vivienz

Now how did it go? Something like "vermininfestedjerrybuiltmoneypit". But my recollection could be wrong.

Interesting, thanks Ian. I will look at the figures more closely over the weekend. I haven't gone with integrated blinds; I looked at them when I was talking to internorm and the price was really high, far more than I felt was justified. I have to go back to norrsken to finalise the order and haven't paid the deposit yet, so I will see what they have to say on the figures.

I've got a lot of large windows and one that runs the entire height of the building following the rise of the stairs up to the roof, so not much in the way of smaller, very standard windows. It's quite a commitment signing up for the glazing, but I don't think I could have retained the design ideas that we wanted and got the glazing for much less. I'd love to be able to pay less, but I don't think I can do much to change that in the current market.

Oh, that's so pretty! Admit it, I bet you love it, too!

Martin Shirley of Mini Soil Surveys (South West) Ltd. 01225 425657.

A boring title, I know, but it's succinct and to the point. I find it hard to get excited about windows, to be honest, which has surprised me given how much they cost but slogging through different window systems and deciding what's best hasn't been the most fun thing to do. I guess one aspect that takes any joy out of the process is the lack of uniformity in windows where each company does their own thing and has their own systems which, I'm sure, are terribly important to them and they believe gives them their USPs. From my point of view, too much choice isn't necessarily a good thing and it just makes it impossible to do a direct comparison between window companies. But then, you all knew that already, didn't you?! There's certainly been enough discussion about it. My process for choosing the window supplier was unscientific (apologies Jeremy) and lacking in rigour (apologies everyone) but it worked for me. I contacted 5 companies, Rationel, Ecohaus Internorm, Norrsken, Velfac and Katzenbeck. 4 replied, I never got anything back from Katzenbeck. I sent out our planning permission drawings with floorplans and elevations and described the kind of windows I wanted. Rationel weren't able to do what I wanted with the sliding doors on the ground floor, (a 2 part slider with mullions to make it look as though there are 4 panels) so that didn't go any further after the initial quote. Velfac sent me a quote, but didn't quote on exactly what I'd asked for, including the sliding doors, but I sort of kept the quote in play just to get a feel for their prices. I was a little wary of their attention to detail because I'd also specified 3G with no trickle vents and their first quote was for 2G with vents. Hmm. Ecohaus were outrageously expensive. A nice product, sure, but really expensive at £65k with fitting. That leaves me with Norrsken, and they're my final choice. I've settled on Norrsken for a few reasons, not just the price although that heavily influenced me, of course. I've got about 37m2 of triple glazing and it's coming in at about £35k, with another £8k for fitting. So far, Norrsken have been a pleasure to deal with - not slippery or patronising in any way and very straightforward. They also have their own in-house installation team; I can't comment on them as yet apart from saying that the installations manager came across as well as their sales guy. I'll mention the quote from Velfac here, as it came in about £1500 less than Norrsken, but they are supply only and so I'd have to go and find an installations team that would be able to work with MBC and get the fitting right in those super thick walls. Norrsken have worked with MBC a few times and are familiar with fitting the windows into a passive house; I'm sure that there are plenty of good installers out there but, as is often commented on here, locating them and hiring them is the tricky part. Also, because Norrsken offer a supply and fit package, they can do this with zero VAT which means I don't have to bother with a reclaim on a hefty chunk of spending. As for the windows themselves, well, they look nice, they are triple glazed, they open how I want them to and I can have them in the colours I want. I did say it was unscientific. No doubt I could go into far more detailed research but that lot is good enough for me.

I'm hoping that the MBC foundation and slab will be able to compensate for the clay in our soil, but I'd rather know now if it can't in case I need to shift my finances around to compensate for heavier duty foundations. There's a particular kitchen that I have my eye on, but I'm confirming nothing until I know how much it will cost to get the house out of the ground.

£1,400 inc. VAT. 3 holes, 3 samples at 3 depths from each. The analysis will be in addition as there's a lot of clay on the site that wasn't shown on the British Geological map (or something like that). My chap is based in Bath, so not that far from Cirencester. Many of the soil survey people I got quotes from were ridiculously expensive.

Agreed, and this would be worth emphasising to them. The onus is on RT to prove that the workers are genuine and you shouldn't have to go searching for that. A perfectly reasonable stance.

Now, now, boys, let's not have a public rig-waving contest. Steamy Tea's is the biggest by a long......erm......chalk.

