Extension Thread 2022....plaster, panic and pics

[Callmejudith]

Slightly naff title but I haven't had enough coffee yet

@nomoneytree I went to see smart and I have to admit they all look very similar to me. I think the corvision has sharper lines and maybe feels more quality but it didn't stand out to me noticeably. The inset handles of the cor as well look better/feel better than the smart (these aren't an option to us anyway due to accessibility issues). The IQ doors I saw definitely stood out to me looks wise.
Otherwise the 35mm and the 20mm sight lines of the smart and cor respectively both have the perpendicular support post. The 80mm smart do not have this but obviously it is a bigger frame.

@BlueMooMoo, thank you so much for all the detail. My builder is telling me they can still get smart for around £1k a meter. That's a lot less than some of the fancier brands. I'm so frightened we will run out of money it's sounding quite appealing. I started this with iq or fabco in mind though!!

@Myfabby only catching up today so sorry to hear of what you've been going through.
As well as doing my own extension, I do this for a living as I'm an architect and checking out builders, tenders and contracts is such a stressful part of the job and I've come across some real shysters and a lot of incompetence.
I think that it's also a particularly hard time because of the pressures of the market are pushing people to make decisions quickly so they can secure any builders at all.
Even on jobs where I've checked everyone out throughly we've had issues - glazing is always a hassle, especially if they are in anyway fancy.
No real advice above what you are doing but to keep chasing and keep good records, they always help.

@Myfabby that is horrendous, I’m so sorry for you. Have nothing useful to add really just thinking of you.

Update from here:
Despite the boss guy saying the next noisy work would happen next week when everyone would be at work/school they started today (whilst I was trying to do an Annual review meeting on the phone!).
Anyway, they’ve taken the door away from the hall to the old kitchen.
And bashed out most of the wall surrounding that doorway.

It’s going to move inwards towards the new kitchen where they’ve already built a new doorway.

The whole aim is for the hallway to sort of ‘sweep’ around the bottom of the stairs to the downstairs loo. Before you get to the kitchen.
It works in my head…!

Lots of dust of course despite their best efforts. Although they did hoover up at the end today.

Hi, can any of you help me with underfloor heating?
In our extension, half the room is concrete floor and the existing part of the house has wooden floors over a void for foundations. We will be laying a new floor on top.
We planned on UFH but are getting contrasting advice. One said concrete the floor in the old part of the house, another says keep it as is (wooden) and have the different types of UFH.
How did you do yours in a large space?
Sadly it’s too late to do radiators - we haven’t enough walls!!

@NewHouseNewMe We were in a similar situation. We decided to have concrete floor throughout and then have underfloor heating.

Thanks @Serendipity24, that’s helpful. Our builder says we might have issues with damp if we do that - is he talking nonsense?

We are meeting another plumber today for a 2nd opinion.

Newhousenewme us too, we are taking floor away in original part - it’s not wooden though, Lino and goodness knows what underneath, concrete or stone I think.

Speaking of underfloor heating, would you recommend plumbed/ wet or electric? We had presumed plumbed because of running costs, but with gas prices rocketing etc … A builder we had round to quote said we should go electric - says it is so much cheaper to install that usage costs will never make up for the difference in installation costs. Said over 90% of what he fits is electric. Also he said for future proofing electricity is cleaner and cost will come down vs gas prices which will only go up and then eventually be phased out. We have a gas boiler, no plans to go for heat pump etc yet and roof not suitable for solar.

We are going to put it in 3 bathrooms, and the kitchen / diner - of which most of it will be new extension and part is in original house.

He also said electric performs better - heats up and cools down much quicker. I never know if this sort of advice is objective or pushes a personal agenda!!

We had a similar dilemma over UFH, its further back in the thread and I also had a thread on it in the property section not too long ago. We had the circuit and fuse installed ready to install electric UFH and the final installation cost would be £3k. I started doing some research and realised that it would be so prohibitively expensive to run that I would probably never use it. All the replies on the thread supported this in terms of electric UFH. The reviews were much better for the wet UFH.
When we told the electrician our decision, he said he would never recommend it as it always goes wrong and you have to lift the flooring to fix it.
We already have 2 rads so we have just supplemented them with a kick space heater.

