Extension thread 2022 part II...demolition, delays and decisions, decisions, decisions

[Sewfrickinamazeballs]

Hi! New thread!

Just visited site and the ufh is nearly down upstairs. Bad news - the insulation isn't high enough so the spread plates won't make contact with the chipboard so needs to be redone. Look forward to giving the builders that news tomorrow...

How was everyone else's day?

Still no sign of a quote from builder. Awaiting call back from structural engineer.
Why does no one answer the phone?!

@Martinisarebetterdirty you and I might be on parallel paths with very similar start dates. Supposed to have met with our builder already for the pre start meeting but his dad died suddenly a couple of weeks ago so he has been a bit quiet of late. I am also having a lusso stone bath upstairs so you have just given me another question to ask! What is the scope / length of your project?

@GardensandGrandDesigns that sounds super annoying. I can imagine me getting very antsy at jobs that need to be redone.

Ah nice to have a timeline that’s similar to someone else @Littlemissweepy ! We are doing a first floor extension over an existing ground floor one, with an internal remodel to put in an extra bedroom, changing the size of the bathroom so putting in a new one, new kitchen, new flooring throughout downstairs and new heating system with solar panels. The main build is 8 weeks allegedly subject to delays with glass and then the kitchen will be four weeks so hopefully watertight by Christmas and all done by the end of Jan (building in some delays). We’re living in whilst it’s ongoing so not looking forward to it but also very very excited 😊

Also sorry to hear about your builder’s dad 😞hopefully he’s ok and you aren’t too delayed.

Sounds exciting @Martinisarebetterdirty! We are knocking down a utility outshoot and creating a kitchen, knocking through to existing kitchen which will become a dining room and remodeling to make a utility out of a cupboard and a pantry and putting in a side door. Upstairs creating a master ensuite from a small bedroom and moving some walls and doors. Knocking down garage and replacing with garden rooms- a home office, home gym and some storage. Replacing bathrooms and rewiring and replumbing and redecorating and reflooring whole house. Then landscaping the garden. We’ll still be going at Easter I think 🤔!

But will be amazing when it’s finished! How fantastic to have a home gym and all that space.

Sounds exciting @Littlemissweepy @Martinisarebetterdirty

@RidingMyBike unless it's a builder you've worked with before or comes exceptionally highly recommended I would get other quotes. BUT trusting your builder has to be one of the most important things so if you have that relationship with the current one then I'm not sure I would go out for other quotes. And yes like @NewHouseNewMe I would get the structural engineer on board now.

@GardensandGrandDesigns is it going to be an awful lot of work to fix?

We keep plugging away here getting closer to the finish line. Electrics, flooring, a minor bit of plumbing to do. We have run out of storage as the kitchen has been delivered so things are everywhere but hoping by the end of this week we can start putting things in their right place. We are 36k over budget with a few final things so think it will be about 40k by the time we are all tallied up.

Will find out what the builder says tomorrow but might just need to add a bit more insulation so the spread plates touch the chipboard above. Meeting scheduled for 9am!

We're nearly finished now. A few snagging bits - need a couple of sockets moved over a couple of inches, some small bits of making good, and the shutters on one window needs reattaching.

I didn't budget at all for decorating - thought I'd do it myself with a newborn (pregnancy made me slightly mad, I think!).

We've been quoted £2.5-3k (excluding the actual paint but including all other materials) for the kitchen, study, utility cupboard, bathroom, hallway & landing, stairs (part of the treads, in prep for a runner) & bannisters, and all the internal doors. I think that's OK? The hallway & landing will need quite a bit of prep due to old patchy paper, whereas the rest is new plaster so will need mist-coating. The stairs, bannisters, spindles etc will be quite time consuming too, I think?

I also cannot work out how to set up & connect to the electric velux...

Thanks, yes, the builder was recommended by at least five separate people, including a project manager for a big commercial project. It's a bigger building company so they do some commercial work and things like schools as well as residential.

Trouble is that none of the other builders has any availability until at least next year whereas this one can fit us in because they have about 30 staff. We're in a temporary rental (we relocated for work so are new to the area) so we can't wait around forever before the work is done and we can't move in until at least the structural stuff, plumbing etc is done. We wanted to move in before end September because of our tenancy but there were so many delays with buying it's got pushed later and later.

@Littlemissweepy @Martinisarebetterdirty I think I’ll be on a similar trajectory to you. Builder has agreed to an October start with exact date to be confirmed. Doing a 15m2 infill extension to create a large L shaped open plan kitchen-dining-living space. Some internal walls coming down, and landscaper coming next week to assess and quote for back garden work post build.

We’ve chosen our kitchen, although currently going back and forward to the plans trying shave a couple of K off the price.

Looking forward to following everyone’s progress.

