Jeremy Harris

It does indeed, but I'm hopeful I can speak with a human tomorrow and hopefully get things resolved. Overall, the automatic system has been fast, but it isn't designed to deal with unusual problems like this, so is doing the equivalent of "does not compute" and throwing a wobbly.

Done that, failed at the first hurdle, as their system quickly discovered that Iresa had ceased trading (the joys of "Big Data"). Thanks, that's next on my plan, if I don't get a response from their normal complaints email addy.

I had the same email, and called their urgent number above, which is where I encountered the effing numpty. The issue isn't (yet) with the purchaser's solicitor, it's with mine, where their automated workflow system grinds to a halt when it encounters an insoluble problem. The 14 to 21 days is a joke number. Octopus are making no guarantees at all, and won't give any indication at all as to how long the process will really take. They have refused point blank to agree that the date could be 21 days from now, for example. I've had some bad customer service experiences in my time, but Octopus really do make Iresa, or even SSE, look exceptionally good by comparison. My advice is to switch from Octopus as soon as possible, as I'm convinced they are another Iresa waiting to happen.

I did this, but this information was rejected because their checks quickly (as in within minutes) showed that Iresa have ceased trading. They need to know the Octopus account number in order to proceed, and because the process seems to be automated, everything grinds to a halt until such time as that information has been entered into the work flow system they use. I guess it's the major downside of speeding up a process by automating it with an online workflow system. As far as 99% of the information required is concerned the automated system is far quicker and easier to use than dealing with lots of correspondence, but it seems it wasn't designed to be able to deal with an energy supplier going bust! No solicitor to discuss it with, it's an automated online workflow system that manages the conveyancing process. There is a human contact I can call tomorrow in the hope that she can find a way around the logjam - clearly they didn't design the system to be able to deal with unusual cases like this.

Well, we've run into our first hitch. As some here know, Iresa went bust a week or so ago. We've just heard that Ofgem have appointed Octopus as our new energy supplier, and as we need to provide the energy supplier name and account number as a part of the initial property information that the conveyancers need, I rang Octopus for the info. I don't think I've ever spoken to a less helpful company in my life. I needed the answer to a simple question, can you give me my account number, and if not, can you give me a firm date on which you will be able to give me my account number? The effing numpty at Octopus couldn't answer either question, not even in very rough estimate terms. I tried to explain that this was critical for us, as without this information we were unable to proceed with the sale of our house. Said effing numpty couldn't seem to get his single functioning brain cell around this, so I asked if he could transfer me to someone who could give me the information. It's not Octopus policy to allow this. Next I asked who I should address a complaint to, with regard to taking legal action against Octopus for failing to meet the stipulated conditions of the contract they've been awarded from OFGEM, and specifically who would be responsible for our losses should the sale fall though as a result of their failure to meet their obligations. Said effing numpty suggested OFGEM, so I asked him for a number to call them. The effing numpty gave me the number for the Pensions Advisory Service, believe it or not... I managed to find a number for OFGEM and after being passed around through three different people I ended up with someone who understood the situation. His advice was to start legal action immediately against Octopus for failing to provide key information that they are required to provide under the terms of their contract with OFGEM. OFGEM won't act to enforce their own contracts they've let with "deemed suppliers". Isn't that nice to know? So, I've started stage one of a complaint against Octopus, with a very politely worded explanation of our specific situation, why we need an account number from them ASAP, and agreeing to do whatever I need to do to make sure that happens as quickly as possible (i.e., stating that I don't care about resolving the Iresa credit balance quickly; if it takes them months to sort that it's fine, as long as they can just give me a bloody account number, like NOW). Be interesting to see what happens, but right now it looks like this could stop our conveyance from going any further forward, as apparently it's a key bit of information that's needed up front at the start of the process (goodness only knows why).

