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I've been renovating my house top to bottom for some time now. It's much easier to list the things NOT being replaced, namely: - Most of the external walls - Two of the internal walls - Two rooms worth of floor joists - Two ground floor concrete slabs - The roof That's it. Everything else is being redone, with 3 extensions added to boot. Bits of this have cropped up in other threads and I'll fill in the events up to this point with lots of photos eventually, but you join me now at a crucial time where I've had a big falling out with the builder and a phone call in an hour or so will determine whether he finishes the project or I can his rear end on the spot. I've come to the conclusion that this guy is a pathological liar. He's no Molyneux, he won't invent stuff for no reason, but when confronted with even the slightest error that I really don't give a poo poo about other than to get it right he will dig in and lie at full force rather than admit it. He's not averse to using his wife's chronic illness as an excuse. The current issue centers around the events of this weekend. I've been living in the house the whole time (that's a fun experience, by the way), and he'd requested that I properly get out of the place for 2 weeks so he and the electricians can really go to town on the entire property at once. I gave him the two weeks, and on Tuesday last week talked to him on the phone about which room I should move back into on Saturday when I got back, we agreed to talk about it later in the week when work was further along. On Thursday we spoke again and agreed that the room I'd been using before was the best bet, but he had to plasterboard the ceiling because the fibreglass insulation wasn't safe to sleep under. We then have this text conversation:  So I show up on Saturday evening after a 9 hour drive and no plasterboard. No sheeting. No doors inside the house. In fact now there's no rooms left at all that can be fully closed off. Washing machine and dishwasher disconnected from the water (I'm otherwise living out of a tiny sink with no hot water so this is important). I confront the guy over text, and suddenly this was always the plan, of course the place is uninhabitable, in fact the work they're doing for the next week or so needs me out of the house. He invents a phone conversation from whole cloth where we supposedly discussed and agreed this. I'm loving furious but of course I'm the bad guy for getting angry. We agree to defer to today, where either we're going to move on but with some much stricter process around communication so he can't pull this poo poo again, or if he digs in deeper trying to gaslight me some more he can get the gently caress out. I'm not looking forward to that if he kicks up a fuss about money. I'll update later on.
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Jun 26, 2017 07:53
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Phone call has been had. We both agreed to put the "misunderstanding" behind us because it's too much hassle to do otherwise. You can bet everything's going to be confirmed in writing from now on. Apropos of nothing he also told me that this weekend his van broke down and someone drove into an electricity pylon (???) taking down the electricity to his area. Why? Why lie about something irrelevant and easily verifiable? Anyway, that drama out of the way I'll get on to posting progress pictures.
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Jun 26, 2017 08:35
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In September of 2015 I had an offer accepted on a house. It was a 4-bed detached house in a quiet residential street in Kent, England, and the negotiated offer was a little over £300k. Built in 1908 or thereabouts by the builder who then lived in it. This being a predominantly north american forum I should mention that making and offer and having it accepted has absolutely zero legal weight on either side. It's not until you "exchange" signed contracts that you're each bound to the deal. This leads to the building of "chains" where a sequence of offers to buy and sell are constructed, with people relying on selling their house as a prerequisite to buying the next one. When everyone's happy all the lawyers exchange on the same day and everyone's locked in. It's an absolute shitshow, and typically takes around 3 months to complete at best. Since it's my first house I didn't have a house to sell, so I was the start of the chain. Around mid December it looked like everyone was in a position to exchange when the other end of the chain, the guy selling but not buying, pulled out. Cue 5 months of chaos as the half-dozen-properties-long chain has to reorganise in order not to throw all the work in the bin. Finally around May 2016 we're ready to exchange, only it's been 6 months since I got my mortgage offer and it expires one week before exchange. Hurried phone calls to banks ensue and we're at last good to go. The lawyers take their pound of flesh and the house is mine. I'd always planned on renovating this place, but perhaps not quite as much as I've wound up doing. I remember walking around the property during the viewing and saying out loud the words "nothing a redecoration won't fix". Those words haunt me to this day. Here's what the house looked like at that time:              After taking ownership and checking the place out more thoroughly it quickly became clear that the PO (for the last 60 years) had done the bare minimum of tidying up the decoration before selling on, and that the answer to every question regarding the house was "how can we do it cheapest?". Nothing seemed disastrous but nothing seemed good either.
