Bored Shopper

The usual ones - delays due to Covid! They are apparently being shipped from Germany. Anyone now covers their lack of good business organisation with Covid. I bought composite fence back in August from a website which advertises all items as in stock with next day delivery. After a long battle I eventually got my fence on 8 October :(((

Can I please just moan please - my garage door, ordered back in July, is now further delayed until end of the month. Am really concerned as with another impending lockdown it may be sc**d up further down and BCO is on our back to get the final inspection before early Nov so that certificate can be issued within 8 weeks of us moving in, otherwise LA building control may intervene (not sure how it works, but feel bad). Thanks

I'd +100 to the above opinions - you are your own best PM. As was stated on this Forum "someone else's common sense is not your common sense", no one has a better gut feel for your own project than you. It would, of course, be one hell of a job to pull off, the learning curve is very steep, and you need four pairs of eyes to watch out every little sneaky bit re unexpected extras etc. We are in Middlesex. We've done a 4-bed 2-receptions +loft and garage within M25 on a narrow residential road - an in-fill build. We've had a PM who first brought in bad builders, and then brought in good builders (but at that point we ditched him as a PM as he was rubbish and cost us a painful £££ of extras). Having PM'ed the second half of our project, can say that it is hard work, hugely time consuming, but very rewarding. Plus you would know to a penny what you bought and where you bought it. If I were to give one word of advice: always go with your gut feel and ensure you have 20% contingency budgeted in (at least). Things don't always go to plan. Good luck and welcome here.

We used a very thin profile skirting as I hate thick one, and this one is much easier when it comes to putting furniture against walls. The picture is not really nice (still cannot clean the house as builders are in daily), and as obvious from pic lots of snagging and polishing to be done, but really pleased with the skirting shape and form. Spent ages agonising around it, finally got one from https://www.wmboyle.co.uk/product/sx165-flexible-skirting/. It's very light-weight plastic and cuts nicely. Takes paint well.

Hi, welcome. What sort of project? Please share pics or plans, we love those. Are you a landscaping professional or just a keen gardener?

Just a nasty neighbour who'll make your life difficult during the project. Our neighbours across the street (sic!) in a quiet street with no parking restrictions objected to our plans on the grounds that they will have nowhere to park (currently parking 3x cars alongside their small bungalow, taking up more space than any neighbour). Also objected that our 1st floor windows would overlook their bedroom windows (bedrooms on the street-facing elevation) - althought we are placed at an angle to their house, and right in front of their bungalow there's another neighbours' house which has been overlooking them directly for the past40 years or so. Planning authorities did not mind and approved the application (just put in a condition re considerate construction etc). We've had to ask all our contractors to avoid parking at their side like plague. They still abused us and our team for 9 months, etc etc. We took the mickey by sending them a nice "thank you" card and a party invite at the end of the project, like to all our neighbours. Really pissed them off. Had a great party without them

We moved in 2 weeks ago, expecting certificates next week or so. As we were renting locally and paid council tax on rental, we advised the council of end of rent, cancelled DD and informed that we moved in and happy to start paying tax on the newbuild as soon as they tell us how much. The council graciously accepted and said no worries, we'll get it assessed in due course, in the meantime you can either wait, or pay a small amount towards the tax anyway and it would be levelled out once the proper assessment is done.

We enjoyed glorious September last year sorting out our mortgage (ages...), hoped to break ground whilst still warm and sunny but ended up having Day 1 on 30 September. From that particular date onward the first 2.5 months of the build were spent in pissing DAILY rain which was nasty and created difficulties (dug foundations were filling up with liquid mud, some trades could not work due to adverse weather. Took ages to sort out scaffolding as these guys could not work in rain (slippery), wind (shaky and unstable), and sunny dry weather as well (too much blistering sun, difficult to work on heights ? ).

Month 1-3 of the build with a main contractor (and a PM as well). Things go really well, prompt and 2 weeks ahead of schedule. However the builder gets twitchy when we visit the site (?). Month 4 of the build. Work gets slow, 4-5x people on site but no real progress by end of a week. Materials which were supposed to be purchased by the builder seem very slow to arrive. Chased the builder for windows order for 3 weeks, eventually ordered ourselves (and just in time to fit before the Lockdown!). Month 5 of the build. All progress stopped. 4x people on site doing nothing. Already 6x weeks behind schedule. Builder starts cutting corners (eg DPC level too low, drainage not sorted, BC recommendations ignored, structural steels positioned incorrectly, incorrect lintels used etc. Builder extremely aggressive at weekly meetings and at our site visits. Our PM is still blissfully tranquil at this stage, his position is that we are imagining things. We urge everyone to be transparent and communicate so we could find a solution, but are angrily ignored. All the above time we keep paying (reduced weekly fees, but still paying! stupidly hoping that things would go right). The lockdown date. It's clear that the builder is unable to continue. We freeze all works. Five weeks later we find another builder who's willing to take us on at shell&core stage and progress to completion on labour-only basis. We sack PM and completely take over the procurement side. We are on site daily for checks, discussions and deliveries. Finally happy with the speed of the progress. But the lesson learned cost us c. £100k :(((

I suggest stop and look for another builder. We've been in exactly the same situation, cost us a small fortune. PM me if you'd like more details.

