First-time house renovation

helping_hubby

I've added more detail and daylight pics:
http://thehouserenovationinsurrey.blogspot.com/2009/11/daylight.html

jimbugalee

I agree they've done a good job HH ... shame it's just not really what you wanted grrrrrr

I think you're def going about it the right way, talking to the council etc and together hopefully come up with a solution. Let us all know how you get on.

TM - wow I love the front of your house. For some reason I hadn't seen it before?! I also like that it's not just out front garden that has bits of wood, ladders etc etc in
What a pain about the leaking - it's not nice as you don't feel there's anything you can do. We were very lucky that my OH went up and fixed the couple of broken slates on our roof in the summer and despite all this horrible weather there doesn't seem to be any leaks. I am sure there would of been previous to this.

We got our kitchen units!! We've got a big tall cupboard, 4 wall cupboards, a drawer unit, sink, tap and another two floor units/cupboards plus work surfaces. Basically a whole kitchen It's only white and not very good quality but it is 100 times better than the one we have. We had to give £100 to charity for the lot but I'm happy I think the plan will be after Xmas to give the kitchen a little paint and put some new lino down then place the new kitchen in until we get our proper one.

This is the weekend we plumb in the toilet upstairs and probably now the bath, basin and shower as OH has managed to do all of the plumbing during the evenings this week. I'm excited We need to use a chemical loo over the weekend but after that we should be in our proper bathroom YEY. Only thing is .... we don't have a door!!

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

TM - wow I love the front of your house. For some reason I hadn't seen it before?! I also like that it's not just out front garden that has bits of wood, ladders etc etc in

That's the back of the house :rotfl: . But lots of people do call it the front as it faces the sea and the actual front is on a small pedestrian lane. It's also the entrance we use most as it cuts out a fair bit of walking when we're going to the shops.

The garden was tidied up after the builders left and now looks like this (second pic). I bet the neighbours were pleased as they graciously put up with the mess for almost 5 months.

You've done well to get all those kitchen units and I'm sure they will look fine and serve you well until you can get another.

Good luck with you weekend plans, hope it all goes well and no problems with the plumbing. Lack of a door shouldn't be a problem if there's just the two of you. If you're shy just tell OH no peeking . If Stevo's around tell him when walking past the bathroom is off limits :rotfl: .

jimbugalee

Oh I'm a wally!! It looks like the front of a house as it's so lovely. I've just seen a picture with a lovely hills behind ... how special Do you have a picture of the front of the house?!

The front of our house looks like a massive junk yard. I can't wait until we get the drive done next year and can put two cars on it.

Oooooh I forgot that the double glazing lady is coming round on Sat. She is a proper saleswoman who makes us decide there are then and we get a good price but now we know what will happen we're going to put a plan in place before she comes. I think it'll cost £4k to finish off our windows which I think will be our sort of budget and we'll try and get her down from that. Fingers crossed!!! It'll save us lots of money on CH as that has doubled this month.

The bathroom is right opposite Stevo's door so I think we'll have to put a curtain up. I'm going to msg our friend now who is a carpender. Hopefully he'll come round one evening next week

jimbugalee

ps how is TomsDad doing this week? x

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

Oh I'm a wally!! It looks like the front of a house as it's so lovely. I've just seen a picture with a lovely hills behind ... how special Do you have a picture of the front of the house?!

Are you sure you really want to see the front :eek:, it's not very pretty.
OK, here goes. Last but one picture, looks up the lane to our house. The first stone wall is next door, ours is where you can see the flat roof extension (that's the bathroom, you can see the waste pipe from the sink) where the roughcast has been painted and the stonework to the left and going up at an angle is the original wall of the small cottage before any extensions were added. The little window at ground floor level with the gas meter box underneath is the side window of the utility room, there is another window in that room that faces the lane.

This is the view looking down the lane (bottom picture), taken before any work was done. The sloping tiled roof is the little cottage next door which is attached to us, you can again see the flat roofed extension with porch just in front, plus the original side wall of the old cottage. Those two side walls are all that's left of the old cottage, not sure when it was extended but there have been quite a few extensions over time and now I imagine the house is at least twice as big, if not more, than the original cottage. There is no vehicular access to the five houses in our little lane but cars can be parked at the bottom end from October-Easter (double yellow lines during holiday season) but we share a parking place near our son's house (couple of minute's walk) which he rents off the council for £75 a year. There was a garage on it erected by the previous owner of his house but it was dilapidated so had to be taken down and he wont build another one because of cost and the fact that he can't own the plot of land. Suits us as we can comfortably get two cars on and even squeeze a third one across the front if visitors come.

The front of our house looks like a massive junk yard. I can't wait until we get the drive done next year and can put two cars on it.