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Jun 26, 2017 14:02
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SoundMonkey posted:"rest in peace OP" Yeah. Nothing summarises the approach the PO took better than this photo:  I was laughing hysterically by the time I hit tile. Many things were slipshod and half-arsed in that house, sadly without detailed photos, but my conclusion was it all needed ripping out. - The wall plaster was lovely and bubbling and showing signs of damp (I negotiated the price down to remedy that). - The ceilings had about 7 different coverings ranging from polystyrene tiles to paint on bare plasterboard. - Doors: poo poo - Windows: not that bad, turned out kinda poo poo - Kitchen: mediocre to poo poo - Electrics: gently caress me, I think the only reason the place hadn't burned down is the lillywhite weakass power supply wasn't up to the task - Gas: who put that loving meter there - Plumbing: run along walls in the open, rusted out stopcocks, get tae gently caress - Rear extension (pictured above) vented heat like it was its job - Stairs real fuckin' steep. Like 65º. So my initial plan was fairly basic, open up some walls downstairs because it was hella cramped. Replace all the plaster. Replace all the electrics. Replace all the plumbing. Try to remove all the piers and headers left around the place by the side extension (the long hallway with the bike in). Maybe see about the quality of the rear extension. I started talking to builders. First builder gave me a £30k estimate but told me my "removing walls" plan needed a structural engineer to weigh in. Second builder gave me a £30k estimate but told me my "removing walls" plan needed a structural engineer to weigh in. Third builder.. well you get the idea, I talked to a structural engineer. The SE was helpful but many of the questions I had for him were outside his area of expertise. Like what the heck do I do with new stairs if these walls are removed. He suggested maybe I should talk to an architect.
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Jun 27, 2017 19:30
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So by this point it's July 2016 and I went to an architect. First cost on the project, £1,434.00. They came round and measured a lot, took many a photo. They put together this drawing of the current property:  Then they went away for a couple of months with this very long email from me about what I wanted: Some rear end in a top hat with too much time on his hands posted:What's wrong with the current layout tldr: I didn't want any rooms off the beaten path unless they had a strong purpose, I was going to put Many Wires in the place and needed somewhere to nexus them, and I wanted fewer walls or at least fewer right angles since the sightlines were awful and you're constantly juking to get anywhere. We discussed things back and forth and eventually I went out to their offices to pick from three options. Bearing in mind my target build cost at this point was still £30k, they came up with three shufflings about of space, one of which involved knocking down the lovely back extension and not building new ones, the second involved replacing the back extension. I don't have any images of those unfortunately as they were discussed in person, but there just wasn't enough room for the rooms I wanted. No builder-grade layouts for this guy, oh no. The third option was this, and is approximately what I wound up going for (dark grey = existing walls, white = new walls, dotted = removed walls):  Once I was happy enough with it it was time to get some new builder quotes.