@sluj

We had a similar dilemma over UFH, its further back in the thread and I also had a thread on it in the property section not too long ago. We had the circuit and fuse installed ready to install electric UFH and the final installation cost would be £3k. I started doing some research and realised that it would be so prohibitively expensive to run that I would probably never use it. All the replies on the thread supported this in terms of electric UFH. The reviews were much better for the wet UFH. When we told the electrician our decision, he said he would never recommend it as it always goes wrong and you have to lift the flooring to fix it. We already have 2 rads so we have just supplemented them with a kick space heater.

We are going for wet ufh in the entire house. It is one continuous pipe. No one would install it if you had to dig the floor up to fix it.

@Littlemissweepy we have electric underfloor heating in our extension but it's the less popular type of the wire in the screed. It works like a giant storage heater so is cheaper than the electric mats to run.
Ours goes on for a few hours overnight on the cheap rate electricity and then releases heat throughout the day. Because we have extra insulation the building fabric loses very little heat so with the thermostat some days it doesn't switch on for very long. It's a different kind of heat to having rads - it's just generally never cold in there rather than the cosy blast you get with radiators so can take some getting used to but it's fab. As it warms the building fabric not the air it's good if someone leaves the door open (decorators I'm looking at you) it warms up again very quickly once the door is closed without any extra energy input.
You don't get a really warm to the touch floor even though the room is a comfortable 21 degrees.
We don't have a gas supply to our extension so I spent a lot of time looking at the alternatives and their cost effectiveness.
It took a few days to warm up after the initial installation whilst everything dried out but since then it's been really cosy and the cost isn't bonkers. Ours is under tile so particularly effective for heat transfer.

@NewHouseNewMe ours in an Edwardian property and it had so much damp that there were black moulds on the walls! Our structural engineer specifically recommended concrete floors in the survey report. He said it is actually better in preventing damp! It can make damp issues worse only if you don't let it dry properly. We let it dry for a month before laying UFH on top.

Initially I wanted electric thinking it would be cleaner and future proof but in the end went for wet UFH because that's what all four builders who gave us quote recommended. My sister has electric one, but she says it doesn't spread the heat evenly.

Re UFH:
Our house was built in 1912 with the void under floorboards.

Out extension has concrete floor.

To tie together the wet UFH, they took up the floorboards and laid a sort of corrugated system down for the pipe work then relaid floor on top. The joists had to be ‘shaved’ down a bit to match the levels.

We haven’t got it turned on yet so can’t speak to its effectiveness.

We have electric UFH in our upstairs bathroom - you can’t tell that it’s hot as we keep it low ish, but it just takes the edge off, we’re happy with it but the builders recommended wet for the bigger space downstairs.

So sorry @Myfabby. I feel your pain and had a similar experience. Ours was incorrectly built, we were 'abandoned' after builders' bankruptcy and it was so stressful I can't even describe how c* we felt. He was highly recommended too but he took our trust, our money and ran. It failed inspection.
Fortunately we found a replacement builder but a few builders wouldn't touch it.
But it's lovely now even though we've paid twice
It'll be OK fabby- deep breath (hopefully with pockets to match)
(PS- Also got wet UFH- love it)

Another one for wet UFH (not that it's been installed yet) but we have electric UFH in our main bathroom and noticed an immediate difference to electricity usage when we turned it off. I can't imagine the price for a bigger space.

@Myfabby oh no! Your experience is the subject of nightmares. I really hope you find someone to complete the work. It really is a minefield finding reliable builders, very little to go on to check the good ones are not bad ones.

Loads going on here. Ground floor steels are now all in and the brickies are rapidly going up and up. Really getting a feel for the spaces now.

Builder back round with plumber today to talk boilers. I think it's the position really as I had planned to have it in the utility but might make more sense somewhere else like the loft. Once that's decided I can finally put a date on my DIY kitchen order for this room and get that rolling. Our main kitchen is a modern concrete type look so went for the cento concrete range with grey worktops. To pep it up though I have bought ana amazing bright yellow tap and will paint the window reveal the same.

Also booked an Airbnb for a month, as talking to the electrician, plumber and builder we are likely to be without power and hot water for a while. So that's £2500 with nothing to show for it. On the plus side, the owner said we can bring our cat with us so she will just have to be kept indoor for a few weeks.

Also designed and ordered some of the bathroom tiles as they have a long lead time. Fees odd as that room isn't even built yet, so I'm doing all the measurements from the plans and my sketch up models.