It wont be like that forever and the time will go quickly. Looking back to find those pictures makes me realise just how much has been done and how far we have come in a year. You forget very quickly! We were lucky in that selling our previous property gave us enough money to have builders do our work as we bought this property a lot cheaper than we sold the old one for. We wouldn't have been able to do all that although I'm sure all you younger, stronger and more energetic DIYers would have managed it.

I keep meaning to do a page of before and after shots, there's hundreds of photos to sift through so it will take some time.

Good luck with the double glazing sales lady Jimmie - be strong .

Not much change with TD since my post a couple of days ago. They've lowered his BP meds but it takes a few days to take effect. I think he's fed up of feeling exhausted and drained and just wants to be "normal" again. The Physio gave him one of those little pedal things to use while sitting in a chair, he was cream crackered after 5 minutes. Trouble is it's a long, slow road to recovery and although he realises this it's hard to accept when you just want to get up and do something.

I haven't been able to get up to the hospital to see him since Tuesday, the weather has been dreadful, like everywhere, floods, villages cut off, high winds which blow vehicles about, and some of the roads are very exposed. We still speak every day, and he has other calls from family and friends so he's OK about that.

Better news about the TV after the analogue switch off the other day. DS is taking him the one in his caravan, it has built-in Freeview so he'll have something to pass the time once DS can get to the hospital, probably at the weekend.

andrew-b

You know i'm not a building profession but...

TomsMom, i hate to say this but i'm not convinced your builders have used the right product for the job . You mention Tyvec...however that is NOT what they have installed.They have installed Harcon VPU as i can read it on the photos..
http://www.harcon.co.uk/vpu/index.aspx ...see right hand side "product literature" and download the document. Everything in that document implies it's a roofing underlay for pitched roofs..no mentions of for walls..though there is a mention of temporary waterproofing. Perhaps it is suitable i don't know but i wouldn't have used it from the description bearing in mind how open the loft conversion is to the elements.

The stuff i think you should have had installed is one of these: http://construction.tyvek.co.uk/Tyvek_Construction/en_GB/products/wall/index.html ...designed specifically for the job.

Whether or not this makes any difference i'm not sure but may be of relevance now water ingress has occured. Might be worth contacting Harcon to discuss if it's actually ok to be used as obviously you'd rather not have to get it all removed.

When i look at the installation instructions for the Harcon VPU all over the place it shows the VPU material being placed OVER roofing trays and flashings etc..not under. IMO where the material meets the pitched roof it should go over one flashing with another flashing on top to hide it (EDIT: just realised another flashing not really needed as tiles would hide it) - otherwise any water that does penetrate the tiles will go behind the flashing and find it's way back into the property. Flashings rely on being overlapped with other materials in the right way so water always drains to the outside of the property. It's difficult to tell from the picture what they have actually done but the flashing i see meeting the pitched roof is in front of a baton holding the VPU on..there may well be another flashing starting behind the baton and material and running underneath the flashing shown but your photo doesn't show it.

I'm not actually sure why they have fitted flashings to the sides of the windows as driving rain could easily get behind and pour down behind it so then your relying on the material behind being overlapped correctly. All the houses i've seen with tile hanging the only flashing is at the bottom of the windows (in fact my parents house the entire upstairs has tile hanging with the tiles going right upto the edges of the window frames). [EDIT]Just had a nose at the dormer loft conversion a few doors down from us that was done last year as it has tile hanging..only lead flashing around their windows is beneath them.[/EDIT]

Anyway i'm not a building professional so don't take my word for it. If necessary get a second opinion from another builder. I'm hoping this can be sorted without having to resort to removing all the tiles and batons and reskinning it though!

TomsMom

Thanks Andy. I'll come back and re-read your post a bit later, check out your links, look at more photos and try to make sense of it all. I didn't notice that it said Harcon, not Tyvec. Builder just said the other day that they used Tyvec. Don't fancy questioning the builders on my own, OH is better at that .

Thanks so much for taking the time and trouble to check this out, it's much appreciated.

andrew-b

helping_hubby wrote: »

I've added more detail and daylight pics:
http://thehouserenovationinsurrey.blogspot.com/2009/11/daylight.html

I'd stick a foot tall trellis on top of your fence and gate..with the different ground levels i really don't see why anyone would complain (other than the council themselves!).

andrew-b

TomsMom wrote: »

Thanks so much for taking the time and trouble to check this out, it's much appreciated.

No worries...im a bit annoyed with myself that i didn't look more carefully during the build. You just assume the builders know what they are doing and aren't fitting something entirely different to what they say they are fitting. Added a few after edits to the above post which i've marked.

I'm really hoping i'm wrong and it's ok to use the harcon vpu as you really dont need this right now. I think it may be worth having a few of the tiles hung on the dormer removed to see exactly whats going on and where water is actually getting in ..but the big problem here is access.