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Jul 1, 2017 12:53
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Will do. My posts are a little far apart because it can take some digging to bring together the details from back then, but worth doing anyway. So we're into January and February of 2017 and I'd had lengthy chats with some builders, mostly the ones I'd spoken to previously. There's a couple of builder stereotypes in the UK, one is the fat gruff cockney builder who shows his butt crack whenever he bends down, another is the "oi oi football lads that chick last night phwoar" type of guy. I had one each of those and a third who was more quiet and thoughtful and I could see his brain working the same way mine did. Unfortunately he wasn't really kitted out in terms of crew for the larger scope of the job so I wound up going with the banter lad who at least had the same attention to detail as I do. I don't have the contract in front of me to pull the list of things in phase 1 but based on emails and memory it was something like this: - Gut and redo walls, ceilings, throughout, back to brick/stud. - Check/remedy damp proofing throughout. - Remove and replace rear extension - Build side extension - Relocate attic entry - Raise lintel / remove empty door frame between landing and rear of house upstairs - Raise void above entryway - Replacing doors & frames - Remove gas fire from east fireplace - Check & clear both chimneys - Open both fireplaces up in prep for future use - Gut and replace wiring throughout - Gut and replace plumbing throughout - Supply underfloor heating throughout - Relocate gas service pipe if needed due to location of side extension - Floorboards to be replaced with tongue and groove plywood flooring - Concrete floor in kitchen/diner to be installed appropriately for a polished concrete finish at a later date - Render rear and side walls (northeast and northwest) in white kRend material - Vault master bedroom The rendering was supposed to get bumped to phase 2 but he forgot that part and didn't add on the extra cost. It hasn't been done yet but if he doesn't notice then that's £2700+VAT saved. Phase 1 build price: £102,804.40 inc VAT (~£30k deposit, 24 weekly payments, and 5k finishing payment). Total cost so far: £104,238.40 Next up, obtaining planning permission. (Edited to add correct figures) Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Jul 3, 2017 |
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Jul 3, 2017 11:41
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I see a lot of mention to contractors "pulling permits" in US threads and I sort of get it from context but here's the deal for the UK. Permissions come in two forms, first is "planning permission" which is all about the visuals and historical guff. Things like whether your side-neighbour-facing windows are frosted or your house is some kind of precious artefact. There's an arcane set of rules about what does or doesn't need planning permission, and another arcane set you're not really privy to about whether you're granted it when requested. The second is the safety aspect and is a collection of rules grouped under the banner of "building regulations". This is about fire egress, smoke alarms, load-bearing teakettles and minimum insulation R-values. Planning permission is the important one* and often the hardest to get, so it's almost always sorted out in advance. They check it when you're done but otherwise you don't hear from them unless you need to change something. Building regs are in theory sent off in advance but in reality you notify them a week before you start work and keep an open dialogue with your local building regs guy who comes round periodically to make sure your foundations are deep enough etc. With planning it's your architect who keeps the open dialogue during the application process to smooth things along. The architect had already started the planning process in late November of 2016 so it could happen in parallel to my negotiations with builders. Some decisions precipitated at this point as they covered items which, once they were in the plan, couldn't be changed without redoing the approval. Namely: cladding choices and windows/skylights & doors on extensions. I quickly researched these and we went for hardwood cladding on the rear and side extension, same at the front. Actually now I'm thinking about it we're changing the front cladding to render and that might need a change to planning. BRB. OK builder informed. Where was I? Right, planning permission. The architect and I got the finer details sorted and it was submitted to planning early December of 2016. It was granted mid-January 2017. Cost: £172.00 Total cost so far: £104,410.40 Next: structural engineer. *in the sense that building regs problems are engineering problems and can usually be solved to keep whatever it is you wanted, whereas planning problems are often intractable because they're rejecting your aesthetic or the broad thrust of your structural changes on the basis of legislated decorum and etiquette Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jul 3, 2017 |
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Jul 3, 2017 15:53
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I guess that's why we don't have to do that. You're not allowed to put in something new against regulations but you can leave as-is or even replace like for like without having to fix it, and that's not even in listed buildings. That pair of steps at the top of the stairs in the photo is against regulations because doors need to be set back from the top of staircases now, but I don't have to fix it even though the house is basically being ripped to pieces. The idea of "oh you're doing enough work that now you need to bring everything up to standards" is literally a foreign one here. In listed buildings I'm told it actually goes the other way sometimes, with the law forcing the owner to downgrade the materials to match the original heritage during repairs. That may be apocryphal though.
