Lofty718

Thanks @Adsibob I read through your thread here before I became a member and have been going through similar seperate problems with my project. The building industry needs a huge shake up and more regulation. You mention CIAT and he is a member of them and I have just received an email from them today asking for more information however they do not have much power and going down that avenue at best would have the technician removed from the body and I would gain nothing from getting him in trouble, everyone makes mistakes. I think the fire curtain could work and they don't look too obtrusive I am going to look into this further. To add to my bad luck, I had broadband being installed and the guy didn't realise I had a pocket door in the wall and drilled right through my lovely pocket door I will keep the thread updated here because it could potentially help others avoid ending up in this situation. I had read about fire surpression being needed in some properties but no one had mentioned it to me for my build so I assumed it wasn't needed. I thought I had everying in good order and organised so it's a bit of a disappointment to miss such a big issue

Interesting thanks for posting this. I been digging and found this about section 38

It was an architectural technician not an actual ARB architect. However surely they should still have a responsibility to know the regs (in my opinion) The paper trail is there with building control, they approved what I've built with no mention of anything other than smoke alarms. I was not aware I could use a fire curtain the BCO said door, sprinklers or misting system. However I do not know how a fire curtain would look, the ceiling is flat and square but space is limited, I can't really find many examples of domestic fire curtains anywhere online That's the website I found, they suggest try to resolve it with BC myself if not I will go to them.

That is what I will be doing, there is a local government and social care ombudsman that has the power to make building control compensate people if they make a mistake. But it's quite a grey area. The officer came up with a really weak excuse for why they approved the drawings wrongly. So I've sent out an email to the head of building control and if that fails then on to the ombudsman, I have also asked the architect if I can claim off of his PI insurance for the error. I would absolutely not put in a temporary door just to pass. it's very annoying because it would of been so much easier to deal with at the start of the project I could of added a pocket door but now the layout does not allow it.

It is the council building control. All of the open plan area and staircase hallway need misters. the cost is over 5k+ with no making good.

Does this not invalidate home insurance if there is a fire?

It's not possible to install a door due to mobility issues, a door would of been easy to design in at the beginning but not now. The bco's will accept a misting system, but this is expensive and involves destroying newly plastered and painted walls and ceilings.

I submitted the plans but arc technician drew them. I'm amazed neither BC or plan drawer noticed. Do you think I any claim against BC or architect?

@Bozza It's a 3 storey property with an open plan downstairs. It should have fire suppression or a door to seperate the staircase according to regs (which I was totally unaware of) Drawings were approved without any suppression or doors. There was zero amendments or variation, I sent them one email with structural drawings, planning drawings and building control drawings all showing the same open plan layout and it was all approved and they visited on numerous occasions throughout the build. Then final visit comes and bco hits me with this news and tells me I need to add a door (not possible) or an expensive misting system or I can't get a completion cert.

Careless decorators got paint all over my kitchen units and have done a runner any tips on how to remove the paint?

Sounds like a bad ASHP install, which is quite common. What speed are the pumps on? Do the pipes get hot? flow and returns on each of the loops try and figure out the source of the issue. What flow temp is the ASHP running on? is it running on weather compensation? (should be)

The drawings have been followed exactly, but BC made a mistake when approving the drawings and now say it does not meet regs Do building control have any liability here? been rather stitched up. The issue could of been corrected very easily in the beginning but now will be a total nightmare and very costly

You sound like a nightmare neighbour in what way does their house being exposed affect you in any way? Unless the builders are total cowboys then it should be fine.

Not much space left for when the pipes expand Show us photos of the manifold

Your kitchen is not a true handleless one, but a j-pull one. So it's a bit different and you can have the worktop flush like that

Beautiful kitchen, why don't the units closest to the garden go right to the wall? My worktop has a smaller overhang, it seems quite large. Who templated it? kitchen company? I doubt you need a whole new worktop, they can probably remove it, cut and refit.

