Extension thread 2022 part III.. celebrations, crises and will it be finished for Christmas?!

[NewHouseNewMe]

3rd thread of 2022 - can't believe I'm still here!

Our timeline has officially moved back two weeks, which now puts us in the last week before another month's rent due in March. And I think the timeline is already starting to slip as UFH is definitely not as far along as it's meant to be. Mainly because the plumber keeps disappearing to deal with other people's boilers!

Thinking of jettisoning the solar panels as they've now been delayed more than seven weeks which is delaying the scaffolding coming down which delays various other things. Originally I'd thought it made sense, as scaffolding up, to do the panels as part of this project, but not sure it makes financial sense given the cost of yet more time in rental.

Our solar panels weren’t ready when our scaffolding was up either, scaffolding came down pre Christmas and solar still not ready. We are just(!) sucking up new scaffolding costs when the time comes sadly.

I want solar panels - should’ve done them when we did the loft conversion years ago. Still on the list for one day…

Glass is being delivered on Monday, 🤞 it arrives ok and the guys can fit it asap.

Mysteriously the solar panels appeared in the 24 hours since telling the builder we'd jettison them if they couldn't get the part needed! Scaffolding can therefore come down next week!

Riding, that’s a stroke of luck. Glad they arrived in time.
Our sliders & windows have arrived and are sitting ready for install next week. @Littlessweepy, our doors are triple glazed too, I hadn’t realised until they arrived.

The floor goes down on Friday, and we are hoping push back the kitchen install until the end of Feb to give the floor time to dry out. We will have to run dehumidifiers to speed it up 😬.

@SheriffCallie sounds like you are at an exciting stage!

So turns out architect made a mistake (though hell will freeze before he admits it). We have 2 bi fold doors in our extension ans one is double and one is triple on the drawings. Turns out he meant triple for both. We’ve bought double for both. So we are just sticking with what we have and if building control have concerns our defense is - why would we put 2 different specs of doors in one room. The u value of both combined is more than the average of the 2 that are on drawings. Our supplier doesn’t do triple which is odd since so many of you have them.

We are now knocked through! This week has been busy with decisions - radiators (again, only just nailed final plan), fireplace and wood burner, door ironmongery, en-suite layout, gym layout, position of all sockets, bedroom flooring.

Interesting about the triple / double. Ours is a big room and to be honest it is really difficult to heat unless i have the heating blasting and then it costs a fortune....

I suspect we have double (but I don't know) and i'm thinking we should have gone triple for heat retention.

@nomoneytree I think you were the poster saying that your energy bills jumped hugely with your underfloor heating? Did it settle down? Do you have wet or electric underfloor heating?

Builders assuring me the extension will be very warm (we are having wet u/f) but hard to picture that at the moment to be honest!

@Littlessweepy yes thats me. Builders also assurred me that it would be toasty due to all the insulation but i haven't found that at all. Our utility is lovely and warm but the kitchen (approx 5.5m x 9m) with 2 sets of bifolds and high ceilings is very variable.

Our gas consumption is running at around £20 a day and we are only heating to around 18 degrees.

It's wet ufh.

@nomoneytreehere , our room is a similar size and we are currently waiting to hear from plumber if three radiators is enough, or if four would be better. No UFH for us. Hearing from you guys, I’m erring on side of four, even though our builders keep mentioning how “toasty” it will be with all the new insulation.
@Littlessweepy, I assume that if average U value of the two double glazed units is higher than the previous spec with two different, that should be fine to satisfy building control. It’s surely the combined effect of heat loss, rather than any individual unit?
Builder called round yesterday to explain there was an issue with the windows, and instead of the slimmer frames we upgraded to, only standard ones have been sent. We can get them changed, but the lead time is another 8wks, which will hold things up considerably for us. So disappointed, but erring on the side of accepting the (perfectly nice) standard windows and pushing on. Builder is apologetic and has offered to waive the additional costs we’ve sustained so far (extra steels, building work and ceiling levelling that came from survey/architect fuck up) by way of apology. No apology from architect btw. So it gives us a good few grand to make a start on redecoration on other parts of the house. I’m definitely at the pragmatic, “let’s get this finished” stage, rather than the idealistic “everything will be perfect”’one 😂.

Sounds similar here - though we are about 5.5m x 6m, 2 sets of bi folds, apex ceiling and 4 veluxes (will be making sure they are triple glazed).

@SheriffCallie exactly my thinking. I am going to move on from stressing over door glazing and u-values! Though lesson learned I won’t be assuming anything and will do more double checking (or triple checking …boom boom).

That mistake sounds like a nice little bonus actually. I have just had a revised estimate from my builder that has gone up nearly 200k on the previous estimate. I know we have been adding things and changing things as we go but about to do a forensic compare and prepare a million questions for him. That is a material change which is going to necessitate a complete re think on how this project is going to be financed 😩.

We have an unspecified problem with installing the UFH. I'm presuming downstairs as upstairs they're already doing screed over it! Plumber is going to talk to the manufacturer so hopefully we'll know more this week.

There have been quite a few problems with the ground floor as it wasn't at all level between different rooms and two bits lacked a DPC under the floor. I thought they'd managed to taper it off enough between rooms for the UFH to be ok though.

Omg @Littlemissweepy that is one hell of a price increase! What are you going to do?

Well we have finally got the bleeding wall built that was causing issues.I am going to say no more on the matter!