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Jul 4, 2017 07:06
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Work order: replaced the asbestos with woven megaspider silk plates Charges: $60 plus $1.3m in hospital bills
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Jul 4, 2017 10:13
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cakesmith handyman posted:Only an ensuite upstairs for 2 bedrooms, cinema room and an office, downstairs shower room as small "main" and 3rd bedroom. This has changed in a way that isn't shown on any diagram due to getting drafting changes done being like pulling teeth. The dogleg that the new MBR wall performs in the drawing is no longer there, it's now a straight wall aligned with the wall below, with a landing linking the top of the stairs to the new set-back bedroom door. The bathroom door has been moved out so it also opens onto the new landing. This means that the upstairs bathroom is now open to all and no longer an en suite. cakesmith handyman posted:How about : The front rooms (up and down) aren't big enough for a cinema room if you put in any kind of bathroom. The back bedroom won't actually be a bedroom, you can pretty much ignore any labels and fixtures on the diagrams, they're just whatever the architect plonked down. The long back room upstairs will be for music instruments, non-work PC etc. The small back room is just fine as an office, I really don't need much space. cakesmith handyman posted:Are you committed to a void over the stairwell? Is there space there for a compact shower room as an ensuite to the master, leaving a main bathroom as convention? Very committed at this point, as you'll see shortly. The best option for an en suite would be to double up the height of the side return extension and hook it in there, though you'd lose space for cupboards in the MBR due to the door. I didn't do this because the cost (£10k) wasn't worth it for me at this stage. The foundations have been dug deep enough for two floors on both extensions, though. Edit: to answer your question more specifically about space for a compact shower room if I kept the structure there; it was previously a small closet, I'd say there would be room for a shower cubicle and nothing else. The benefit to the entrance to losing that space is very worth it in my opinion, especially having seen it in person all torn out. Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Jul 4, 2017 |
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Jul 4, 2017 10:35
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I think we went through 3 skips and two crane-loaded trucks of hardcore. Not including the wood which I believe the builders are going to bonfire any day now. There's not really much left in the house so I think that'll be it once the front extension is dug out and the new entrance put in. And maybe the old windows.
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Jul 4, 2017 11:11
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The previous one was a big ol' victorian thing sliced up into 4 flats and placed on a slope, so it was a bit all over the place. I don't think there were two rooms in the whole place that could be traversed without using a stair.
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Jul 4, 2017 15:29
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OK so I had the architect's drawings, I had a builder quote, need a structural engineer. Not only can he tell us the implementation details of my dumb architectural decisions but his additions to the architect's drawings are needed before they can be submitted to building control. Can't break wall until then. Found a place on the internet not too far away, got a quote, booked him in, donezo*. Eventually the drawings arrived and they looked something like this:  Fee: £780.00 Total spent so far: £105,190.40 *not quite donezo as we'll see later. Take a look at this photo of the "dining" room and see if you can figure out why. 
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Jul 11, 2017 21:04
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Okay so we're at early March 2017 and work actually starts, almost a year after I took ownership. The words "done by christmas" rang loudly in my ears. That was supposed to be christmas of 2015. The garden looks like this:   First off they ripped out the kitchen:  I still don't have a kitchen, and I don't expect to have one before November. Next they started on this lovely extension. Here's a shot with the roof off:  Also that bush is on fire. They set fire to that thing 3 times before finally ripping it out. Back extension gone:  It was so badly made they ripped it down by hand. This tree is a problem:  It's close enough to the new footings that the building inspector is a touch concerned. I don't really want it anyway not least because it looks like a giant veiny cock. Out.   If you ever do find yourself getting serious work done I can vouch for these dust doors. They really worked, until so much of the house was torn apart that it was pointless trying to seal it anymore:  I'll leave you with a bit of a mystery, this was found behind the plasterboard in the kitchen: 
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Jul 12, 2017 22:30
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I've seen it completely uncovered and I'm still not entirely sure.
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Jul 13, 2017 17:08
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I've just had to give the builder an ultimatum after he no-showed a meeting I had to book a hotel for, with no notice and no communication. I've sent him a 3 page email detailing the build up of issues and a number of conditions for continuing the work, otherwise he's out.