Make sure the heat pump installer knows what they are doing I'd suggest looking for an installer on the heat geek website so you don't end up with a cold house or sky high electricity bills (or both)

Is this a leasehold property aswell, do you have permission from the freeholder and other owners in the building? this could also get expensive and messy. There are so many things wrong here However, 650 does seem a good price for the property. I would love to live in Camden. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/details/england-81279772-11663236?s=3f879f603b1de1ec213d7cb9e0d67dde6bb7fd55656843129274795cf8e6c34d#/ This one on your road went for 1.635 million for a 4 floor house. With some detective work I found your contractor/ 'friends' company information. For the last few years they have been 200-300k in the red on companies house. This year they are 100k up, maybe they found a gold egg to milk and are looking to line you up as their next one The projects on their website are very high end, but these are all in areas that are MUCH more expensive than yours that command higher budgets with their underground swimming pools and the like, none of your neighbours would be spending that kind of money. It is Kensington and Chelsea and Mayfair money not Camden. Kentish town is not even the nicest part of Camden.

James you are having your pants pulled down here and are being rogered left right and centre 50k to an architect to design a maisonette is absolute batshit crazy I cannot beleive you paid that. You could get an architetural technician to provide you with some good plans for 3k. It's just a maisonette there is only so much you can do with it. I knew the quote was crazy when I got down to the scaffolding line and it's 17k + vat. A tinhat roof and scaffold in London is 6k maybe less. It should cost 300k maximum and I know builders who could do it for that. The mistake you made is telling the builder how much you're willing to spend, you should never do this. I went to Wren kitchens and told them I had a 25k kitchen budget and guess what they designed me a 25k kitchen.... ended up getting it or half that in Howdens. Also those taps you posted are not even mid range they are low end garbage. Mid range would be crosswater/grohe. You should put this on hold and do a lot of learning and researching or this could end very badly, if the architect hasn't done the work yet you should cancel them and pay them 10k and start from scratch with a new architect and builder. I'm sure everyone here would be willing to help and give you advice.

@Adsibob You'll see the manual refers to mixed circuits, which is how Viessmann intends their systems to be used with mixers like below. https://viessmanndirect.co.uk/Catalogue/Divicons-and-Mixers/Divicon/Divicon-with-Mixer-Extension *can be found much cheaper than this though* could you post a pic of your boiler setup?

The boiler will fire up on full power for the first minute, that's just how they are designed. Vaillants anyway, I'm not sure about others

Running a Viessmann 200W without weather compensation is a crime against humanity, any installer putting in one without weather comp is a cowboy. Has he set it up as a 4 pipe system with hot water priority like it's designed to be? That's the whole reason the boiler is so expensive because it comes with weather compensation out of the box, It's like buying a Lambo and limiting the engine to 150bhp. Heating systems in Germany and Holland are mandated to be used with weather compensation, we are lightyears behind here Viessmanns are best run continuously at a low flow temperature, with no room thermostats and the ufh manifolds should be low temperature ones controlled by electronic mixing valves not the crappy high temp one on the manifold I've never owned a Viessmann but my Vaillant has holiday mode I'm certain Viesmmann has the same.

Read the whole consumer advice section on Heat Geek it is very informative https://www.heatgeek.com/weather-compensation-or-load-compensation/ Also if you use facebook I am part of an interesting group on there where we all discuss stuff like this, but main focus is low temperature heating. Group name 'Heating system design' In the UK we have an issue of installers oversizing boilers, mine put in a 30kw when I could of had 15kw and even that would be too much, the consequence of that is that my boiler cannot modulate below 6kw.

My towel radiators are part of the radiator circuit and are constantly on when the heating is on following the same weather compensation curve I oversized the radiators and it keeps the bathrooms nice and toasty constantly

See this chart that shows efficiency drops from boiler cycling, you do not lose much efficiency unless your boiler is cycling a lot in a short space of time. vaillants have anticycling mode to boost efficiency https://www.heatgeek.com/what-is-boiler-modulation/ chart came from heatgeek, read all the articles on here there is some great info Make sure your pump is set at the right speed and you have the optimal delta t across the system, then add weather comp if you want an extra 5-10% effciency and more comfort.