reasonable cost to the customer. You have to initially make a complaint which they will try to dismiss by saying that they have offered you a connection to which you then respond with anything you can find. You will have to escalate the complaint and keep doing so until you get to speak to the organ grinder. By this time they will have realised you’re not going to go away and will start looking at options. This all took us about 5 months and as I say we were lucky about the pole but I got to the organ grinder before I mentioned it so they were talking it seriously by that time. When we eventually got the connection the contracts manager couldn’t have been more helpful and when we explained everything that had happened he said that this is what they do and if you fight it they will back down eventually. Good luck!

Spent all day at this with no success, ended up phoning plumber at 3.45pm , he told us he has spent all day at frozen pipes! He thinks it will have been frozen and there’s probably a lump of ice somewhere that’s blocked the pipe. I find this hard to imagine as the pipes run above the kitchen ceiling and under the bedroom floor, they’re all insulated and are up there with 300mm of insulation too , the kitchen is always sitting above 20 degrees, he told us to ramp up the heat and see if it dissolve it but it’s going to be another cold one tonight so I can’t see it happening

There’s no water coming out of anything other than the cold tap at the kitchen sink

So we’ve spent the last few hours at this ? it appears the pipe is not frozen, whether it was at some point I don’t know but it isn’t now. The water is getting to the pipe that feeds the thermal store and this goes up over the kitchen (between the ceiling and upstairs floor so inaccessible) but it never makes it to the TS , looks like it’s air locked but how on earth do we clear the airlock?

It looks like you’re right but issue getting air out between the kitchen sink and the thermal store

The EnergyStore Bio Quattro is designed for heating systems that incorporate biomass (log, pellet, or woodchip) and solar thermal. All EnergyStores at high spec and very well insulated. The Bio Quattro comes with tappings ideally located for pellet and wood boilers. An internal baffle plate eliminates convection currents, helping to maintain healthy layers of water at different temperatures = improved stratification. Two internal heat exchange coils provide mains-pressure domestic hot water at excellent flow rates.

No

Bio Quattro 500l TS running dhw, ufh and radiators. Wednesday night a couple of the radiators had cold spots at the bottom so we bled them. Overnight temperatures went to minus 10 and when we got up in the morning we had no water coming out of the taps other than the cold water tap in the kitchen, nothing could be done at that point as we’re both going to work. When I returned in the afternoon I tried the hot tap in the kitchen but still nothing so washed my hands under the cold tap. Once I turned it back off there was the sound of water coming in (same sound as we get usually after flushing a toilet) I then tried the hot tap again and after a few minutes got a trickle followed by a lot of spurting and then the hot water came through. Eventually after the same performance all the hot taps apart from one upstairs came through. Last night the ufh couldn’t reach above 17 degrees, hubby was intending to top up the underfloor system this weekend but before he does this thought I’d ask as it looks to me as if it’s all connected somehow. There is 4 bar pressure coming into the house but it appears it is not getting to the TS. We have no water , hot or cold, anywhere this morning other than the cold tap in the kitchen.

If I remember correctly your planning permission was refused, I expect you are appealing this or have found another way to apply but if you can eventually persuade the planners to grant permission they might be very specific as to what you can build and 2 storey houses are not often allowed in the countryside in central Scotland so you are probably wasting your time trying to price anything up until you can be sure of what will be allowed.

Oh god I wish I had seen these! Don’t think hubby would have agreed though

Retrotouch are the make

I have the retro touch in bronze, quite happy with them so far

When we were doing ours we couldn’t find anyone to do the road (B road) crossing at a reasonable price. The only company who were interested in doing it quoted 7k ! we put it on the back burner to get on with other things and applied for electricity and telephone. Telephone got in first to the council for road closure and refused to share with electricity. Obviously electricity was more important than phone so we cancelled phone to allow electricity in. When we got the project manager out for the electricity connection and explained to him problem with water he let us put all the ducting in for the other services so the road was only opened once.

A lot of these grand designs seem to forget about building regs! It was a beautiful building though

Just exactly what I thought as I was reading, has zoot changed his username ?

If that’s the case that your ex isn’t bothered about getting his share just now and you can afford to pay the mortgage on your own I’d just sit it out! He will presumably eventually want his share and at that point it’ll be his problem to sort out. If the mortgage is in both your names he is jointly liable for the mistake. The only drawback to that is you are continuing to pay a mortgage on your own on a property that is appreciating in value and he will eventually reap the benefits of that.

You should be able to get another company to do the contestable work but the gas and electricity companies will probably have to do the actual connections, it should tell you on your quote what works are contestable.

I’m surmising the farmer is a relative of your ex since you don’t get farmers handing away land to strangers for nothing. If you are having to sell the house to pay out your ex his share which you can’t do under the present circumstances it’s surely to your ex’s benefit to talk to the farmer and get the settlement done.

It was quite good that for once they approached the heating, I can’t remember any grand design programs that have gone into heating in any big way, you see these huge big houses that are built but they never say how it is being heated.

I’d love some wild garlic, there’s a road near us where it grows in abundance but I read somewhere it’s illegal to dig it up

We planted a lot of spring bulbs back in September, don’t know what is happening with them though as they have a nice snow blanket over them just now.

Her face when he said the temperature should rise a couple of degrees in a year! It was like I bloody well hope so! She must have really had to dig her heels in to get the new furniture, he’d have been quite happy filling it with all the old tat. I was actually quite surprised she was still there at the end, that’s love for you!

When we built our last house we wanted a gable front and they wouldn’t allow it despite the house next door having two! We then changed and tried to get a bay window.. no chance despite there being two within 500m of us. You are right I think it depends on the planners personal preference.