First-time house renovation

helping_hubby

aliasojo wrote: »

Quick question....for those of you who have put in a new bath and have a click clack kind of waste...what make was it please?

Our old bath had one and it was useless and broke quickly, The new one wasn't a make as such but seemed better quality, however it jammed and had to be returned. Crosswater do a click clack one with a chrome disc cover for the overflow part which looked quite nice (rather than just seeing the usual grid type of overflow). We got Bristan taps but I'm not sure if they do a waste with a disc cover bit, iyswim.

Need to buy replacement today, plumber here next week, any thoughts?

We've got the Clicker waste that looks like the one on page 308 left side, second one down. Got it on the sink and bath. I was skeptical as we had some sort of clicker waste in our rented house that broke after a month. But it must have been cheap. We've had our bathroom for 10 months now and have had no problems with the wastes.

I know what you mean about the overflow though. I prefer the covered style ones...but I barely notice it now anyway to worry about it.

Spicey

Just thought I'd catch up.

Andy - wow that all sounds hectic!

TM - love furniture.


We have walls :j.
Nephew came all way down from wales for a week took him 5 days all on his own. The weather has been great. Now we have to get the flat roof done. I'm getting so excited I've started looking at kitchens.

ukmaggie45

Waiting to hear when drain surveyor can go in still. Both our solicitors (we are currently using 2 at the same firm :eek: Well one is mainly doing the conveyancing and the other mainly the ongoing Probate stuff) are away till next Wednesday anyway. We're hanging around at home in hopes we can get in to view house again at weekend, preferably Sunday so younger daughter and SiL can come too. But we're hoping to get back to Abersoch soon too - Monday maybe... OH's birthday on Wed and we'd like to celebrate it at the caravan.

I bought OH a present of a laser measure thingy to make it easier and faster to measure up when we can view again.

Broker meeting was great - really nice person, with the bonus of 10th floor views over the Mersey and Liver Building and St Nicholas Church. Next time we go for a meeting I'll be taking my camera!

Been reading threads about conservatories - must look at all your stuff on your sunroom again TomsMum. There's a side sun room/conservatory that we might think of upgrading.

I'm trying not to think too much about this until the drain survey comes in, and we don't know when it will happen.

And yet I still want to try and imagine how we might change this house to make it our home! :rolleyes: Ah well, if it happens it happens. If it don't it don't. Only way to think about it really or you'd go mad!

Maggie

ukmaggie45

Spicey wrote: »

We have walls :j.

Come on now, how can you say that and not give pictures? We want piccies, we want piccies, we want piccies...!

Maggie

latecomer

Yeah we want piccies here too

I'm stuck in Heathrow at the moment and have just had a nightmare with my duty free which involved leaving the departure side, trying to check it it as advised and being refused as its a bottle, then having to go buy a bag purely to put it in. Spent more on the bag than on the bottle but by this time it was more abobut principle than anything else. Grump grump grump.....

Anyways apparently te builders arrived nice and early this morning and started breaking up the old garage floor with a pneumatic hammer (or something like that). Guess that means no sleep for me when I finally get home but its a price worth paying. Mind you if there is no price for the new mains pipe we are going to have words, he's now about 10 days overdue with the estimate.

am looking forward to seeing some progress on this rather long overdue project.

jamtart6

Right everyone get their hankies out for me....here is my tale of woe...

You may remember the first time the building inspector came out he said that the concrete lintel needed to be steel. After he left we noticed it said "concrete" lintel on the plans. He showed up today for another inspection of the drains that we have had to move and spent weeks working on and I mention this conflict between the approve plans and what he was saying over the lintel.

