First-time house renovation

jimbugalee

Welcome pawpurrs- your house sounds exciting!! and gorgeous kitchen to come .... Show us some pics!

Not long till the move Lisa - I am quite jealous you are moving into a nearly finished house How lovely to spend Xmas there.

suisidevw

Sounds lovely Purpurrs, so you eventually sold your house? I was on the other forum 'house buying' as you were selling etc so knew about your ups and downs. Any pics of the pad?

Great news about TD TM! Brilliant!

CHristmas is nearly here! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

jamtart6

Great news about TD TM!!

Purpurrs - welcome to the fun!!



Well we had great news! The builder can come all over xmas, lots of days to build! Very excited at the weekend in the hope that the bricks would carry on going up.

Then the snow hit.

The sand froze.

It rained/snowed/sleeted.

We almost cried when he said he couldnt do anything outside, but decided to find other jobs that needed doing. Considering we thought we were "pretty much sorted and had nothing much more to do upstairs" we managed to fix plug sockets, light switches, paint a shelf, paint the bathroom and landing ceilling and fix the stairs so they don't squeak. So in the end we felt quite positive!

Have picked tiles from Topps tiles too! Going to get them with my plumber friend who has a discount card Very MSE!

Have a great xmas if I dont speak to you all and all the best for the new year!

edison1457

We found a guy who is charging £280 to fit the flu and new chimney pot to install our multi fuel stove.

jimbugalee

That sounds fine - we paid £250

latecomer

@pawpurrs - welcome to our little thread. Sounds like you have a serious project on your hands

@lisal0u - great news on getting stuff moved in and I'm sure you'll love your first night there tonight.

We've had a really bad couple of weeks. We had a "discussion" with the builder last sunday to say we were not happy with the way things were going and we agreed what would be done before the next payments were made. Unfortunately we didn't write anything down so by Tuesday there was already a disagreement about what was agreed to be done.

Things came to a head on thursday when he expected payment and we were not willing to pay him. We eventually agreed to give him some money but withheld the rest until all the work was complete. They were meant to have the extension roof felted and slated and both the garage and patio doors installed so the extension was watertight. The roof is being felted by a roofer (just one guy) and one of the young builders is starting to put some slates on the pitched section which I'm not entirely happy about.

I also had words with the builder about some extra work that was done. He gave me a quote based on a number of man days + materials. The job was done in under a quarter of the time the quote was based on but then the builder got upset when I told him I wasn't paying the full amount as the time taken was nowhere near what he had said.

I'm just not sure about anything they do now. I got from after a 13 hour day in the office and had to fix a dodgy plumbing connection on the cold mains pipe to the upstairs for the showerroom. And because he hadn't bothered to put in a valve (despite him taking one out!) I had to shut the mains off at the street and then drain it down before I could fix the problem. By the time that was done it had completely ruined the ceiling in the back room and also caused more damage to the master bedroom and the small bedroom too.

We also had no heating or hot water for 10 days (although we did get it for one day in the mdidle) and no gas at all for 3 days.

2 of them are off on another job which isn't doing anything to improve my opinion of them but i'm guessing its because we have withheld payment and they need money. But as things stand there is a lot of work and materials that have been paid for but are not done or on site as with not a huge amount of work or money left in the job we have concerns that its getting to the point where it wont be worth them continuing and they will stop. I've had assurances this wont happen but so far the guys word isn't worth much (anything) so before any further work starts we need to have a new payment and work schedule which ensures that they get things done and back on track payment-wise.

jamtart6

latecomer sorry to hear all that. can you get new builders in or have you paid too much money out?

TomsMom

Oh dear Latecomer, what a flippin' mess!

Have you got everything written down that you've told us about. I'm thinking if this is all written down - from the job that was done in 1/4 of the time quoted for to the disruption to your heating/hot water/gas, fixing the plumbing connection, damage to ceiling and bedrooms, and whatever else there is - this is going to be quite some list. Then when you look at it like that you may have a bit more leverage if he starts to balk at you not wanting to pay the rest of the money until you are totally satisfied.

I do feel for you, we were lucky in that our builders were good, only a couple of niggles and they thought I was too much of a perfectionist where such things as the wash basin being in the centre of the wall, etc., was concerned. And I think it makes it even worse that your problem has come at this time of year. They probably want their Christmas break, you want to be warm and cosy without these problems hanging over your head, and we should all be of good spirits.

I hope you can get something sorted to your satisfaction.

latecomer

To be honest there isn't a huge amount more we need them to do but there is things that we've paid for that haven't been done. Its things like supplying the windows for the dormers and fitting them, fitting the 2 Velux's upstairs (at least they are on site). Supply and fitting the kitchen window and the list goes on.

Its also looking like we may have a real problem with the new boiler as it shut off again today and had to be reset (initial diagnosis was just dampness due to the conditions when it had been fitted etc and it worked fine after being restarted). But the Ferroli engineer wont touch it as the installation hasn't been completed yet so thats something else we need to get sorted out.

BB1984

Hello all - I just popped on to wish everyone a very merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy and successful New Year.

I'm sorry I've been so rubbish lately, I started a new job in the summer which doesn't enable me to get online (how dare they!) and I never seem to have time in the evenings. I really will update my blog at some point though, as there are plenty of bits and bobs to show you. Looking forward to spending Christmas here at home with the family - our first one with the house "finished"! )

A quick glance through the boards shows that all the old faces seem to be doing well, and there's plenty of new faces keeping this thread alive too - great stuff!

Anyway, best be off, but I will let you know when I finally update my blog (got about 5 months to catch up on!)

Merry Christmas,

BB x