First-time house renovation

jimbugalee

Oh that's SUCH brilliant news TM!!!!!! Oh wow you must be so happy and he'll see lots of changes to the house?

Door is very dark blue looks good with cream house. We seriously need it all painting now though

keith969

jimbugalee wrote: »

It will probaby look like this



Although it looks like that one is made from slate tiles. Ours is solid 30mm slate ... like this



So we'll put some flexible adhesive down on Tuesday and then lay the hearth on top (it's actually in two peices for outside and inside the fireplace). The stove will then sit on top. Not sure when/how we're going to paint round it!

We have been living in our house practically since we started the rennovation. I would never recommend it!! Mind you we haven't had an builders in apart from things like windows we've done everything ourselves. Well actually, mostly my boyfriend. I just do girly stuff like clean up after him!

Am just looking into getting a woodburner for my new place, so very interested in what you did - where did you get the stove and other bits from? Did you have to have a liner put in the chimney? And last but not least about how much does it all cost?

jimbugalee

From start to finish we did the following:

Started off as a back boiler which we ripped out when the new central heating was installed
We then knocked the bricks out to the original fireplace size
The fireplace man came in, took out the original flu, put a new chimney pot on the roof and tested the fireplace £250
We got the fireplace rendered £60
Measured for the slate hearth and ordered that approx £300
Fireplace man measured for plate which stops soot falling back down once wood burner is installed. He said we didn't necessarily need a liner for the chimney. I think we might have to get it swept but not that often and we said we won't be in the house for more than 5 years.
Ordered stove from stovesonline.com. We found them the most helpful and a good price. Our stove is a Stovax 4 and was about £550
The fireplace man is then coming round next week to install the stove and add the flu onto the top. He will charge us another £450 plus £30 or something for the flu (it's only about a metre long).

Now we are poor!

We could've installed the fire ourselves but I think you have to have a Heatas registered person now to sign it off. There is lots of info on stoveonline website.

Hope that's useful

keith969

Thanks jimbugalee, that's really useful info. In fact I was already looking at stovesonline.com, they are pretty helpful, was looking at a Bohemia 40 stove but the one in your picture looks nice too.

They gave me the number of a local installer, guess I'd better give him a call and get a quote!

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

and he'll see lots of changes to the house?

No changes Jimmie other than h/s/l walls have been repainted where the scuff marks were. Clean and tidy - yes, only the leaks are new :rotfl: . DS was supposed to be tiling the porch and store room floors and hopefully levelling the sun room floor but he is very hard to pin down. I've asked and asked, he promised to do it while TD was in hospital because of having to avoid any builder's dust etc., but he keeps pushing other customers into our slot and we keep getting put back. It's not as though we're expecting a freebie, but he finds it easier to let family down rather than other customers - oh well, at least he made TD a cake to come home to .

latecomer

Fantastic news TM, really pleased for both of you.

Our kitchen stuff has been moved into the next room - but there is no supply to the cold tank in the loft and hence no water in the hot water tank. Hence no heating as you cant have it on independent of the hot water which we cant put on as there is no water in the tank. I'm still at work so can only go by what I've been told over the phone.

Best guess at the moment is that he thinks he's disconnected the outside tap and its actually the feed for the tanks that he's cut. Mind you he didn't tell me he'd disconnected the outside tap, thats come from OH who says someone said it had been done.

Backup is for me to use the outside tap and the garden hose to fill up the cold tank in the loft so we can get the heating on. Mind you I'm still at work so its not going to happen any time soon!

jamtart6

Sorry folks, once again haven't managed to catch up on the thread.

Can anyone help? Still having probs with building inspector. BI#1 said he wasnt happy with one wall, I got structural calcs done, hounded BI#2 (nice one) for a week until finally got hold of him, he said they seemed fine.

My OH wasn't happy with this, he felt if one had recognised a problem, how could another be so blase about it.

He rang them back today. BI#2 said that yes the structural calcs were fine ONLY if we did X,Y and Z as well - this is fine, we want it to stay standing!

So my issue is with the Building inspectors again - had we not rang them up, we would have gone ahead and built as they've OK'd it, then they would have inspected it and not been happy, we would have had to knock it down and start again. Thank god we phoned them up again.

Question is - how do we know what he has said this time will be enough? what about next time? do we have to triple check everything with them to make sure they haven't changed the goal posts? I really don't feel they are doing their job properly and I'm really worried as I don't want to knock the sodding thing down in a few years time!

I also know its not good to get on the wrong side of them, and indeed BI#1 (when I asked him a question that I didn't know the answer to) told me "I don't have to pass this off you know luv, then it'll be worthless when you sell" - yeah thanks for the threat!

So as you can see, I'm really worried about this! The architect is the worst ever and hope I never see him again!!!

Any advice/suggestions?

littlerose12345

Morning Everyone!

Very excited, have got a couple of kitchen companies coming round this weekend to measure up and design! From experience, is there anything we should specifically be asking? Any tips for haggling?

Also, out of curiosity, which companies did you go for for your kitchens?

suisidevw

Jeeeez Jim, that works out pricey all in but will look stunning!

latecomer

I think we were around £2500 all in for ours which included lining the chimney. We have no regrets about it, particularly last night when it was the only heat source in the house.

Builder (time served plumber!) phoned me last night to ask if I had any idea what could be causing the problem i.e. was there anything odd about the system. I refrained from telling him to get under the floors and look at it himself but only just.

This morning I spoke to him and he was initially planning on running a new pipe from the pipe to the sink up to the tank. By the time I left he was planing on cutting the existing tank feed pipe and connecting it to the pipe at the sink....... hopefully capping the other end which should, according to him still be connected directly to the mains.

On the bright side, its a beautiful day here so they should be boarding and felting the new roof over the garage so its at least mostly watertight. That way they'll have somewhere to work next week and I think they are planing on installing the new boiler. this will allow them to remove the 2nd chimney which is currentlly used to vent the back boiler. then that can be removed etc.

My only concern is that they will be doing the roof in 2 halves....