Extension Thread 2021.....aka "where's the bloody builder?"

[Callmejudith]

New thread!

P.s. the foreman (who is the main joiner) turned up today after a 12 days absence 🙏 But the plumber went MIA 🤦🏼‍♀️ Still no heating!!!

Oh and the Quooker engineer came. The "faulty tap" had been installed incorrectly by the plumber!! So that's a £150 call out fee that I'll be taking off his final bill...which I'm not telling him about till he finishes everything else.

Still not living in our house. I've rescheduled the cleaners for next Wednesday 26th 🙏🙏🙏🙏 That'll be 21 weeks and 1 day of being homeless.

@LimpLettice that's exciting progress!

@PoshWatchShitShoes I now feel tres sophisticated that we have the same radiator as all your choices are so stylish! Gggrrr to the plumber, foreman and all the other idiots

@wonkylegs I think that having the JCT contract saved the day, they just couldn't argue with it.

Hallway floor all done and it's so beautiful - over the moon with it.

Also can't remember if I said this already but our velux has never ever worked and in fact didn't even open. For MONTHS the dickhead builder was saying "I've called the velux engineer" and nothing. This week I got in contact with velux and they sent someone and he fixed it in 20 seconds. Amazing customer service I must say.

@Callmejudith yep contracts are very boring until something goes wrong then they are very very useful.
Velux are my favourite rooflight company because their customer service is excellent. On one job the 25yo Velux windows had blown the seal on the double glazing units, Velux took the serial number of the units over the phone, knew exactly what they were (25yrs later!!!!) and engineer came out and fixed them quickly, efficiently and for a lot less money and hassle than replacing them.

Agree on velux. Amazing customer service in the past

So pissed off with my builder for being so bloody slow and now Boris with wfh now cancelled. I wanted to do my work from my lovely new island counter!!! And now I need to start trekking into London, which is a major PITA 🤦🏼‍♀️ Totally a first world issue!!

Oh no posh, do you have to go in everyday? We’ve been told 2 days a week from beginning of feb which I can cope with

Hopefully on the last drag before the decorators and carpet fitters however plasterers said today that his wife would have killed him if she'd had to cope with this job???? That's as I had to remove at the last minute the clothes hanging on the outside of the wardrobe (we are going on holiday on the weekend) as despite covering everything else in the room they hadn't noticed them?!?

We are on holiday from Monday but I'm beginning to wonder if I'll be more stressed while away as not here to supervise.

@PoshWatchShitShoes I told my employer I was only willing to go into the office 1 day a week (I only work 4). The employment market is so busy at the moment they just said that was fine. Worth a convo maybe.

I think it will be 2-3 days in the office, but from Monday. I'm going to focus on the 2 only 😂

It's been amazing being able to have so much oversight over the changes at the site. Never would have happened if we were back in the old 5 days office routine. I'm grateful for that and then the new hybrid way of work.

Holiday sounds amazing @MissFritton65. Where are you off to? 🏝

@PoshWatchShitShoes a few days in Dubai and then The Maldives for another 10 days. Can't wait!

[quote MissFritton65]@PoshWatchShitShoes a few days in Dubai and then The Maldives for another 10 days. Can't wait![/quote]
That will be glorious and just what you need after these 2 covid years and all the building joy. Have a great time

Wonderful @MissFritton65!! 🍹

That's what we did for our honeymoon. Have a great time!

Thank you all! I'm sure we'll have a great time once we got our heads around the number/timings of PCRs.

Oh wow MrsF I’m so jealous

Spare room and front room finally plastered!

Been swamped with work (6 weeks in and I think I’m getting the hang of things! But still knackered at the end of each day).

Can’t remember where we were up to last time I posted.

We are officially in our new kitchen and happy with it. I have some little niggles about screw holes and some tiny imperfections and still wondering about whether to draw attention to them or not.
Dh is very happy with things and as he’s the main cook that’s the main thing for me. Of course pretty much anything would have been better than our old falling apart kitchen and having loads of stuff in the front room, at least the fridge is in the kitchen now 😂

They have boarded up the gao between the old kitchen and the extension and been crashing around in there today.
Lots of demolition, old kitchen out, old part chimney breast started coming out, more to do.
The ceiling needs to come down - over 100yrs old so will be a dusty mess.

Hole made for doorway to the utility so the builders are coming in and out the side extension now which is better than leaving the bifold door open all the time 🥶

House still mostly freezing anyway without heating in half of it. Lots of fires and blankets.

Qettle tap arrived, not installed yet, that’s my big excitement for endless cups of tea!

I've put a couple of threads on the main board about my dilemma over whether or not to continue with the planned electric UFH or just install an electric plinth heater.

UFH cons -
3K to install
Has to be on for hours
Possibly expensive to run

Plinth heater pros
£258
Programmable so I can time it to come on just 20 minutes before breakfast
Quick to warm up
Can use as and when needed without waiting for it to warm up

Hmm, reading that back, I wonder if I haven't persuaded myself not to go with the UFH...

Any thoughts please?

.

@sluj we have had UFH fitted here as part of our work and we absolutely love it! Lots of people have commented on how warm it feels and really easy to control plus no radiators to make furniture placement difficult.
We had a plinth heater in our previous house and we had to be really careful when mopping the floor as it had a tendency to cut out if any water got into it. It was toasty on your feet if stood in front of it but not hugely effective for heating the whole room.

Thanks @MissFritton65, is yours electric and any idea if it has been expensive to run?

@sluj ours is water downstairs. We have electric in the bathrooms but that's on a limited number of times during the day. My understanding is that electric is considerably more expensive to run than water.

Thanks @MissFritton65, our CH system is the infamous microbore and it doesn't cope with sending heat from the top floor ( boiler) down to the ground floor rads at the moment so I can't think of adding to the strain with wet UFH.
You can get some very fancy plinth heaters now with Bluetooth timers and thermostats. I'm very tempted and might save a packet on installation and running costs 🤔

@sluj I would imagine so! We upgraded our boiler as part of our work as it wasn't powerful enough to heat the extra space.