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Yes, I agree that I just need to take things into my own hands. Ultimately, the house, even without fire doors, will have a sprinkler system on the ground floor and an alarm system throughout and brand new appliances. It will be far safer from a fire regs perspective than what was there before, so it really comes down to just bureaucracy.

I would move the entrance into the utility to the top of the utility so it is entered into directly from the kitchen and not from the lounge area. It looks tidier from the lounge and will also be more functional, at the cost of losing 80cm of worktop and storage space from your kitchen. To mitigate (albeit only partially) this loss, you could make the utility slightly smaller by moving the wall that separates it from the kitchen down by about 30cm.

I am after some Jeld Wen (JW) Cambridge in the 2032 by 813 and the 2040 by 726 sizes, as shown here: https://www.doorsgalore.co.uk/Doors/White-Traditional-Fire-Doors-FD30-44mm/white-primed-cambridge-fd30-44mm-smooth-jw.php However, that company has advised me that JW is really suffering from the pandemic and has back orders to fill of thousands of doors meaning it could be 4-6 months before I get the doors. That lead time is consistent with my experience of contacting 8 different suppliers that normally stock JW doors. JW themselves are not answering the phone. Apparently they normally manufacture 30000 doors a day, and that is down to less than half due to staff absences. Although Premdor make something similar, which is in stock, the rail that separates the top panel and the bottom panel is significantly lower, such that to fit the handle at a comfortable height of around 905mm from FFL would not look good. So this ultimately boils down to an aesthetic issue, but still frustrating.

You have to serve a further notice warning them that if they do not respond within a certain time period you will appoint a surveyor on their behalf. This happened to me, and was actually beneficial as my surveyor appointed somebody whom he knew to be efficient and cheap, and it was relatively straightforward or … as straightforward as these things can ever be! There are certain formalities that such a notice needs to comply with, so worth getting your party wall surveyor to draft it.

So I’m approaching the beginning of the end of a long overdue project. The contract provided for completion at the end of August, so we are already 4.5 months late. All being well, we should be ready to move in in late Feb, or more likely early March. The two big things that might stop us are: 1) there is a shortage of fire doors and even if I get them in time my builder is being awkward about fitting them - they were not included in the spec and tender docs, because we hadn’t finalised the detail at the time, so I may need to contract a joiner directly, which wouldn’t be so bad; 2) our new front door is unlikely to be ready before May. My builder mentioned that he cannot let me live somewhere that doesn’t comply with building regs, as this would invalidate his insurance. I get that, but I also need to move in because I will son go bankrupt if I don’t - I’m not over exaggerating. We will have a mains interlinked fire alarm comprising of 14 detectors and sounders. I cannot see the lack of FD30s as really an issue, at least not in the real world. Similarly, we can use the old front door and make it safe with some reinforcement. Now legally, my builder is right that I cannot sign a waiver that waives any liability for my personal injury or death. But surely people live in houses that have not yet been signed off by a BCO. What haber others done about moving in before BCO sign off? @pocster you mentioned on another post that you had moved in somewhere without fire alarms; how did you manage that?

So the "landlord" has just been and fiddled around with it trying to push in all the connections/wires to makes sure nothing was loose. This got it working for about 30 minutes only for it to conk out again. Miserable. Oh well, at least we have hot water and hot water bottles. With enough hot water bottles, who needs radiators!

Many thanks, I have ordered one!

And it’s broken again. With a new PCB, we can at least see what error it is reporting. It seems to be so excited to have recovered that functionality that it’s reporting two: time to call out the engineer again! What fun it is having a Vaillant.

Problem is we have spend a fortune on decorative clay plaster from Cornwall (yes, I'm literally unearthing bits of Cornwall and plastering my ceilings with it) and so extra ceiling clutter will ruin the effect.

How did building control let you move in without fire alarms? Or maybe my builder is telling me porkies. He says his insurance would be invalidated if he let me move in without a building control certificate.

