Is there a support thread for those going through building work?

[MaeMobley]

We have now been living for 2 months without a kitchen.

I miss most:
my dishwasher
my washing machine
my cats using a cat flap and pooing outside
boiling a saucepan for pasta

Less than 2 months to go.

Four months?

Sounds like a significant project.

I'm sure it will be worth it in the end. :)

Hi Pendeen, it feels like a significant project although I didn't quite realise how big it would be.

We have knocked down internal walls and are getting sliding/bi-folding doors across the back of the house. We are completely replacing the kitchen.

We live in a small terrace house; our current downstairs living area is the small front room.

Ah yes. We are just out the other side of our build.
My favourite week was where we had no electricity in half the house, and no water downstairs at all. So we had to do the washing up in the bath by candlelight.
Can you move out at all or go away for a few days??
We didn't, but we simply couldn't afford to, the builders would look at us all hunched up in one room, and just shake their heads at our stupidity resilience!

Hi Pepperrabbit, yes, our builders look at us as if we are quite mad.

I loathe washing up in the bathroom - and cleaning the cat litter trays in the same place feels particularly grim.

So far ok on the electricity front. I do worry about the boiler packing in.

Moving out is too expensive so we just grin and moan a lot.

We had to have a new boiler, even though the architect had assured us ours would be adequate it wasn't up to the new rads. hence we now have no floor in the kitchen - just concrete, as the budget went on the plumbing.
On the bright side, it is now lovely (if a bit concretey..) we have all the rooms we wanted and the house is re-wired, re-plumbed re-gassed and all certified etc. We're in no rush and have no cash to do all the finishing bits, so the DSs have big blankets instead of curtains and everything needs painting. But we are thrilled we did it.
How many DC have you got?

Oh god. Our new radiators were delivered today - not installed yet.
We have 2 DC - aged 7 and 5. I don't know how people do it with babies and toddlers.
Yes, we have started going over budget but have not run out of cash -yet- .

Pepperrabbit, how old are your DSs?

Mine are 7, 5 and 3 and tbh it was DD (3) who was the most disrupted by it. They all had to share a tiny room for quite a while with theboys in bunks and her cotbed right next to them.
Our first priority was to get her in her own room - for the sake of all of us
There's a way of working out if your boiler has the capacity, ask the builder, but each rad at full blast will use say 2-3kw? (don't hold me to this!) and the hot water on top adds another say 10? If you post it as a question someone like pigletjohn will come along and help!

Upshot was simple maths proved our old 28kw boiler was working at max capacity almost all the time and we had 4 extra rads going in - which explains why we were constantly calling out British Gas to fix it.

Good lord.....we're on day 2 of kitchen renovation and I'm fed up already Washing up in the tiny downstairs loo sink is a pain. Kids micro pasta was bloody awful for tea - although they didn't complain i felt awful giving them it. Micro noodles not much better. SLow cooker is on today for a hearty casserole so hope that will lift my spirits. We're such foodies this is a shock

In 3 weeks we should have a fabulous kitchen though - not sure with 3 kids 6 and under i could manage a bigger project! we live/play in the kitchen normally and kids seem a bit disorientated at the minute.

have you got room for a mini cooker/baby belling sort of thing?

This website is a useful basic check: Boiler size calculator

The builder is not the best one to advise on boiler size really, use a Gas Safe engineer or the services of a boiler manufacturer. It's not just the radiator output that matters - factors like heat loss and ventilation rates, age and efficiency of boiler (and loads more) need to be considered.

One of my projects last year was a new 5 bedroom detached house with 16 radiators and indirect water heating using a condensing boiler.

The heating engineer specified a 24kw Alpha CDR24 which proved more than adequate during the big freeze last winter.

Thanks Pendeen. I will look at that later on tonight.

Our poor boiler does need replacing eventually but I would rather do it in our own tiime.

Oh well support coming your way and lots of understanding from us!
11 weeks in 3 to go.
central heating finished last week. Bathroom finished yesterday. 2nd fix electric 90% complete today... the joy of electricity... mind you did look dodgy at 4,30pm when we were lighting candles but an hour later the lights did indeed come on.

We/ve been sooo cold and dusty now we are warm, still dusty yet optimistic.
Tiles on flloor next week, kitchen in week after.

Keep smiling will be worth it in the end.

DS is 17 months and a trooper!

At least we have heat & electricity. I should stop moaning.

It'll be worth it

We're just out of a four month kitchen project ourselves. It is so so nice to finally have a kettle, hob and sink in one room rather than three separate rooms!

Hi Pendeen

That website you linked to seems rather unreliable. My eye was caught by

This means that for most of the heating season, during the times of day when comfort temperatures are required, the boiler will produce more heat than can be used by the system.
The heat excess to requirements is lost via the flue through convection. The cooler air entering at the base of the boiler cools it so that it fires-up again, even if the system does not need any heat at that time. When the internal thermostat is up to temperature the burner is switched off, but the heat produced is going nowhere except out of the flue. The boiler is doing what is known as short-cycling.