Congratulations!!

I'd +1 on "follow the instruction". Also communication is key - avoid a builder who nods in response to your detailed instruction and then does it his own way which is not quite what you want but then it costs money / time to re-do, you don't want to argue, etc etc. The result will be an unhappy one. Probably another couple of quotes won't hurt.

Well, now we know that - on the plans it was not stated, whether this was a FD or not a FD (our sorry excuse for the PM did not bother much with such trifles, and we only installed FDs after I read the forum and the Homebuilders Bible and BR Approved Docs and it hit me that all internal doors on GF should be fire-rated). Our PM shrugged his shoulders and said something along the lines of "well, if you want, of course you can put fire doors..."... (general facepalm, now we know, of course...). Oh well, a lesson learned here.

Ah, did not consider that - thank you, will test that route as well.

We will - he's a bit difficult as it is techinically his fault: "forgetting" that our house has a garage, missing hte point about the door at earlier stages and then with a great surprise re-discovering the garage (which as been on all plans from Day 1) and kicking a fuss re door. But naturally, who wants arguing with a BCO a step away from completion? .. Anyway, as always, appreciate the Forum Wisdom

this is what we thought (deep in the night, in deep distress). Do you think it would stand a chance with BC? The configuration would be as below: | GARAGE | Composite door | internal fire door (in the same doorway which is deep enough) | utility | existing internal fire door | kitchen|

Found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. BCO came 2 months ago when we had a flimsy cheap uPVC door installed between Utility and garage. Garage was not fully completed at that stage. The door was really poor (our saga with doors and windows deserves a blog entry, maybe a few whiskies later), so we replaced with a very sturdy and solid composite one from Selco (see here). Next BCO comes in last week, sees the new door, and the nearly complete garage, and suddenly unhappy with the door as says it should be fire rated. No comments as to why this was not raised previously. Also no further clarification as to what exactly he expects to see in this place. What should we do? Rip it out, and put an internal wooden FD - can't believe it is more fire resistant than glass-reinforced composite one? any ideas?

I think Porcelanosa sale is twice a year, around Feb and November. Another excellent tiles brand is Minoli (their line of The Surface Within), and a similar Atlas Concorde. Looks great, does not break the budget (well, depending on the budget ? )

IMO, for a 600qsm house windows are severely underbudgeted. We've got 10x simple windows and large bifolds and 4x veluxes, cost us £25k (house is c. 200sqm). Kitchen - probably overbudgeted unless it is mega-size and includes all the appliances. Insulation, we found, cost us much more than planned due to 15% of waste. Have you planned for waste removal? Costs a small fortune (unless you are scattering soil and rubble in your own vast backyard)

Being at a final stage of the build right now, my honest opinion is that you only need Architect for the design stage, and then probably for the 1st 1/3 of the build with the regular visits and control - until shell & core is erected and steels placed (particularly if you've never done a build before, as was our case). From then on, you can do very well without one (make sure you have really good relationship with your main builder). We moved our architectural technician from a contract fee onto an "as and when" hourly arrangement (to be on hand if we had some difficult questions to sort out), and saved us £££. Particularly given that our man turned out to be less than knowledgeable about specific building regulations so eventually I was much more diligent in these aspects than he would have been (if I've done that from the start, perhaps could have even more £££ and headache, but I'm working full time etc etc. Now I know).

The thing is, even if the contract is in place, nothing prevents your builders botch the project and disappear into thin air, leaving you with unfinished carcass, a nicely done contract and tons of weekly minutes, and a fortune to pay in legal fees trying to prosecute them for this

Welcome, you're in for a thrill ride hopefully your project won't be affected by another Lockdown and will go smoothly.

Three stages completed and signed off: (1) foundations (2) wall plate (3) wind and water tight. This last one was back in June when we started plasterboarding. BCO then said nex time he'd visit around completion time only, so I assume we only have one last (final) BC visit to pass.

We'll find out on Monday when our bloody electrician is back from holiday! Took 4x days off this week, words fail me .... Also, can anyone please state in plain Engish which are the main key areas BC must sign off on ? Electricity certificate, plumbing certificate, what else? gas connection? sorry for a silly question, but we're working 24/7 now to push it as fast as possible and I'm nearly brain dead...

Glad to have found this topic. We're in a bit of a pickle as our completion certificate is likely to be end of September, however we MUST move in by 15th as rent (and site insurance!) expires and have nowhere to live. House is pretty much habitable (we've got toilets installed this week!). If BC comes, say, next week, and we expect it may require a few bits and bobs finished before the certificate can be signed, can we still move in before it's all done? It's London, no Highlands... Happy to start paying tax whenever, and VAT reclaim is almost ready for submission.