We've still be getting two or three viewing requests a day, but I'm now turning them down, as we have accepted one offer and have two other offers, both cash buyers (nothing to sell, no mortgage needed) who are happy to sit on the reserve list. It's early days yet, but I have to say that I think Purple Bricks have been damned good so far. Their valuation was spot on the money, their suggested tactic of setting a low advertised price with "offers in excess of" seems to have been absolutely the right way to go. That got us a lot of interest, loads of serious potential buyers viewing and ultimately led to us getting an offer that is slightly more than I think we might have got by advertising at a set price and then negotiating down, which is what usually seems to happen. It's also been a pretty stress-free few days. It's now ten days since the advert went live and the most stressful bit has been showing a large number of potential buyers around. Early indications from the Purple Bricks appointed conveyancing firm have also been positive. Everything is done on line (much like the way the Purple Bricks site operates) and includes the ability to scan and automatically upload documents, including those that need a signature. This has meant that after an hour or so I've managed to complete all the ID confirmation, bank statements, house contents and fittings form, central heating details and service chit, EPC, agreement to the conveyancers Ts and Cs, warranties for things like the roofing, cavity wall insulation etc, FENSA chit for the new windows and doors, Land Registry Title docs and plan (I happened to have them) etc, etc. The conveyancers now need nothing more from us, have the buyers details and are working through their side of things. Estimated exchange of contracts is 4 to 6 weeks away at the moment.

Might be a night away in a Travelodge in Bristol, mind...

Thanks folks. Still can't quite believe that we put the house on the market around nine days ago, have had three offers and accepted one that seems fair and most importantly with a purchaser that's in a strong position to proceed. For us that was always going to be the most significant factor, rather than price, so to have an acceptable price as well is a pleasant bonus.

Just accepted an offer for £285K, cash buyer, no chain, no mortgage, can complete the purchase in around 6 weeks. Looks like our strategy of pricing low and asking for offers in excess of the minimum price achieved a sale price that I suspect is higher than we'd have got by asking for a higher price and negotiating down. Just off to open a bottle of wine...

Just for reference I can take photos of our upstand and joints tomorrow or Thursday for evidence that the workmanship by your fitters is well below par. The sink support looks dire, too. As @ryder72 mentioned, our sink rests on a slightly rebated frame made from 15mm plywood, that is bonded and strongly fastened to the top of the sink unit, so that the upper surface of the sink flange is very close to being flush with the underside of the stone. The very shallow rebate in this frame is slightly larger all around, to allow some slight adjustment to get the sink absolutely centred in the cut out in the stone. Once clear siliconed all around the sink is extremely secure, as the ply frame supports the underside of the sink flange all around, and the silicone sealant adhesive secures and seals the sink flange to the stone work top. I like the idea of having the sink flange evenly supported all around, just because it ensures there is never any stress on the sealant, no matter how heavily loaded the sink is. The very last thing I would want is a sink that just isn't evenly supported all around it's edge, and reliant on the strength of the silicone sealant.

FWIW, the pumped air into a treatment plant will tend to create a very slight positive pressure in the foul drains leading to it (it's an extremely low pressure, but enough to push smells around). Our ground works chap knew about this and suggested fitting the (expensive) O ring sealed, screw down inspection cover, and I'm glad he did. When the house was empty I forgot to run the taps and keep all the traps topped off, and had a bit of a smeech in one of the bathrooms as a consequence (we have an AAV, to maintain the airtightness in the house). Easily fixed - just run the taps and keep the traps topped up, but an indication that you can get smells coming back up the foul drain.

You can get plastic screw down covers that have an O ring seal - we have one like that in a path. It's screwed down with four hefty stainless screws and looks like this:

I doubt we'll ever turn our in-line heater on, TBH. The only scenario I can see where we might is if the Sunamp PV packed up, which doesn't seem very likely.

Bear in mind the Silestone is only 20mm thick, so drilled and tapped holes in it aren't going to be that strong. The whole thing feels really solid, with the sink flange bonded and sandwiched between the frame on top of the underlying unit and the heavy stone above. It also made for a quick and easy way of fixing it. I can't see a problem with it personally, as there's no where for the sink to move, as the flange is so well supported as well as being bonded.