Good news is that means we are potentially only about 8-10 weeks from finishing. Top floor has been plastered. Screed needs to go down downstairs next week so that it can dry in time for the kitchen to go in in a few weeks time. Windows/doors either next week or week after.

We have triple glazed on the back of the house and double glazed on some windows. We had a north facing extension in our old house with under floor heating that was also expensive to heat so we've probably gone a bit overboard this time to avoid it. We also didn't opt for underfloor heating anywhere else this time!

Kitchen is already in storage waiting to be installed but not sure if they've actually ordered the bathrooms (they have the details).

Also need to think about all the transitions between floors. We have a range of floorboards in old part of house, Karndean in the new bits then tiles in the bathroom.

I mean we have UFH in the kitchen extension at the back but nowhere else (we had it all downstairs last time!).

What is the UFH problem @RidingMyBike ?

Oh no @Littlemissweepy what on earth caused that huge price increase? Ours is now £80k above first estimate, but the more detailed quote was more like that range so we knew what we were taking on.

I don't actually know @SpotOnMyBot!

All we've been told is that the plumber needs to talk to the manufacturer about a problem! This was after we told the builder last week that we have to move in in 8 weeks time as we can't afford rental and mortgage any longer. That's 8 weeks past the original finish date which already had some time added on for the plumber/UFH in case of problems. A bit fed up with the plumber as it seems to be them who've delayed things so far and they keep disappearing off to deal with other people's boiler emergencies.

We've spent the whole weekend stressing about it, which isn't great. We think it's something downstairs as the first floor has been relatively straightforward.

So frustrating. Hopefully it is a quick fix once they find out what it is. The chopping and changing of jobs is really annoying. I can see now that the builders were desperately finishing other jobs in time for Xmas as we barely had any progress on ours then.

We have also given an ultimatum to our builders because we cannot afford rent for April on top of everything else so we have to be back in argh

The ultimatum certainly seems to have concentrated minds! It seems to be the subcontractors (plumber and electrician) where the problems come. After giving our ultimatum towards the end of last week we suddenly had solar panels appear within 24 hours and the scaffolding will come down next week (both were meant to happen in early/mid December).

It's so hard to know which way the 'problem' will go. We had a drainage question/problem at one point which I stressed about for a fortnight as I thought it would mean extra expensive work, then it turned out there was a simple fix they'd already done and it was already fine (they'd told DH rather than me as he's on site more often!)

Cockup in communication meant glass started on its way here then turned around and went back. Anyway should come on Thursday, maybe, hopefully.

To Do List:

The original old sash window halfway up the stairs - can open and close, does need rebalancing to stay open, and then surround repainted.

Security cameras - have a new number to contact

Patio glass balustrade - just waiting for glass to arrive and be installed….

Downstairs loo: pick a mirror. Long bare walls atm - thinking maybe a large wallpaper sort of mural thing?

I keep adding bits
Including:
Broken tile in upstairs bathroom to be repaired

Broken edge of tile in kitchen to be repaired

couple of broken kitchen bits/edges of shelves type thing
downstairs loo seat seems to have come loose? Fixed ✅

door seal of bifold door is loose

touching up edges of storage area once builders have moved their stuff out

tidying up random piles of crap in the back garden - old bits of tiles mostly I think? - most going in the last and final skip coming on Thursday.

Deep clean post build, need to find a company - have a recommendation,not contacted yet, may wait until Jan and post Christmas mess

Meeting with the builder to discuss costs was yesterday and he’s doing us a revised estimate. Some of the items were mistakes, others are double counted with other trades so will come off. But there is so much still to be added on - bathrooms, tiling, flooring etc. Some of the items he didn’t put on first estimate and should have (like demolishing garage - was always part of the project - was done months ago but is now on estimate as a new item - 10k). He’s also applied a 10% increase to absolutely everything - so 25k just added on because of “inflation”. It’s depressing :(

10%? Oh no. What was the time difference between quite and work? We were worried about inflation but our builder is honouring the quotes, but there were only four months between quote and work starting so I’m assuming either the materials were purchased early on, or my builder accounted for rises.
Work is progressing here. Two sets of sliders were installed, but one pane of glass was the wrong size, so we have a single board still in place. The light is amazing, even with this. 3-4 weeks to get the replacement :(. ‘Wrong’ windows are in, and look good, so it was a fortunate mistake. Floor is being poured tomorrow, and we will get dehumidifiers in to try to dry it out. We are now trying to line up floor fitting, then kitchen fitting. On the home straight and maybe done by Easter?

More annoyance here, glass delivery finally happened after a cockup on Monday.

but builders are not happy with the quality and don’t want to install it.

have to confess I know nothing. But didn’t realise I was getting glass that was made up of two panels stuck together.
there has been ‘laminate slippage’ apparently so the edges don’t line up properly. The business says there is some allowance covered by standards but I have to provide measurements and today I just cba. Will try and get photos and measurements over the weekend but I know the guy will say it’s within the allowance.

as I’m having frameless and no handrail it’ll be obvious and totally annoying to have mismatched edges. Grrrr.

We are absolutely aiming to be in by Easter - in fact it really needs to be 1 April

I am hoping the roof is done now

Windows should be next week Thursday

Most of the upstairs is plastered - we need the screed done in the kitchen and the plastering in the extension and all plastering downstairs

Still to do - screed, rest of plaster, bathrooms/kitchen installation, floors, drive, patio

8 weeks and counting!