lizzie

I am trying to get through to vat helpline but hanging on for ever they must be busy. Meantime thought one of you superstars may be able to help. I am having a sectional garage door, electric of course. Installer happy no vat as new build but has queried if the electric motor element is vatable. Any one know the answer? Thanks in anticipation

Looks fabulous. Well done.

Thank you its made my week reading your post. Its not a common condition and people seem don't understand the awfulness of it. Onwards to my bubble!

oh wow that is so spooky. The main reason we started down our build road was my health. I too have bronchiectasis and life was becoming progressivly more difficult. We searched for our location on the top of a hill with clean air around and set about building the bubble I had been desperately wanting for several years. I am so thrilled to hear how well your wife is doing it gives me great hope for myself, any improvement however small will be so welcome. We are still some months away from finishing and lots of hurdles still to overcome but I will start the day tomorrow with renewed hope and optimisim for the future in our bubble, Thank you so much for posting this and I wish you and your wife all the very best in your new home....she and I are very lucky ladies to have such caring partners willing to go to these lengths to improve our quailty of life. xx

AliG if you were closer I would offer you one of our spare bedrooms for the new year period! Good luck

We were lucky no CIL in our area

My OH is a lawyer, a property and planning lawyer of more than 40 years experience. He insisted on us getting a warranty even though we were not getting a mortgage. He looked very carefully at CML list of approved providers and who was accepted by most lenders. We chose Premier Guarantee in the end. We also got a quote from LABC both happy with MBC frame and slab. I am also happy that their inspections give a us a double check as we deliberately opted not to have them do building control inspections too. I like the two separate inspections one may see something another might miss. It is true that you don’t actually ‘need’ a warranty if you are not borrowing to build but anything that makes a future sale easier has to be a good thing in my opinion. OH does know first hand of cases where mortgage lenders have been sticky about the loan because of no warranty in place. I don’t want any future purchaser of mine getting cold feet because there is no warranty in place. Yes there are routes around but its a rubber stamp job for lenders if a warranty from an approved supplier is in place. I think a warranty is not so much for us as the builder but something to make any future sale as smooth as possible. A purchasers finance is not in the sellers control. Who or how they raise funds is for them and as a seller I would always want to facilitate the easiest possible route to a successful sale. We none of us know if we may need or want to sell in the coming decade so I view our warranty as an essential to have in my file. I have spent most of my life in the property market one way or another and anything that makes is easier to complete a transaction is a big plus in my book.

yes right you only need replacement filters. Sorry I was remembering another brand that needed an expensive box with it for the extraction. Panorama box or something, it was a local german kitchen showroom trying to push me into that brand - think it was Caple- he must had a good deal going with them because I told him numerous times I didnt want it but he just kept pushing it. He didnt get the sale on the kitchen but for some reason that box popped into my mind when doing the earlier post. Sorry guys old dame brain fade!

I’ll check my invoice tomorrow...... I thought I had paid for it extra but maybe that was on a quote for another product

I got a price list (attached) from the uk Bora rep back in March, These are retail ex vat. No idea how much if at all they may have changed in the last months. I bough a BFIU which is the flexzone induction with recirculation. Bear in mind to the price of the hob itself you have add the extraction package. 170111_Pricelist_PCB_Z2_EN_GB-Pfund_01-2017.pdf

LABC were happy to insure our MBC slab too. We decided on Premier Guarantee in the end for no other reason than they are accepted by more mortgage lenders and if we wanted to sell at some point a purchaser might need a mortgage so the more approvals the better. I dont think there was much in it on the price or t&c.

I have a tree made if twigs so its already bald LOL

As you may know we finally got our water connected on Wednesday and our superstar heating installer was on site waiting to get it into the house along with the gas and power. By 7.30 Wedensday evening they had brought the gas and water into the plant room plus a temp power supply and the boiler was fired up and UFH commissioned. Happy to say all working well and now doing the gradual daily crank up. This is UFH in the MBC slab so heart in mouth as no-one can be sure until it kicked into life. MBC laid the pipe for us we didnt use their pipe we used Robbens as they were supplying all our manifolds for UFH and the MVHR system. I’m now getting complaints from the various trades......this house is far too hot, need the windows open never mind its minus outside.......etc ..... LOL. I’m thrilled to bits with the tongue in cheek builders complaints ( they have toiled in very cold temps for me up to now), means we will have a very warm house to live in. May even come near my ambition of covering our heating costs from our OAP winter fuel allowance (yes we are old enough to qualify!). Very happy, I’m going to pop a christmas tree up in there tomorrow so when my men come in on Monday it will be jolly and seasonal and warm. Might even leave them some mince pies under the tree.

mmm hose test shudder shuuder but maybe......

mad isnt it......

