lizzie

Thats the thread I have been searching for, I remembered the discussion but can’t find it!

Thanks. I dont want to see the cable at all and I think there are some special bits you can get to hide it. Where are you sourcing your rails from. Bewildering number of web sites!

Hi all I am now looking at buying the towel rails for our bathrooms. We opted to go electric only so starting the search and I am confused (easily done!). I want towel rails where the cable is hidden in the wall and is not visible at all in the bathroom. I am not sure how to achieve it. Most sites I look at the electric heating element is a separate item but then there are an array of valves and I presume that is the route to the hidden cable but I cannot figure it out. Can anyone tell me in simple terms what I need to buy? MT Liz

spot on for alcove sliders thanks.

I am going to put in some sliding door wardrobes using corner of room and building some stud wall at the ‘open’ end to create the alcove. Any suggestions for decent quality sliding door suppliers? I also want to put a run of cupboards along a wall of our snug. I want floor to celing flat plain doors painted the same colour as the walls so they are as invisible as possible. Any suggestions for suppliers for these? Thanks

Just about to extend for a 3 month chunk......no premium quote yet?

we are on heavy clay with mbc slab.....could make pots out of our ground, its just awful, solid red clay, the dug out area was like a swimming pool for months, still have trenches full of water when it rains and our temp drainage channels are not clear. Our slab is the typical mbc eps with steel, concrete and ufh. I cant imgaine how much worse than ours your ground must be if they wouldnt accept it. Hope you find a decent alternative slab.

Sorry I cant work the quote bit here but did I read correctly Visti further back on this thread as saying MBC slab and frame were not accepted by warranty provider Prremier Guarantee? We have MBC slab and frame and Premier Guarantee warranty, there was no problem in Prem Gtee accepting MBC

I wish you had been looking after my slab! J S Harris....pipes in the right place! I paid a ‘professional’ PM to do the job.

I wish...this is same PM who thought the Malvern Hills of a slab was acceptable and the huge holes in the plasterboard and lining up contractors to start work before we were ready and not telling them resulting in them putting extra charges on their bills.....Its been a complete nightmare and I am still trying to sort the problems

and don’t even start me on the holes for the floor sockets! How hard can it be to get them the right size in an approx location in the living area. More excavating to make holes bigger and heart in mouth about ufh in that area, at least that wasnt a worry in the bathrooms.

Our waste pipes were put in the slab by mbc before the pour. They were plotted on drawings beforehand and not MBC fault my people who gave them the placements misread the bathroom plans (except me and I was not shown them on the mbc plan until afterwards when I saw immediately there was a problem) every single bathroom pipe (bar the bath waste) was in the wrong place, Some by as much as 10 inches or so MBC kindly did a bit of rectification for us but we have had to do the rest. All our sanitary ware is wall hung and we have had to dig out the slab and redo the pipes.....+£1000 later and a slab with more holes than my crochet shawl......just one small example of items contributing to cost over runs!

Fantastic find! Brilliant thank you, answers a lot of grey area questions for me.

Have clarified my mistake, it was Nobilia that Siematic took over not Nolte. Very sorry silly old bat I am, brain strain from all this build stress!

If anyone wants to come and see my MBC build and learn from our mistakes on costs overspend then you are very welcome. Think it will be a super house but coming in at about £400 a sq ft when the local rate is nearer 3 for good spec we will be dead before it reaches. a level when it is valued at anywhere near what it cost so hope we dont need to move soon! We are in the Midlands near Stratford uon Avon.

I dont really want to tell you how much over budget we are because it makes me cry......we went for mbc frame and slab option as was a fixed cost but beyond that the whole thing is a nightmare. Budgeted costings we were given now appear to be fairy stories. I had budgeted for high spec bathrooms, kitchen and lighting and I did all that myself on quotes and they are as expected. The rest of it is an absolute joke! I have things not being done corectly the first time round and then having to be done again (not contractors fault or mine its not due to client changing mind etc). Our ground works came in at 52k plus 35k for a retaining wall, we had no problems in the ground so I cannot see where 52k went......we have yet to get services down to the house (they are at the gate inside our property) or drainage and then backfill around the eps....this is another 10k plus so we have over 100k for groundworks and wall and honestly its not that complicated or difficult. We have had a professional project manager on board from purchase of plot, I do all the running around and spend a lot of time finding things we need. I am not able to physically ‘build’ it myself. If are lucky and control very tightly the remainder we will end up on a 180sqm single storey build at £550k excl plot and vat reclaim......thats an eye watering £ps sq m! We had budgeted £375 - £400k after qs costed it at 340k, architect thought 3ish so we thought our budget was reasonable. Its a very simple bungalow!. Yes I feel foolish and very stressed and have no faith in professionals now. Learn from the excellent advice on this forum and do not put too much trust in your professionals where your money is concerned, by the time I realised what was happening we were so far in it was hard to stop a lot of it. I have done what can........oh and we are projected to be six months behind for completion which is another 12k in rent! Sitting in corner sobbing quietly......... Good luck. Liz

We have had to have our entire slab levelled prior to tiling. Our expert advice from floorlayers doing the job was that they wanted the walls plastered first and yes a gap between floor and bottom of plasterboard is the right thing. You cover this gap with your skirting board or in our case skirting tile, our final gap after levelling and tiles down looks to be somewhere around an inch but I have not measured it.

I have been asking in vain......I keep getting told they will sort some out but they never arrive, suspect they never will!

Very nice. Well done, it looks lovely

Thanks guys, superstars as always!

Hello all I recall seeing a reference to a company who can deal with scratches on powder coated aluminium window frames and doors.......inevitably I am going to need their services shortly but I can’t find the detail anywhere. Can someone point me at these miracle workers. Thanks

Ok I can only say what the salesperson in the Siematic Showroom told me a few months ago.....she is the wife of a neighbours son and told me ‘in confidence’............maybe I have the name wrong LOL who knows, you have far greater knowledge so another company with a similar sounding name perhaps? Thanks for correction Liz

I was told recently by someone that works for Siematic that Nolte now owned by Siematic......their ‘budget’ range for mere mortals who cannot afford their very expensive kitchens.

We have an MBC frame. Went up this summer. It was a close call between MBC and Beattie Passive who we liked hugely but what swung it to MBC was the frame and slab package. Good luck with the planning. Enjoy this time before the frenzy of the build starts. Liz

Thanks Moira, I am sure you will be pleased with the render, our exposed location and the guarantee was what swayed us. Good luck with all yours....windows too! Liz