That's lovely - very well done, indeed. Brilliant before and after photos, too. Good luck with the sale going through smoothly.

Ah, heady days! In fact, it took nearly another 3 months to actually complete! This was followed by a year of getting a new design for the house, deciding how I wanted it built and then getting planning permission. And, guess what, we still haven't broken ground! In fairness, though, that should be fairly soon as we're getting the planning conditions discharged as soon as our bat licence has been granted. Patience and waiting aren't strong points of mine, but buying the plot and everything else that has come after it has been a masterclass in those qualities, and it hasn't been a bad thing as what we are finally going to build is very different from what we first considered and all the better for it. We're not true self-builders by any stretch of the imagination, but we are closely involved in everything - we'll save money where we can do stuff and not waste it by trying to do things that are not within our capabilities. Our egos don't out-compete our purse strings, thankfully, and I'm happy to pay professionals where we believe it to be worthwhile. I'm going to finalise my glazing quotes next week (already committed on the timber frame and foundation) and the quotes for that have varied wildly. I shall most likely use Norrsken 3G, who are coming in at about £43k including installation. The highest quote was Ecohaus Internorm at an astronomical £64k, inc. installation, so it really does pay to shop around. Good luck with getting the prices that you want/need.

I would focus your energy and efforts on reaching some sort of agreement with Rail Track and get it all in writing. The word 'reasonable' that crops up a lot in the documents works both ways and you have a right to expect them to behave reasonably towards you, too. Fair enough if they need access to get work done, but not having regard to noise levels and essentially being anti-social would count heavily against them in respect of that. Before contacting Rail Track, decide what you want as the outcome of any agreement you get from them, as this makes it easier to have a focussed discussion with them and for them to understand exactly what you want. I wouldn't waste any time on arguing with the solicitors. Sadly, you will rarely get a black and white opinion on matters like this - their life's blood and livelihood depends on being able to argue a point, including why their mistakes were actually the fault of their client. We have a shared parking area on our plot, on which our neighbours have a right to park and access their homes, but our conveyancing solicitor completely missed this when we were going through the purchase. Fortunately, I spotted it and had a couple of useful amendments done, but many of them aren't as bright as they would like you to think that they are. Decide which fight is the most important to you, get as close as possible to the result that you want, then move on.

It can be quite nice when you have a good excuse for not picking up phone calls, though.

I understand your frustration and I'm sure that I will encounter plenty of it myself over the coming months. Unfortunately, though, much as we would like to exert absolute control over some things, it just isnt possible all the time and accepting that some trades/customers/third parties, etc., can be annoying isn't a good reason to lower one's own standards, as tempting as it might be. If I'm going to be let down anyway, I would prefer to have my own reputation as a good customer intact so that I can try and get other tradespeople in.

I confess that I had forgotten about the emergency services bit, the lady from the council did mention it, and it is a very good reason for going through official channels. I guess that my recent name change request wasn't so bad as it was a change rather than creating a new one and so cost a lot less than a full application. I don't know about challenging it, to be honest. I tend to think that for every successful challenge to lower one fee, something else will go up instead where councils are concerned.

I think it's just plain wrong not to pay on time. OH and I run a (very) small manufacturing company and it generally seems that there is a directly proportional relationship between the size/wealth of the customer and the amount they mess around with paying. Some are just hopelessly bound up in their own over complicated systems (we had to chase ICI for invoices that were over 2 years old. Yes, years) but others are arrogant and unpleasant. The fact is that we have already had to shell out for raw materials, wages, energy bills, courier charges and probably more just to get the goods to the customer. For them to then take additional time to pay on already generous credit terms is unbelievable annoying. Trades also have their own bills to pay and it's no different. If you owe someone money, pay them.

Mais, oui, très wonky, mon brave!

I don't want to get personal, Ian, but why have you gone all wonky? Your posts are displaying as though they've shifted over and gone out of alignment; nobody else's, just yours. Or have I got a case of selective wonkiness?

Thanks again, all. I will get the inner hedge down this weekend. The trees that were near the house were taken out a while ago so it's just the hedge left. Brush cutter at the ready!

I have my brush cutter at the ready. It's only this one inner hedge that I need to sort out as I've already arranged for the rest of them to be done at the weekend. All comments noted, though, and sound advice.

Thanks, all. The inner hedge is being temporarily retain only for root protection of the outer hedge, so as long as we provide this, I guess it shouldn't be a problem. The planning consent said only to take more of the eco recommendations. I will get the hedge dealt with along with all the others this weekend. The soil report chap said that he would add a forceful note to his report that the hedge must come out, so there's plenty of help on it.