I am alarmed that the author appears to be unfamiliar with
(1) Boiler Modulation, where modern boilers adjust their output downwards so they seldom run at max power, but try to produce only enough heat to kep the temperature drop correct
(2) Room sealed boilers, where cold air does not "enter at the bottom" but comes in, and goes out, through a balanced flue; and is, in any case sucked in by an electric fan only when required to fire the boiler (as introduced on the Potterton Netaheat about 40 years ago)
(3) The concept of the room stat and cylinder stat (or hot water draw on a combi) "calling for heat" so that the boiler only fires when heat is required. If the system does not need heat, the boiler does not fire.

Hello PigletJohn

I'm an Architect not a mechanical design or heating engineer so forgive me if I provided the link to a misleading site. The basic calculator seemed useful but I admit I did not read every paragraph on the site.

My comment was prompted by a rule of thumb from one of the contributors about boiler sizing which, if followed would suggest for a 150 sqm five bedroom house with 16 radiators and hot water, one would need a boiler of around 40kw! My expreience with a previous commision suggested otherwise.

I'm familiar with the basics - your points 2 & 3 for example but I was not aware of 1.

One lives and learns. :)

The other thing I should mention is that if people are going for a combi (i.e. there is only one bathroom or shower, and there will not be two people wanting to run hot taps at the same time) then the boiler output is determined by the need to provide instant hot water. In this case it is usually in the 24kW to 32kW range (depending on size of incoming water main and the flow available) which is almost always far more than the power needed to heat the house.

In this case the boiler will run at full power when the bath tap is on (or briefly when the radiators come on from cold), but will modulate down to 8kW or so when it is ticking over to keep the radiators warm. In this case the boiler sizing calculator, which assumes a HW cylinder, is not needed.

p.s.
(will I never stop?)

A single radiator, 1 metre long x 500mm high, has an output of about 875W under ideal conditions, and a double rad 2 metres x 500mm about 2400W, so although builders tend to fit quite small radiators (to keep costs down), calculated from the heat-loss tables, if you want to heat a house quickly, from cold, in cold weather, you need to push more heat in than will be needed to maintain the temperature. If the rads are fitted with TRVs, they will throttle back the output as it approaches target temperature, so you will not be overheated or waste energy. Bigger rads will also maintain the room temperature at lower flow temperatures, so a modern condensing boiler will run more efficiently and quietly, as it will adjust its flame size and fan speed down.

I used to be away on business a lot, so I changed all my rads from singles to finned doubles, and the house heats up much quicker from cold. My modern boiler modulates down from 24kW max to 8kW min, and starts reducing its power after about 20 minutes if the house has become cold.

In sub-zero temps like -15C last winter, my house uses over 15kW to keep it warm, although the boiler sizing calculator will tell me I only need 11kW. Remember the calculator is based on an outdoor temp of -1C which is not very cold. Radiators based on the heat loss calculator would have been unable to deliver enough heat to keep the house warm

PigletJohn, with a combi, can you never run 2 showers at the same time? I assumed it was our poor useless boiler.

We are due to start our renovation in a few weeks. Trying to decide whether to live through the hell or move out.
It's a wreck currently and needs:
New boiler and radiators
Rewiring
Every wall replastering and every ceiling
Move bathroom upstairs
Knock wall down living/ dining
New stairs
Kitchen extension and new kitchen
New floors everywhere
Few rotten floor joists replacing

Obviously there is a load of structural stiff we can't live through- ie no staircase and currently there is no working bath. Im not sure whether when the main stuff is done to move bcd in for the extension ( and therefore no kitchen back of house off etc)
Have a 4 yr old 2 yr old and am pregnant

Any thoughts??

Oh and no washing machine

We are lucky, our building work which started 2 weeks ago is outside so not too much of an impact on us apart from a lot of noise and a huge pile of mud/clay out the front of the house which DS2 (nearly 3) loves to run and jump in.

4 months for a kitchen sounds a long time, I think I'd go mad

Gosh...we are in the planning stage and so desperate for work to start! But have been through building work and lived in a virtual building site for years so can sympathise...

Yes staverton you must be insane hats off to you for all of that. If i could afford it I'd move out.

Day 4 of inside work and its not as bad as I feared. Washing was done laundarette and it was fab! I hate doing laundry. Paper plates making a big difference to washing up and kids not bothered at all. Loving the slow cookery too. This has made me far more organised so hoping I Will maintain this when kitchen is up and running in several weeks time!

I feel like a lightweight compared to Staverton.

I had a low moment last night when I managed to spill dirty cat litter all over the bathroom floor.