Home Extension thread 2018

[Baxdream]

Thought we should get the new thread ready!
Our front door is in. Long story but it arrived damaged 😫 it's in and lovely but it's going to be replaced!
Our fencing has started today, the short ones are new, the others are getting ripped out

Thanks MrsBlondie I'm hoping over the next few days we can get the reassurance needed and then they will be happy to sign. It's just the one sticking point over the fences which can't be too hard to sort out surely?!?! No word back from the engineer yet but keeping everything crossed!

blondie 1k sounds like a small deposit. I was expecting a lot more than that. Thought it’d be around 10% if build cost but really haven’t a clue! Don’t recall paying any deposit previously.
I’ve listed all the sockets, light switches etc etc & skirting on the spec so as long as he confirms everything on the spec is included there shouldn’t be too many surprises, fingers crossed.
Hope you get the fences sorted amazingGrace - must be exciting to be starting next week!!!

kimlek our deposit was 10%

amazing are you negotiating party wall agreement informally? If you can’t get agreement you might need to go through a more formal (expensive!) process... are you excavating within 3m or building into the party wall?

We haven't had to pay a deposit, but our builder is old school, he only takes payments once each stage is complete

Oh gosh Hopefully I hope things can get started soon, delays are awful. :(

We just received a letter from the builders last week that out move-in date is now officially 3 months behind schedule. So we will be movomg at half term now, which is so far beyond ideal I could cry. The only silver lining is that at least our landlady has agreed for us to stay in the house until then, so that’s a relief. Though also about 9k in rent more than we were expecting to pay, so no pre-Christmas fireplace for me. 😭

At least there’s progress. Plaster and flooring this week and next week!

I think from this point onwards I’ll just go and camp out at the project manager’s office and hold a lighter under his bum for the remainder of the duration so we don’t have any more delays. 🤔

linguaphile if it makes you feel any better you’re not alone-currently about 14 weeks behind in on a 16 week schedule...

We paid 10% deposit then have to pay amounts throughout the project.
Day 7 and the bricks are up to window level on the second floor and the floor joists for upstairs are in.
Rain forecast tomorrow, boo!

linguaphile do they have a penalty for delays. Our last house (huge renovation) had penalties although I can’t remember what they were. They had to pay us for every week they fell behind (providing it was their fault & not us adding stuff or finding issues). It was a very big project though.

Well, today we have had a huge amount of concrete poured into our foundations - a huge relief that we were able to get the concrete mixer trucks up the lane to our house as it's quite narrow.

Now I have 5 cats desperate to be outside and to leave their pawprints all over!

We are so behind it is embarrassing. We have nearly sent our builders broke because they delayed it so much and it turns out the probably undercharged us. Oh well.

Homesunderthehammer how exciting! That looks like proper progress. Hope you managed to restrain the cats.

Dustandrubble do you think there's any danger your builders might go bust before they complete your build?

Ilovechocolate sounds like good solid progress at your end too!

Linguaphile sorry your build is so far behind schedule. That amount of extra rent is painful! No way you can get in earlier and camp out? Probably not, if you're lacking major factors like plumbing and electricity.

Well my architect managed to actually produce some work ahead of schedule this week. I nearly fell over. It's only an improved layout sketch for downstairs, but it came in two whole days before the deadline I'd given him. DH and I need to sit down properly one evening on the weekend and note down all our final amendments and comments so he can produce the final design and start on the planing application (maybe that will all come early too! I won't hold my breath...). Need to phone the council re a bat and bird survey. The architect is obsessed with us needing one, but reading the information online I don't think we do, so need to phone for clarification.

Anyone still on here who has had floors done? We have our karndean quote in but wondering how soon it can be layed on the new cement floor in the extension? Or if they can just lay a damp proofing over it perhaps. CANNOT wait to have flooring. Until that is done the dust just continues (sob sob I hate dust).

Today we have kitchen fitter hopefully finishing off hooray. And new skirting boards being put in our newly plastered lounge, along with pipes being boxed in. Also we can finally have our floorboards put back down upstairs and airing cupboard door back on.

It feels like we are near the end but we have so much still to do. June is month 6 for us. I'm not sure Id have done it if Id realised how exhausting it was!

DustandRubble ugh, we were behind but only by 2-3 weeks due to weather (snow and heavy rain).

Hopefully woohoo architect finally shifting up a gear lol

Ling can you not be in your house at all? We have stayed living in (not easy must admit but we had nowhere to go!)

Homes wow looking good. Big extension planned. All go now I bet.

Hopefully they won’t go bust, they are getting booked up for the summer so that is something. And we pay promptly when required so they can rely on us!

Mrs Blondie we're having LVT and our fitter is very strict on when it can be laid, he's said 1 day per mm of screed which works out over 2 months of drying time, though we've been advised that dehumidifiers would speed that up

Ours was at least a month. But we had Christmas in between so they laid a black plastic floor protector which was fab! Definitely helped as it stopped the dust

We are negotiating informally which I thought we had done until the issue about the bloody fences came up. They are generally nice neighbours I just think they don't want their fences being touched.
Yes we are building to within about 6" of the party wall. I'm super stressed they won't have agreed it by Tuesday as there is only one working day left for our engineer to reply to us :/ no idea what to do really.

mega stressed now...just phoned the engineer to chase up the email and his office is closed for 2 weeks.

Amazing what a total nightmare! Is there anyone else you can speak to in order to resolve it? Can your builders start elsewhere, well away from the fences, to give you a few days' grace? Or can you offer to replace neighbours' fences if they are damaged?

Dust At least you can be fairly confident they'll stay solvent then.

Exciting news here - we got our build over agreement from the water company! I was expecting it to take much longer before hearing back. Just one single page letter, with no caveats or info beyond a couple of stipulations re the foundations to give to building regs. Mega relief.

MrsBlondie we waited weeks for ours but mainly due to the roof not being finished properly for weeks and so the screed wasn't drying. It's 1 day per mm of screed up to 40mm in thickness. If thicker than that, I think it's 2 days per mm. One of the fitters that gave us a quote brought a gadget with him to check the damp levels.

panic over. We found an engineer who was much better than our first and gave us some proper advice. We've said all along to the people we've used that we will need advice as we go as we've done nothing like this before but this is the first time we've had proper advice from anyone. Maybe I'm being naive and should be reading up more!

So engineer came out, next door happened to be home so we all had a chat together. It left quite positive so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it all goes to plan.

Engineer spoke about taking photos of each room of both properties so that legally if building works impacts on them we have evidence of any structural damage. Has anyone chosen not to do this?

Party wall, we had a nightmare neighbour who appointed his own surveyor, yes it’s cost us extra money but we had to redo drawings as we were entitled to more space! Ha to him!

Build over agreement, I went through all our docs from when we bought the house and found the water dreariness which show it’s in the neighbours garden and not ours which is fab too.

amazing you can pay for a schedule of condition about £400) which does the assessment but might not be ready by Tuesday. We’ve ended up with a nearly £2000 party wall award having been deemed to be in dispute with our neighbours...