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Jul 16, 2017 16:06
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Well, I got his response and he's agreed to the terms. We've agreed a process to ensure any verbal changes are put on paper and he's agreed that whether he agrees or not about the issues they are at the very least serious breakdowns in communication. His work ethic is good when it comes to actual building, but poo poo when it comes to big picture communication. I've known lots of software developers like him. It's easy to say fire him and lord knows it's the option which provides the easy out, but only for about five minutes. It's a fixed price contract so we'd then have to deal with money, getting him out of the property with all his gear when I'm not nearby, and then sourcing new builders willing to complete (and warranty) someone else's work for the same amount of money remaining on the project. On a build this size if I can patch up the working relationship enough to get to the finish line it'll be far less hassle than trying to make a change at this point.
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Jul 17, 2017 06:41
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Wow so this thread got away from me. I left my laptop on site for several months and so on and so forth. Where were we. Late March? Something like that. Internal demolition begins!       The pond becomes considerably less pond-like:  We found this shoe in the ceiling of one of the rooms, apparently a thing. Wound up donating it to a museum which has a special collection of these things.  Woops, found a hole in the roofing felt. Will fix that eventually.  Apparently building built-in cupboards and THEN plastering the wall was A Thing back then.  No money spent here but the tree removal from the last post was £220+VAT so we're at £105,454.40 all-in so far.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:11
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Late March and excavations begin on the new rear extension foundations!  I think the trench and the tread marks really give it that WW1 feel, complete with anti-tank barricades:   First of MANY bulk material deliveries arrive:   Plus a new inspection chamber for the waste route, which I'm told is called a "bin" in the sewage trade:  Concrete pour went in, visited by cats and foxes in the night. The builder reckons it's a badger, but it's a goddamn fox alright:  Also found this little hand made castle toy:  Concrete path removal in garden £360+VAT. Total cost so far £105,886.40.
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Sep 2, 2017 18:22
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A few days pass and I'm working on a circuit board for a lighting control circuit that I never used. The builder and I start having a chat about this orphaned chimney breast and perhaps getting rid of it. The gap to the right had a cupboard built in which the architect drew as a continuation of the wall, which nearly cost me a bunch of money later.  The first dirt floor under the house is uncovered. No bodies, sorry.  This toilet is sealed. Why?  To avoid me accidentally making GBS threads into my new foundations.  (it's the trench for the side extension)  Slab insulation shows up, and there's a whole lot of it.  The temporary bathroom/kitchen/utility is less than salubrious  Dumps.  Interior demo continues.  The apprentice very kindly works around my distance markings, how sweet.  Found some old stamps!  Remember these tiles?  After dragging out the 5 layers of lino we uncover the pattern:    Notice that hole on the right? That's the old kitchen fireplace, the flue is above it. Still not sure what all this business on the rest of that wall is though:  Blocks go in to prep for the rear extension slab:  Rest of the blocks are lined up ready for the build:  Ever wondered what the inside of a wall looks like?  This is what it looks like when you slice through a shoddily made brick wall (the two-storey side extension was done cheaply by the PO)  Temporary water supply looped in and the ground cleared for the side extension  More bulk mats   Some DALI boards arrive for the LED project I didn't do:  I don't know if any of you have ever registered a company but in the UK it goes into a public directory and you start getting business-related spam through the door. Turns out when your successful planning application goes public you get kitchen brochures instead:  Rear slab prep and pour!   The builders constructed this defence to, I swear to god, "keep the badger out".  It didn't work.  Side extension blocked and prepped for slab pour:  More wartime set dressing  As per engineer instructions the blockwork on the rear extension had to be stitched into the inner skin of the brickwork, which necessitates slicing a big slit in the wall:   By now the inside of the house is starting to do this:  And the outside looks like this:  No additional expenses, cost still £105,886.40.
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Sep 2, 2017 19:03
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Suspect Bucket posted:Those are very much mostly kitty paw prints. A fox would have toenail marks, and badger would look like tiny bear paws with five toes, and also have toenail marks. Oh the majority of them are the local bastard cats for sure, but here's a close up on what (based on your handy chart) looks a lot like fox prints to me:  I was previously going off the fact that I've seen a fox about the place and not badgers, but your chart confirms it  The prints were not the major issue as far as the builders were concerned so much as the intruder kept digging in their sand, which, again, fox.