My husband bless him has totally switched off on the decision front. Fine by me as I was spending time explaining why we need this thing, explaining the various options and explaining why I think we need a particular one. He just nods and agrees so I'm just picking stuff without checking now It means I spend hours in front of the laptop of an evening but I'm loving it!

Flooring - so I have quite a collection of samples now and still can't decide. Area is around 120sqm. Kitchen/diner, utility, living room, downstairs loo, hallway, office and play room, so needs to be super tough but also neutral enough to work in all these spaces. I want a lightish herringbone effect.

Karndean, have grey lined oak samples. Like it but eh variation between boards I think will be too busy.

Amtico- have some samples of the form range but they have a weird rough texture, like they are Sandy. Not sure if it's just the samples or on the actual planks, but they also look very plasticky in the light.

Ecocore- waterproof click laminate, looks good online. Have some samples coming.

Bamboo - again looks like an option but limited choice in colour.

I have ruled out engineered wood as my sister has it (hardwood) and it is already looking tired (one stain, dents from shoes, scratches from furniture). It also pops up and down although I suspect this is poor fitting mostly but just puts me off.

Have I missed any other options out there? Pic below of what I'm sort of after.

@Sewfrickinamazeballs

Loads going on here. Ground floor steels are now all in and the brickies are rapidly going up and up. Really getting a feel for the spaces now.

Builder back round with plumber today to talk boilers. I think it's the position really as I had planned to have it in the utility but might make more sense somewhere else like the loft. Once that's decided I can finally put a date on my DIY kitchen order for this room and get that rolling. Our main kitchen is a modern concrete type look so went for the cento concrete range with grey worktops. To pep it up though I have bought ana amazing bright yellow tap and will paint the window reveal the same.

Also booked an Airbnb for a month, as talking to the electrician, plumber and builder we are likely to be without power and hot water for a while. So that's £2500 with nothing to show for it. On the plus side, the owner said we can bring our cat with us so she will just have to be kept indoor for a few weeks.

Also designed and ordered some of the bathroom tiles as they have a long lead time. Fees odd as that room isn't even built yet, so I'm doing all the measurements from the plans and my sketch up models.

My husband bless him has totally switched off on the decision front. Fine by me as I was spending time explaining why we need this thing, explaining the various options and explaining why I think we need a particular one. He just nods and agrees so I'm just picking stuff without checking now It means I spend hours in front of the laptop of an evening but I'm loving it!

That all sounds very exciting! We are the other way, I suggest an idea and my husband tells me why it's impossible or not practical 🤭

@Sewfrickinamazeballs
Great progress.
Just a thought on boilers - our boiler was installed at the top of our 3.5 storey house when it was built and a quick look at the installation manual states that it should have been sited at the lowest part of the installation ie ground floor. Consequently we ( and all our neighbours) have very cold ground floors as the water doesn't properly reach there and the radiators are either cold or luke warm. Not helped by the microbore pipework. Make sure you choose the right boiler for the position you finally choose.

@Sewfrickinamazeballs
All sounds fab
I also wanted to add a note of caution with boilers in the loft
If you get frozen weather and the condensate pipe freezes it's much easier to defrost on a lower floor than one at roof level as you have to do it from outside. If it freezes your system shuts down until it defrosts. It doesn't happen very often so people often don't realise it's a problem until a particularly cold snap and they have no heating. They can add a heating element to the pipe to help with this but it won't happen unless you ask for it.
Also think about how easy access is for when it needs servicing or fixing, is it easy to get to when carrying tools etc.

Thanks so much for the input on underfloor heating, sounds like wet is the clear winner. Though did hear on the news headlines last night that wholesale price of gas is now 13 times higher than a year ago 😮

Thanks @wonkylegs and @sluj, good chat with the plumber today and we have selected a boiler and location - utility room as planned.

I think I'm bucking the trend in not having UFH. The plumber did ask and said it would probably be a bit cheaper than the builders quote and not much more than the 'fancy rads' I want. Main reasons are the added cost to rip up existing floor, I like the immediacy of radiators and I love house plants which don't do well on UFH. Anyone else not having it?

When I lived in a house with a boiler in the loft, we had to be careful to ensure enough head height for access (building restriction) and had to have an anti-freeze component so it would like in regardless of programming when it was cold. It also needed a pump to circulate throughout the house.