The MIs for our sink said to just lay it loose, but supported, on the frame on the top of the unit, then when the worktop was fitted the fitters used clear silicone to bond the return on the top of the sink to the underside of the worktop, gently easing the sink so that it was dead-centre in the cut out, then cleaning up under the slightly overlapping worktop edge. Combined with the worktop being bonded down to every kitchen unit (there are no mechanical fastenings) it's not going anywhere. Part of this is just the sheer weight of the stone; that, combined with the adhesive, made sure that nothing will ever move.

The way our guys did it was turn up with some stiff, clear, plastic sheet and lay that on top of the kitchen units. They carefully shaped this to fit, then marked the positions of all the cutouts needed on it (the under-set sink was already resting on a frame in the top of a unit). The cut out for the hob in the island was traced from the manufacturers paper template on to a plastic template. They then rolled up the templates and took them away to their workshop to cut the stone, coming back a week or so later with the cut worktops ready to fit. The chance of any error was pretty small by doing it this way, I think, and I remember them getting me to double check that their plastic templates were right before they took them away to cut the stone,

The bevels are deliberate, so they can be filled with the special two pack epoxy resin, colour-matched, jointing compound and then finished off flush. This is one of the two joints in our Silestone work top, that shows how it should look. Bear in mind this is now a few years old, and has been cleaned a few times, so looked a bit better when it was brand new. The technique the fitters used was to use the epoxy resin to bond the joints together, then they trimmed off the excess with a brand new Stanley knife blade whilst if was partially cured, leaving the surface very slightly proud, then they waited until the resin had fully cured and used a power polisher to get the final flush and polished finish to the join.

I found it works best with split slats, glued either side of canvas. Reduces the bending on the canvas, for longer life, and slides more easily in the slots as only the slats contact the slot edges.

Best include a broomstick store as well then. I built a tall slot in the utility room airing cupboard, designed to take an ironing board, hidden, out of the way and secured so it couldn't try and open itself and fall over. SWMBO was not amused when she saw it, asked what the tall slot was for, and I jokingly replied that it was a dedicated storage space for her broomstick...

We have 20mm Silestone and the joints were made flush as possible, with a colour matched epoxy adhesive and then buffed down and polished when cured. I can take some photos either tomorrow or Tuesday that show the way our joins look, but I'd have to say you can't easily spot them without looking closely.

I'm one of the forum fairies, so when I edit stuff it never shows publicly!

No I didn't!

We've got some lovely fresh raspberries, so I'm happy!

With ingenuity you can put the air bleed lower down. I did just this a few weeks ago when re-filling a neighbours solar thermal system. They seem to have endless problems with it, and I strongly suspect there's a small leak somewhere, but all my efforts to find it have failed so far. Anyway, to save ever going to have to go up to the top of the roof ever again, I replaced the bleed valve up there with a fitting that allowed a bit of 8mm copper pipe to be fitted instead. I've insulated this with armorflex and run this back down behind the panels and into the loft, via the fascia. The air bleed valve is now next to the pump, fill point and controller. Opening it allows air to flow out from the top of the tube manifold on the roof and out of the valve inside the loft. To make sure it worked well I looped the 8mm pipe up vertically for a few inches above the external top manifold outside. Seems to work OK as far as I can tell, although it takes several goes to get all the air out of the system.

It's a tricky conundrum. On the one hand there's a point of view that suggests that transparency, so all can see what's being offered, is the best way to get the highest price, rather like the situation with an auction, on the other hand there's the point of view that a lack of transparency may just attract an offer that is a lot higher than needed to secure the purchase. I honestly don't know which would be best in our situation. Neither do I know if it's reasonable to make other offers public or not (my limited experience with estate agents has been that they never say what anyone else has offered). If we get a bit over £260k, as a solid cash offer, with no faffing around with delays whilst someone gets a mortgage sorted out, then I'll be happy. Our savings pots will be topped up to back where they were before we started the new build, I had a bit of luck and sold an old watch a few months ago and made a profit of well in excess of £20k on it, It looks like my late Mother's farm is likely to sell for more than we anticipated, so my share of that will be a fair bit more than expected, plus I've done a lot of unexpected (and well paid) consultancy work this year that has brought in another £15k or so (after the tax man's had his big bite out of it...). So, all told, maximising the sale price of our old house isn't as much of a high priority as it may have been without the unexpected additional income this year.