@AwkwardPaws27 , that sounds reasonable compared with ours! Our builder wants £2.5k for decorating an average sized kitchen diner (albeit with a sloping ceiling), small utility and downstairs loo. All new so mist coats as well as emulsion. Not sure if that includes the new snug… We’re SE.

I would do it myself but can’t really take leave around when it needs doing and we have two small DCs so I think we may have to suck it up.

@MyBuggyIsOutToGetMe thank you - we're East London/Essex borders. I thought it sounded OK but I've only had one room done before & feel quite clueless tbh! Ours was recommended by our builder but we're dealing with them directly.

DH also decided he wants a dado rail in the hallway with a darker colour on the lower half. I'm past caring, I've lost my inspiration and just want my house back now. Wish he'd decided on it before the joiner finished though...

DH has ADHD & has frankly been not very helpful. I have him two jobs; doors and lighting. Lighting is good but the doors have been a huge headache & I've had to get much more involved than I wanted. He managed to order the wrong size for the made-to-measure utility cupboard doors so we need to reorder them too (& pay for them again).

I think that quote for decorating is good @AwkwardPaws27 - I’ve budgeted £5000 in my head for decorating based on previous costs (getting a quote next week) and I think we have fewer areas than you to paint.

We have left ours to it and gone abroad for a fortnight in the sun, which has been well earned and much needed. At home the work has moved in and upstairs so we had a child using the lounge as a bedroom and another child on camp bed in our room (which is ground floor). The third child’s room isn’t affected by the work but all the free space has been filled with boxed possessions from the others so is also impacted! It’s been v relaxing for us all to escape and get away for a while!

When we left there were some builder queries over the structural engineer plans for upstairs and we had left them to liaise but the builder has since told us that the engineer agreed the original plan won’t work and they have to do something else that will involve removing and replacing part of the roof - so I’m waiting for the revised quote because he’s already said it will cost more and we should complain/try and work something out with the structural engineer as it was his error.

I didn’t rate our engineer or architect and would do a lot of things differently with hindsight, but I’m not sure what we can realistically do now - the work has started and needs to be completed, there are literally holes in walls etc, the engineer isn’t going to pay for the price difference is he?! We do have a contingency that we were feeling quite happy about because everything was running at budget - but I’m really worried about the extra cost the builder has alluded to - I’ve asked him to work out how much more and tell me but he hasn’t yet so no idea if it’s a few £1000s or much, more more (I’m really hoping we are taking fewer £1000s).

On the upside, the side extension is done, plastered, flooring going down today and I’m looking forward to seeing it when we are back. We have a painter we’ve used before coming to quote for decorating it all next week. We had a call yesterday to say that our dining table and chairs are ready for delivery too, which might be perfect timing, though I’m hoping we can get it painted first and that will depend on the painter’s availability.

We had real issues getting a builder @RidingMyBike - I contacted about 20 and only 2 actually quoted us, so many didn’t even respond, some responded initially and then stopped and never arranged to quote, it was quite stressful. We went with the more expensive quote because he was available sooner, and actually I really like our builders, they’ve coordinated it all themselves, and included things like the cost of moving the meters in their quote, whereas the cheaper quote builder wanted us to arrange and pay that separately. We had also budgeted for a few other things without realising they had included them in their quote, so that was helpful, like fitting the floor, utility room etc. the only thing they don’t do is decorating - but we have used local tradesmen for that before so aren’t bothered. So if you’re happy with your builder and want it done sooner then I’d go for it too.

@AwkwardPaws27 that sounds like a good price for decorating.

@RidingMyBike i was similar. Only had one quote. There were only 3 firms I considered (based on reputation and recommendation), 1 was booked up for over 12months, the other came to quote but then didn’t actually send one despite chasers, so the only one to communicate well and respond with a quote (and was our first choice based on recommendations) got the gig.

@Timwith2noses What role did the architect play? Have you found that the structural engineer and architect blame each other? It’s actually hard to claim off these pair unless you’re prepared to go to court. For them, it’s a £3K professional services job so they have moved on already.

In their defence, I will say that sometimes things are not as evident as they seem before the structure came down. I was supposed to have a particular feature - I have it but it’s half the size! Before the walls come down or access to the roof
space is achieved it can be hard to get exactly right.

It is such a contrast with the last time we did a house renovation (yes, we are this crazy!). That was at the bottom of a recession, tradesmen were desperate for work and VAT was lower so our money went further. We completed house purchase, got quotes organised and plans within six weeks (which included Christmas!), work started immediately and we could move in two months after that.

@NewHouseNewMe yeah I don’t think we can claim realistically, but it’s been a catalogue of delays, disinterest and what’s annoyed me the most - assumptions about what we want/can afford. We have never done anything like this so we’re hoping the architect would guide us through all the steps of planning etc, but he seems to have just cut corners and gone for easy solutions.

