Self-build in Perth & Kinross - hello

[Kelvin]

[Thorfun]

1 minute ago, Kelvin said:

doesn't take long does it!

 

[Kelvin]

Done in an hour. Very clean neat job. Nice lads too. 

[saveasteading]

The local cats and crows are now lining up and will walk over your screed just when it has most effect.

[Kelvin]

I hope not I’ve locked the door 😂 They did a job the other week and the builders walked over it after only 10 hours. Made a right mess of it. 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Kelvin

[Sparrowhawk]

17 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

I hope not I’ve locked the door 😂 They did a job the other week and the builders walked over it after only 10 hours. Made a right mess of it. 

HH's contractors are waiting round the corner, picklocks at the ready 🤣

[Kelvin]

47 minutes ago, Sparrowhawk said:

HH's contractors are waiting round the corner, picklocks at the ready 🤣

😂 yes they’ll find a way to screw it up

[Kelvin]

Amazing stuff this screed 

[saveasteading]

Any crack inducers in the screed? I can't see any. Oh yes, there are, at the doors.

Edited July 1, 2023 by saveasteading

[Kelvin]

Every doorway or where it’s narrow. I know because I put them there 😂 

 

We ended up at an average of 53mm

Edited July 1, 2023 by Kelvin

[Thorfun]

3 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Amazing stuff this screed 

looks great! it is awesome stuff. goes down quick and goes off quick!

[Kelvin]

Replacement glazing unit turned up and guess what…2G instead of 3G. Apparently Nordan’s fault. They literally can’t get anything right between them. 2 months we’ve waited on this. 
 

It’s lucky I have this big garage to store all the wrong bloody stuff everyone sends me. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Kelvin

[saveasteading]

They won't want it back. Would you accept a big discount instead of replacement? That will pay for many years of heat loss.

 

OR. Is that the start of a big greenhouse or cold frame?

Whatever, don't let it sit there in your way and at your risk?

[Kelvin]

It won’t fit the 3G frame. I have a good friend who knows a senior person at Nordan so they are trying to expedite the replacement. 
 

I’ve insisted they take this back so the plan is they’ll take it away when they come back. 
 

It’s not in the way particularly but I have said I’m not taking responsibility for it if it gets broken. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Kelvin

[saveasteading]

Good stuff. I hadn't thought of it not fitting.

We had a door from them,  wrongly handed, and so the garage now has a rather overspecified door.

[Kelvin]

It’s funny how things work out in the end. There are quite a few things that have gone wrong with our build I’ve not mentioned. I spotted some serious errors prompting me to engage a structural engineer professionally (from here, thank heavens for BH) who highlighted a great many other issues and wrote me an excellent report. I am quite confident HH and their sub-contractor would have tried to hide the main problem had I not spotted it and the other issues were only highlighted because of the diligence of the SE I hired. Happy to mention who it is if he’s happy for me to. 
 

Basically the house was nothing like how the HH structural engineers designed it to be resulting in a great deal of remediation work which subsequently caused us other issues in detailing. We got through that then I noticed the ceiling heights were wrong in both parts of the house for different reasons. In the porch it was because they used the wrong depth of joists and in the main house it was because they had incorrectly measured for the steels. The porch was easier to address as we had space to move the ceiling header up and maintain the U value. The main house has been harder and the only practical option was to reduce the floor insulation build up from 210mm to 185mm throughout and reduce the screed depth to 53mm. We also removed the 45mm wall plate to drop the windows onto the foundation and added back in a 10mm insulated cement board. All in all we lost 3cm of ceiling height in the porch and 6cm in the main house. We can get away with it in the main house because it’s open plan into a 5m vaulted ceiling and all the windows are full height.
 

The porch was also fabricated incorrectly in that it’s 100mm too high where it joins the main house which has changed the look of the house. If also made the gutter much harder to fit. 
 

The upside is we’ve gained a lot more height upstairs as the room in roof tends to mean lower ceilings. It has also meant we’ve changed the layout a bit. We’re exposing the ridge beam in the dressing room as a constant reminder that at one point there was a small chance the roof was going to have to come off! 
 

It has been quite the trial and very very stressful. We are weeks behind. It’s cost an extra £10k. I had cancel every follow on trade then beg to get them back and pay them up front. I’ve had to deal with HH and their sub-contractors negligence, incompetence, general lack of care and constant bullshit. Plus I now need to recover our costs and compensation. 
 

I was going to write a much longer post detailing the specific issues. I will if there’s interest. The main point of this post is to record that  I can’t recommend Heb Homes or the sub-contractor they use. HH definitely have issues with how they run their business and their sub-contractor is just a bullshit artist. I’ve had to bite my tongue on so many occasions as I just wanted to get the job done and for them to leave and never return. 
 

Their houses are nice and well laid out and we are happy with it in that regard and it will be beautiful when we’re done. But that will be because of us and the excellent follow trades we’ve hired. Not because of HH and their sub-contractor. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Kelvin

[eandg]

Sorry to read your experience but the house looks good at least - and fortunate you're on top of things to get it to the excellent end product you will have. 

[Dunc]

What a trial! The photos look great and clearly you're moving rapidly forward.

I think it could be valuable to document the details of the problems, particularly how they were initially identified and the implemented solutions. This would provide useful learning for on what kinds of thinks to keep an eye on during the early phase of a build.

[Kelvin]

Ok I will when i get a moment. Ironically I remembered there was a meeting booked in my diary in November - Structural Engineering walkthrough. This was cancelled due to COVID and never re-booked. Now whether it would really have made any difference and prompted me to spot the main issues sooner before they were built into the house and therefore much harder to address I’ll never know. 

[Kelvin]

Excited today. My ‘smart’ plumbing turned up. 
 

[Kelvin]

Finally we started first fixing

 

[eandg]

5 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Finally we started first fixing

 

"Finally" - must be about twice as quick to first fix as most self-builders, certainly us anyway. 

[Kelvin]

I’m a month behind my plan 😂 

 

We start cladding the outside next week.I have all the battening system on-site and the larch turns up in two weeks. Been slowed up with that as trying to work out where and much fire cavity barrier to fit. Architect had it everywhere which added up to 160m! and thousands of pounds. However I asked the building control officer to pop by and he thought it was mental and was quite happy to go with my suggestions so 90m of the dear stuff and vertical timber stops on the corners. 
 

I also has the foundation wall rendered after all in Weber Pral D and render aid. I tried painting the insulated blocks with black jack but it looked terrible and didn’t go on very well. The render looks great albeit it wasn’t cheap to do. 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Kelvin

[saveasteading]

7 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Architect had it everywhere

A common misunderstanding. Also a precaution when the consultant doesn't understand fire behaviour.

Well done the bco.

 

Have you worked out how to minimise cutting and waste on the larch? Is it all the same length?

[Kelvin]

Yes all the same length. I asked if we could vary it suit wall heights but no dice. We’ll plan it out next week. 
 

Have ordered all the tiles too despite only being on a 2 week lead time from Spain. I can recommend Stone and Tiles by Walker and Lewis based at Inveralmond Ind Est in Perth. Ian is brilliantly helpful. Tile choice and quality excellent. And the price is fair. 

Edited July 6, 2023 by Kelvin