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Sep 4, 2017 06:55
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Leng posted:Yay for updates! I was afraid that the thread had died but glad to see that's not the case. Hm. I'd say it was an even split between architect (and their drafter), structural engineer, and builder. The architect produced drawings that looked like this:  The SE then took the AutoCAD files and produced drawings that looked like this:  The architect (and/or their drafter) then took those and made these, which became both the submission to building control and the final scale drawings the builder worked to:  I don't know what the division of labour was inside the architect firm so I can't help as to whether an independent drafter could do what you want. I say the builder was a third involved too; he was lightly involved in the planning phase mostly in terms of reality (and price) checking the structural changes before they went to the SE, but the majority of his input was the two of us dealing with emergent issues as they came. For example I mention in the post us discussing removing the disconnected chimney breast. In fact we wound up removing and rebuilding that whole wall because as a previously external brick wall it was 300mm thick (not counting the chimney breast). Replacing it with stud took it down to 100mm and gave me some room back. A lot of these on-site changes were of the form "hey we have a problem, here's a proposed solution are you OK with that" or both of us working towards a solution. Example, here's the final drawings for the profile of the rear extension:  Firstly, didn't want that beam exposed if we could avoid it, so the builder managed to hide it in the ceiling. Secondly, what's missing in this image? Drainage. Now that extension is to be clad in larch and having some great ruddy drainpipes in the front corners would look poo poo. So we both went away and independently came up with the same solution (after my less practical ones were shot down), which is to slope the roof back towards the house instead and collect the rain in one back corner where the pipe can go next to the join between the cladding and the render, reducing its visual impact. If I hadn't really given too much of a poo poo about the details I could've set this builder going with those drawings and just said yes a few times when a solution to some problem was suggested, and I probably would've been a lot less stressed, but that's not the type of person I am, sounds like you aren't either. As such expect to have to figure things out on the fly and hope you have a builder who can get creative. One of the problems I had with the builder as detailed further up in the thread is that he has a habit of plowing on with work without checking with me first. As a fellow control freak I would recommend documenting ideally in drawing form stapled up in the house any changes you discuss so that if your builder does the same at least they're doing what you want them to. Edit: Oh, and no fancy architectural touches will survive contact with the fire regulations, so expect some negotiation to figure out how to get it done. For example I didn't want any doors between the kitchen/diner and the front hallway, which means fire can spread from the kitchen to the front door under the mandated 30 minutes, cutting off the way out. The solution (negotiated with the builder and the window fitter) was to make all upstairs bedroom windows fully opening egress windows, and the roof of the extension your exit route. Really looking forward to hopping out of a window onto glass while a fire rages underneath it. I also wanted exposed beams in the vaulted bedroom but that's another fire regs violation unless you get them coated and the builder wanted a specialist to do that and certify it, so I didn't bother. He offered to fit some fake beams where you can't tell the difference but man that is not my style. Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Sep 4, 2017 |
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Sep 4, 2017 07:21
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I used those drawings to build a 3D model of the place and tbh I could've used more! Also half way through that model I learned item 604 out of 4723 things I learned on this project: the drawings are always a little bit wrong.