me: the plans have been approved with concrete lintel
him: we havent approved any plans
me: why do these plans *shows the plans* say approved
him: luv, you have not submitted any plans
me: clearly we have submitted plans as they now say approved
him: well you might have had them approved by planning but you haven't submitted them for a building regulations application
me: a what?
him: a building regulations application. you have elected not to submit them
me: we haven't elected anything, i've never even heard of this building regulations application
him: your archietect should have told you, and if he hasnt you've been very poorly advised
me: he didn't tell us anything. we thought we could go ahead once the plans were approved
him: 90% of people submit them for a building regs application before building to iron out any problems, you elected not to do that
me: *screaming silently* - well can we submit them now before we do anything else
him: no its too late you are at "building notice" stage now
me: so you're going to let me carry on building to tell me that everything i do isn't to your satisfaction?
him: yes
me: no, no no, that's going to cost us a fortune
him: you should have submitted them to building regs then
me: we didn't know *going round in circles*
him: well ok then if you submit them we'll look at them in the next 2 weeks
me: thank you good bye *shuts door*
me: hysterically in tears!

long story short rings the architect
me: hi we have been advised to submit building regs application which is done by the architect
him: ohhh err im sure weve done that havent we
me: clearly we havent
him: i used independent inspectors who are less fussy than the council, they should have been in contact
me: no they haven't, we've paid the council now who aren't happy with many things on the plans and we have already started building. it is costing us a fortune to put everything right
him: no problem I'll submit a set for you this afternoon.


Soooooooooooo - long story short there has been a serious mis-communication somewhere, but I'm not sure where the blame lies really and if there is anything we can do about it? I think the planner assumed we were dealing with this independent company but didn't bother checking that with us, we've spoken to many people at the council who didnt mention it but took our money, the inspector didnt mention it the first time he came around, or is it our fault for simply not knowing?

*sigh* - the Christmas deadline is long long long gone now maybe be in for Christmas 2011. Sooooooooooooooo down in the dumps about it all

jimbugalee

Oh no JT, sounds like you aren't having a great time!!! That council guy doesn't sound very helpful at all GRRRR Let us all know how the architect gets on. I hope things improve for you!!

TomsMom

Oh Jammie, big big hugs to you. How utterly frustrating.

I know our builders, in their own area, use independent inspectors because their local council is so fussy/awkward/unhelpful. But here they were happy to use the council as they'd had an unofficial on-site meeting with the BCO before work started.

So where does the blame lie??? I personally think that someone (architect/builder/planning office) should mention to the householder that building regs are also required just to make absolutely sure that nothing is forgotten/left out. Not everyone having work done on their house knows everything about the procedure. The professionals are there to guide them and make sure everything gets done.

I do so feel for you. Would chocolate help?

latecomer

JT - that sucks. Personally I would hold the architect responsible as it sounds like he was supposed to liase with these independent inspectors and clearly hasn't. Check the fees he qouted to see whether its been covered and if so tell him you expect him to make amends by getting it sorted asap and reducing his fees appropriately.

Our builder has started digging out the trenches for the foundations and was making reasonable progress. Its raining today which I'm sure wont help but thats one of the downsides to building at this time of the year. He's also going to discuss the new mains connector with me tomorrow morning. He's got an amount of pipe in stock but its not quite enough to allow him to connect it as originally planned but if we use it then its a lot cheaper.. The options we have are to use what he has and just connect to the mains somewhere in the garage or he buys new pipe to connect it in the kitchen and it costs us considerably more. Will find out the exact details tomorrow.

andrew-b

Agree with latecomer, it was upto the architect as you entrusted him with the legalities of the building works. However surely the building inspector should have checked on his "you need a steel lintel" visit and the building shouldn't have been allowed to get so far? Then again surely the builder's should have checked too! Personally i'd have made it my business to have found out at least a little myself what was required so i know whether people i've employed are doing their delegated jobs properly - though that doesn't help you now!

I'd hold the architect responsible though ..they might blame someone else for not checking building's approval had been made but ultimately it was there fault it wasn't applied for in the first place.

I'm sure it will turn out ok in the end. Hopefully it's only the lintel is the problem though. Did the inspector have any other issues? I'd think most builders have a fair idea of building reg requirements so hopefully it doesn't mean redoing other works.

On a different subject Tesco finally had my glasses ready which i picked up yesterday. Fortunately they are ok. I think it will take a day or so to get completely used to them but it's nice to be able to see clearly again without a million scratches over the lenses (i'm convinced all the messy bits of bathroom diy were responsible!). Took them 10 1/2 week in all from time of ordering. They threw in some freebies too of lens cloth and cleaning fluid which i think were a peace offering!

Andy