I totally agree Steamy Tea

We are currently renting a house which is on a development that runs through a golf course. A private road. The BT internet is a max of 6mb - when it works - and that is paying for their superfast system which they admit they cannot provide here but if you drop down to the lower level you would get 2mb at best. BT will not upgrade the 30 year old copper to fibre, in fact they refused to do anything even after efforts by the local MP. The residents got together last year to get. a fibre broadband company in and eventually a deal was agreed with gigaclear and ours was installed a few months ago. Its great I get huge speeds and on line life has returned. One bugbear is that is only thta speed in the room where the box is. Outside that room wi-fi is poor and I am using range extenders but that is probably this house not the cable broadband. Is not cheap, we pay circa £60 a month for internet only. Installation cost about £300. The cost was worth it to me as it it was so bad on the BT system I often had to go to a local cafe to download things.....house build related thing so v important!

Thanks Moira, feel wiped out now the stress of water is gone. We can now move on in so many ways. Our cladding wont be done before Christmas but hey ho whats another month. Building has been up since July. So sorry about your windows, thats just awful at this time of year. I hope they can sort it out for you. Got a temp power supply into the house last night and filled the ufh and got the boiler on, left it running overnight at a low temp. Am waiting to hear how everything went, pressures etc. Love your spirit with the Christmas tree in the new house, might just copy that idea over the weekend cheer the workers up on Monday morning.

Andrew, I had gas previously before having an induction in rented house, lifelong gas fan would never go back now induction all the way for me. The way around the pan size issue is flexi zones which in effect give you a large space covering 2 or more ‘rings’ and the area in between it fits itself to your pan. Quite amazing really.

bora with flexizones cant remember model I bought it months ago its in the warehouse. Cant remember the differential think it was about another £500 - £750. Hopeless I know I just recall I looked at Guttman thought it was nice was quoted somewhere early4’s for it and I looked at Bora liked that and it came in middle 3’s from memory.

Finally today after an 18 month wait the water company have done the 5 metre trench to connect us to the mains. They wouldnt let us do it - although we had done the other 100 odd metres to their satisfaction they insisted on their contractors for the last stretch - and on a 3 day closing order for the private drive which is also a bridleway. We all told them (including their own contractors) it would take less than a day but they wouldnt budge. In the event the whole thing was done in less than 2 hours. I am so happy to have mains water on site at long last feel like crying! Hoping they might get the UFH and boiler connected up today or tomorrow so we can get some heat going.

Peter thank you that it is distinct possibility. Will certainly investigate. Its happening at 2 out of 5 sets of sliders. Barney we have siliconed to no avail, think thats why he is blaming our frame and wants to review when complete.

Thanks will be checking those details

Hi all our Internorm sliders are leaking, have been since they were installed in September, think it is at the thresholds, supplier blames us says it is coming in via the sides of the timber frame and travelling. This is very clearly not the case. They dont agree their windows are the problem and won’t even agree to look again until we have completed our cladding but that is delayed and will be another month at least meantime we are having usual winter bad weather and driving rain in an exposed location and the water is coming in, I have newly plastered walls wicking up the water around the problem windows (2 different rooms) and now plaster is wet to a foot high. Cut outs for light in the slab at the window reveals are full of water.....electrician cant do lights underwater.......the tiler will not complete tiles to threshold as there is clearly. a problem. Every trade on site can see it is the windows but supplier wont accept it. They fitted them. We will cut off bottom of plaster to try and stop wicking and prevent further damage but beyond that not much more we can do. Anyone else had this problem with internorm sliders? Thanks

Bora for me. Siemens etc are trying to jump on the bandwagon and I dont think they come close. Would have liked Guttman but price prohibitive so gone for Bora as next best.