Eg: all along we said we wanted a lantern in the side extension (imagining the pyramid style) - he drew it flat and we didn’t realise until later - asked about raised but he said that wouldn’t then stay within permitted development - but we never asked for it to, would have happily gone for planning but months and months dragged on throughout this so we sucked it up.

Architect didn’t draw any boxing in of pipework that was previously external. Builders boxed it anyway.

Architect failed to draw an escape window from new room upstairs - we said all along we wanted a dormer to match the others - we’re now having velux for ease of not having to get structural engineer/architect back again.

Architect designed upstairs layout without accounting for head height and pitch of roof so bits won’t work.

There’s been so much little stuff that I feel we should have spotted before but when you don’t know what you’re doing and think you’ve been clear about what you want - I don’t know - the engineer was in the same vein. I did get a bit cross with him when he came round initially because he was dismissive of something I suggested ‘oh no, that will be too much disruption’ I was a bit ‘well mate, I live here and I’m paying so I think I get to decide if it’s too much disruption or not’

We are pretty laid back generally but if I ever did this again I’d be all over the plans and less assuming that the professionals could actually do what they had been asked to.

@Timwith2noses totally agree that we need to be very hands on. I thought that it would be best to leave it to professional to do the job but its our house so I find checking everyday, challenging the decision made helps alot. We had to have few things changed from the architecture too for example side windows are too high up when they were put in. We had to have 1 lowered after it was put in and tiled so had to pay the builder for the redo cost.

Our plumber was not be able to come today so fingers crossed for tomorrow.

@AwkwardPaws27 , we wasted floorings, decorative stuffs(cornice, panels, architrave), tiles because we were told to order 10% extra then it must have 20% wasted or more. We couldnt return because the policy is 30 days. Lesson learned for us if next time is to get the decoration included in the quote too as I feel my quote is overly too high(£12k for 4 bedrooms, 1 living room, staircase area, mist, 2 coats).

Had a run through of remaining bits with the boss. All positive, some tricky bits still to do though.

finding matching flooring to the existing hallway is proving trickier than I’d expected. May have to replace all of it. Which means a decision I’m not ready for, as well as the ££.

one guy here finishing off some painting in the porch.

they’re going to silicon around the kitchen units while we’re away.
and investigate opening up under the stairs.
have reminded him to email me with any questions rather than carry on and end up with something I don’t like.

nearly there!

TO DO:

The hallway; change the wall into open shelves for shoes and school bags and sort flooring and hooks

The original old sash window halfway up the stairs - waiting for the glass

Fireplace repair - September

painting - nearly finished

last electrics - New Ethernet cable for DS1’s Xbox upstairs and maybe some other internetty type wiring to finish - think they may have done this? Haven’t checked with the electrician

stripping back the old front door and oiling

porch doors and side doors - ✅

security lighting & cameras - waiting for alarm company advice - we’ve sorted the lighting ✅
cameras - going to ask around a bit more

patio to be tiled - tiles here, waiting for tiler availability - tiler is fully booked for a while…

patio glass balustrade put in (not ordered yet)

decide on loo roll holder, towel rail, mirror for downstairs loo. Long bare walls atm - maybe lots of artwork as have loads of framed stuff to put somewhere?

extra flooring to match hallway to go under the stairs & the downstairs loo - sample of ours sent to Karndean to see

+last bit of bespoke coving to match original - ordered due this week

Fix sealant in main bathroom and loft bathroom ✅
(apart from one tile is cracked, may need to replace or possibly repair?)

Snagging list of tiny things - already started on

deep clean post build, need to find a company

whatever else I haven’t thought of yet…

Sounds like we're all going through checking on the builders work constantly as they decide for us or don't do it quite right!

Our builder was pissed off about the ufh installation which we want redone upstairs. He blames the manufacturer but really they just needed to take the time to read the installation manual. I might go to site twice a day going forward...

Architect designed upstairs layout without accounting for head height and pitch of roof so bits won’t work.
That’s pretty unforgivable actually. That is literally all that an architect has to do; the SE has to work out the steels etc. It’s a major cock-up. As for having to live with velux rather than dormer windows, OMG! Does this person have a good reputation?

@Timwith2noses are they registered with RIBA? I would definitely think about making a formal complaint even if not for you but so they are aware.

Regardless though being on site everyday is a must I found and checking every new thing that has happened. No one on site tomorrow - the weather is blistering hot

We have wasted things here too but only a few things due to the builders. We've got a pile that I need to work out how to donate. I'm annoyed they threw away our leftover pearl mosiac tiles as they were beautiful and I was tempted to use them to upcycle a cabinet. We also have a large stain on the carpet which we can't seem to remove - even with isopropyl alcohol.