I had a soil survey done on the new site last week and it confirmed that we're on mostly clay; the results have been sent for analysis to find out whether it's shrinkable or not. The new house will be next to a lane and separating the curtilege from the lane is a double hedgerow. The arboricultural report stated that we should keep the inner hedgerow in place during construction as sacrificial root protection for the outer hedgerow, and then remove it once everything is done. However, the soil chap said that the inner hedgerow should be removed ASAP and, in particular, before it starts coming back to life in the spring as it's mostly hawthorn and will be very thirsty, which will make construction difficult on the clay ground after it has sucked all the water out of it. So, ideally, I'd like to get a digger in there ASAP to drag out the inner hedge, but don't want to fall foul of the PP conditions. Currently, development and everything is waiting on a licence from Natural England to do a supervised, soft demolition of the roof as it's a confirmed summer roost for bats. We should have that back by mid March. Any suggestions as to a course of action that won't jeopardise the new house or the planning people?

....because we have clay, and lots of it. A soil test was carried out on the site today as MBC need to know what they're building on to do their sums for the foundation. I used a firm called Mini Soil Surveys (South West), run by a chap called Martin Shirley. My selection of which firm to use was detailed and exacting - they were the cheapest. Or should I say, least expensive. Actually, I had no idea what was involved in this other than punching a few holes in the ground and looking at which flavour of mud comes out of it. That's broadly it, but in a much more sophisticated manner and it took a fair amount of time, too, starting at 9.30 and finishing some time around 2.30 in the afternoon, which was much longer than I anticipated. I rang 4 different companies, both in Dorset and a little further afield, with prices ranging from about £1,400 (inc VAT) up to about £3,000. A mini drilling rig (my terminology is probably entirely wrong here, so please excuse my ignorance) gets trundled onto the site and 3 locations, roughly triangulated on the extreme points of where the new build will be, are chosen. At each site, 3 sample cores at increasing depths are taken and then bagged up for lab tests, if thought necessary. Unfortunately, mine are due to a lot of clay coming out in the samples. The main reason for the lab analyses is to find out whether the clay/soil is shrinkable because this could have a major effect on what gets built on it. It will take about 10 days for the lab tests and report to be done, so I just need to wait this out and then let MBC know the results. It's not essential for the client to be there, but Martin was keen for me to attend if possible as, in his experience, other things often come to light that may be relevant to other plans for a site apart from the main build. Although it was a little repetitive towards the end, I did find it interesting and it brought up another job that is time critical and needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later. The urgent task is to deal with a large amount of hedgerow that runs around the existing bungalow and to do it before it all gets going and growing in the spring. I had already planned to get the majority of this chopped down (hopefully next weekend) before birds start nesting, but I need to get another long row, an inner hedge between the bungalow and the hedge that separates the site from the lane, as this can have a significant and negative affect on the clay soil there. It seems that the water demand of hawthorn hedges is enormous and especially so in spring when they get going after their winter dormancy, and by virtue of absorbing so much water from the soil, it causes the clay to shrink massively and the whole lot becomes difficult to build on. Having to put in piles is a possibility. Once the diggers are on site, I can get all the roots grubbed out then. The arboricultural report that was done for our planning submission had recommended retaining the inner hedge to act as sacrificial root protection for the outer hedge during construction, but it looks like it will instead need to go and I'll have to get some other sort of root protection in place to satisfy the PP requirements, but I don't think this is particularly tricky to deal with and it's a better course of action than leaving it and having to put piles in. The final point that came up was something that has no bearing on the house, but possibly could on my sewage plant and rainwater reservoir. Between 2m and 3m depth, the sample had lots of sparkly crystals in it which are some form of sulphate crystals. Very pretty and all that, but it seems that these, when water gets to them, can attack and weaken concrete. Both the sewage plant and rainwater reservoir will be anchored into the ground with concrete at just about that depth so I need to make sure that I specify sulphate resistant concrete to make sure that the tanks stay where they are put for the long term. It's a simple and insignificant difference in cost on the concrete spec, but one that I wouldn't have known to do without the survey. Another day, another load of new stuff learned.

When I was looking around at how yo get our house built, I looked at Scandia Hus and really liked what they did - I was very close to using them and it was only the lack of confidence in being able to achieve the required accuracy of foundation that stopped me. As far as I went with them, they were a very nice firm to deal with.