First-time house renovation

latecomer

@TM - great news.. Bet TD is very glad to get back home

@stolt - thats shocking although its the sort of thing thats becoming more common. Our kitchen delivery is one man (cheap option) and they state its our responsibilty (i.e. the builders) to get the units into the house. I probably would have stumped up for a 2 man delivery but for that you had to have the pre-drilled doors option at a 15% premium on the door costs (about £500 for us!).


@lisal0u - we have a moving christmas deadline - does that count?

We had a new low yesterday - water through the bedroom ceiling onto the oak furniture. Thankfully just a little but there is a mark which I'm hoping will disappear as it dries out. Builder had phoned MIL (as his phone's screen is suddenly broken and hence he cant find any numbers..... he had her's written down) to tell her there was water coming into the kitchen and back room from where they'd opened up the roof and taken the chimney down and just to say he knew about them and not to call when we found out. OH was absolutely fuming when I spoke to her after her mum had phoned her. Builder has said the ceilings were finished anyway - the kitchen has been broken through for the stairs but the back room wasn't bad although there was a section where it had cracked under the paper. To be fair he showed me his phone this morning and it is broken but I think the least he could have done was get one of our numbers from MIL and tell us himself.

When I informed him of the leak into the bedroom he was genuinely appologetic and said he would get something done to sort it. the problem was where the 2 boards for the roof met rather than where it joined the pitched roof and water was dripped between the boards and onto the sarking and then through.. I made a temporary fix by simply fixing some plastic up so it hit that and then ran down. Its not what you need after being in the office for 12+ hours. Especially when its wet. Also did a bit of a temp fix to the other end but I couldn't really determine the exact cause. It looked like it was coming from water that had collected in the tarp seeping through but there was no way to tell for sure. I put up some plastic as far underneath the tarp as I could but by that time the rain had just about stopped so I have no idea whether it worked or not.

But its clear skies and sunshine today and sunny intervals forecast for the next couple of days so fingers crossed they make the most of it and get the roof up and watertight. I'm hoping they will also have bought and installed the velux rooflights but I suspect there is no chance of that happening.

stolt

doesnt get much better for us, afetr all the hassle witht he tiles, the tile edging arrived today (needed to but the tiles upto the glass fram profile of the extension) wife got the delivery today all three strips bent and snapped (tube it came in is fine so someone has despatched them like that) I ordered them direct from homelux and now its too late to get more until monday, tiler was going to start tomorrow and work weekend to get it done, he needs to start at the glass and work his way down the room. Just tried phoning some other tile shops and they don't have a 12mm version, only 10mm, my tiles are 12mm thick. stumped and cant find the straight end anywhere.

this is what i'm looking for.http://www.homelux.co.uk/index.php?l=product_detail&p=272

jimbugalee

We got our 12mm metal trim from ToppsTiles. Expensive tho grrrrr!!

stolt

jimbugalee wrote: »

We got our 12mm metal trim from ToppsTiles. Expensive tho grrrrr!!

Yeah they are, I phoned topps, and tiles giant and they dont stock the 12mm largest is a 10mm, need black aswell... arrgh i give up cant find them anywhere near me, phoned 5 tile shops now.

jimbugalee

andrew-b wrote: »

Moral is to never buy your tiles online! Too many stories on this thread alone of failed deliveries, problem deliveries, different batch codes and so on.

I am in agreement re the problems but certainly for natural stone you can't beat the price. You would pay up to £55 per sqm for travertine in Homebase, Topps tiles etc and around £20-£25 online. I think it just takes a lot of research and sample ordering plus being on the ball with the delivery. Worth it for the price save? Probably ....

andrew-b

Hmmm i paid £10 per sqm for my tiles...not much really..they were on offer. But i'm a skinflint and natural stone is far too much faffing about to my liking so i'll leave it in the ground lol.
Don't get me wrong i buy loads of stuff online..just not tiles If i had my way i'd never leave the house...not that i do much anyway!

jamtart6

I agree with jim, if the prices in store were comparable online (for the tiles I liked) I would give more consideration to buying in store. I don't think that you have done anything wrong at all stolt and hope you get it sorted out soon. Very frustrating Have you tried asking the tiler if he has any spare trim of the size you need?

suisidevw

Fireplace complete and looks stunning IMO guys! Lowri's out with the camera but pics asap

stolt

thanks for the replies, we went for absolute black granite in the end, and there 12mm thick, we just couldnt get anywhere near the price we paid in the highstreet, i want to support local traders but not when they are 3 or 4 times as much as they are online, topps tiles were amazed and i even showed them the website and one o the guys commented that he is sure they buy them in at that price, even going a far as to say they werent calibrated. Our tiler work on terminal 5 heathrow and is very experienced and he had a look today and said they are perfect and said the same about the scratched ones he will use those for the cuts first. I have asked the online shop to send another 15 out to cover us just in case as the tiles are 600mm x 600mm so nice and big. And they have agreed so we should get them tomorrow. floors been screeded so looks lovely and smooth at the moment, more cost we werent expecting but i read somewhere about someone that didnt do it and had to lift a tile and didnt realised lifting the tile will lift the adhesive and even the underfloor heating!!

andrew-b the tile edging you will probably see about 2mm its where the extension company have made a error with the glass frame profile and floor so the tile will sit slightly higher than the end of the frame so i wanted to cover the edge of the granite tiles and found a nice straight edge to do that. didnt wan to see the tile when looking through the glass panels. will post a pic when its done to show you what i mean.

ukmaggie45

We went and met our vendor yesterday, and OH was shown how to set the boiler and programmer on central heating. Unfortunately the pump (seperate to the boiler) isn't working, but the hot water is. A gas engineer is coming on Monday to service the boiler, so hopefully he will be able to fix it - we'll see. He's also going to service the gas fire. While both boiler and fire will be replaced eventually we want to be able to have heat in the house when we go over to garden.

Our vendor seems genuinely happy that the house is going to us, she knows we will be trying to bring the garden back into a good state as fast as we can.

We should get the keys sometime after mid day. Just as well it won't be earlier as have to go to chiropodist for ingrowing toenail this morning. Ouch!

I'm planning on taking my secateurs to the house as soon as we get the keys, and begin tackling some of the brambles in the back garden. Can't wait!

Maggie

PS the quince in the front garden is flowering like billy-oh - must remember to take photos!