I need to fit an LD1 grade D2 "unified mains powered interlinked fire alarm" system to my house. I need about fourteen of them! Prices range from about £15 per alarm to £80. At the more expensive end of the range, there are some clever smoke alarms which masquerade as fully functional LED spotlights. I'd like to fit these in the two or three locations where a regular alarm would look really ugly and where I was going to have a spotlight anyway. But I don't want to spend £80 on each of the 11 to 12 other ones. Can I mix and match or will the interlinking feature not work? I was hoping that if they are hardwired, the interlinking would work by electrical signals along the wiring and so compatibility wouldn't be an issue, but I'm probably thinking wishfully. Anyone successfully mixed and matched? Or does the word "unified" in the fire engineer's report preclude this sort of thing?

I also concluded that the lumi are probably the best compromise. Nice that they are not only dimmable, but also come in an option of 3000K or 4000K. Shame the beam angle on the bulb has no options, but one can't have it all. @pocster did you go for lumi in the end and are you happy with it?

Just reviving this post in case anybody has found a solution to this conundrum.

As our ground floor is very open plan and we wanted a sprinkler system instead of a fire door, we've had to get a fire engineering report to sign off on the sprinkler system. All a bit silly imo as the sprinkler system we are getting is from imist and they comply with the regs, so not sure why we need to fork out £1k for a fire engineer to confirm, but hey ho. The fire engineer's report has a summary of the recommendations at the beginning of her report which says: "installation of single unified automatic fire detection and alarm system (LD1, minimum Grade D2) throughout all parts of the dwellinghouse with simultaneous evacuation of all floors on occurrence of alarm i.e.; detection to be provided in all habitable rooms, interlinked and mains powered." The report includes some mark ups of my floor plans which show no less than 12 smoke detectors and 2 heat detectors. Weirdly, she has included smoke detectors in the MVHR room and in the top floor hallway, even though a hallway is not "a habitable room". I had understood that the definition of a habitable room for these purposes are any room where individuals will sit or lie down and require a reasonably quiet environment in which to concentrate or rest. Can anyone reconcile this apparent inconsistency? Will building regs spot that I have not put a smoke alarm on the second floor (top) landing? We've already plastered the ceiling there and painted it, so I think it's going to be tricky to fit it now as it needs to be connected to the mains. I also don't see the need to have a smoke detector on the top floor landing as the two rooms on that floor, as well as the MVHR room and the attic space will have a detector each, so there is already 4 detectors on that floor anyway.

Now you've confused me. I thought Art Deco was the inter-war period, so the 1920s and early 1930s

What period is this style door from? https://www.doorsgalore.co.uk/Doors/White-Contemporary-Fire-Doors-FD30-44mm/coventry-fd30-white.php

Nice colour; I like it!

Boiler has now been fixed. PCB and gas diverter valve both needed replacing. We had an immersion heater so we didn't lose hot water. Landlord is actually a close relative, so I can't really get annoyed with them! I guess it was just coincidence that this coincided with the water being shut off.

14.5C in ours this morning. I actually thought it would get much colder with no heating.

What’s your concern about smart meters; I really like having one.

It’s a mystery, but it’s also a Vaillant boiler outside its warranty period, so no real surprises given I’ve never had a Vaillant boiler that didn’t start developing issues shortly after the warranty expired. Glad the new place has a Veissman! Couldn’t get an engineer out today, but we do have an appointment tomorrow. Hopefully being a Vaillant branded engineer, he/she will carry spares of whatever is needed. It is very cold tonight!

Reviews of the mottez suggest the opposite.

These things are always noisy and the mottez matts have very good reviews online.

Thanks all. Apparently Vaillant have an approved engineer call out service on a Sunday, so we will hopefully have it fixed tomorrow.

Not sure. I wasn’t in, the landlord popped in to take a look at it. He said he couldn’t fix it. I guess we will just freeze until Monday now. The flat is part of an 1890s block. Never been upgraded insulation or glazing wise.