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Sep 4, 2017 07:43
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Perhaps a little overwhelming but I'm going to  because we've still got a lot of catching up to do.It's mid-April now and the same stuff continues, namely interior demo and rear/side-return extension construction. I was initially concerned that this might be a horrendous mould infestation but no, just bitumen, which is a good thing to put on a hot chimney breast because..?   Not that it matters much, because it's coming out! In the meantime I'm continuing work on my LED project that I never used (I might use a few bits in the kitchen later): The most Shenzhen box ever:  24V? 12V? Eh it's all the same.     I waded through hundreds of pages of terrible ISO-standard £500/section protocol documents to make this happen, i.e. proper RGBW/CCT control of a DALI box. Hint: if you're ever working with an international standard and don't want to pay your country's outrageous prices, it's an international standard, buy it from a cheaper county instead. I recommend South Africa. These mockups should show you what my original idea was:   I then started researching kitchens.  First off, nice, second, I got enough recommendations for induction despite that poll that I'm going to give it a try anyway. Meanwhile, blocks pared back for stitching.  Door lintel goes on the side extension.  This is where I learned another lesson, by idly measuring the height of it. 2000mm. Me: "All the external doorways are supposed to be 2100" Builder: "Nah I took scale off the drawing" "What, this drawing?"  "Oh, yeah you win that one"  Rear extension continues  Getting access to the rear wall because much like my guns it's about to get jacked up  Shitton of steel arrives  Rear extension skin continues  The rear access is put on hold for a moment while we deal with this wall, which is being removed and a steel put across to pick up the roof above.  Smashy smashy  But wait, what's that hiding off in the other room?  Ugh, mouldy insulation. Either sweating insulation or a flat-roof leak. Put that one on the "deal with later" list. More smash   Blasted Took! Wall stitching continues   The set decorators have cleared out the WW1 filming and are gearing up for Mad Max  The front isn't looking much better  but that must mean..  The wall is gone.  I should probably price up all the money spent on the lighting plans. I'll do that next.
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Sep 4, 2017 09:29
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Lighting experiment costs: - Samples of LED strips and control boxes from Shenzhen: £48.61 - DALI control circuits: £34.78 Everything else was bits and kit that I had lying around. Total spend £105,969.79.
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Sep 4, 2017 14:04
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April 25th. A couple of asides to begin with. Remember this photo showing the wall ties holding the inner and outer skins of the wall together?  This is what they looked like in 1908:  Also found this, which at first glance is from 1939, but is actually from the 70s:  Speaking of old, crappy things, here's the gas fireplace I removed, with orange marble surround.  So the main work here is to open up the back of the house so it can flow through to the new extension as one room. The process for that is to knock out a few bricks and put in some jacks which hold up the wall while you knock the bottom out. Unfortunately all the mortar in my house is ancient dogshit and while it's fine and dandy dealing with a distributed compressive force, the moment you start trying to hold up the wall on a couple of points it starts to crack and fall apart. Big Piece Of Wood to the rescue    Sorry, neighbour's airspace. With that secured we can fit the steel upstairs to hold the roof   And with that done it's rip out and refit time          Bricks begone!    In goes the new joists, I was away for this so the builder sent selfies     
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Sep 4, 2017 14:30
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Things are still happening faster than I can post about them but I will endeavour. Mid May and the side return extension gets its upper courses.   Garden continues its descent.   In go all the new joists at the back (with treacherous traversal options).       Ceiling joists on the side-return  The master bedroom gets vaulted  The upstairs is getting pretty empty now, at this point I'm living in the sealed room on the left:    but at least a wall is going in:  Wall cap framed out to split the vaulted hallway from the remnant of the attic  Time to reduce the size of the master bedroom to open up the headspace in the hallway.      What's this hiding at the back?  It's the old boiler  Byee 
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Sep 16, 2017 13:25
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Some diversions. These two fellas show up because my drains are full of poo poo, turns out they're very hard to access  The rear extension roof isn't quite weatherproof yet  but it does look nice open  More walls cleared down   Executive toilet stall installed 
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Sep 16, 2017 13:29
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A new trade enters! The sparkies are on site and ripping out all my poo poo.  Time to chuck the rest of that bedroom floor    Hallway head height open   Start ripping out the upper hallway wall   (aaaaaahhh) If I could keep this open with the same light I would, but it'll be blocked by ceilings 
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Sep 16, 2017 13:39
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The drain people return, it's REALLY hard to get at my interceptor, it seems And roughing out the kitchen so the sparks know where to put the power  Ghetto power supply (still like that as I sit next to it today)  That's it for now, more later.
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Sep 16, 2017 13:42
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Are you saying that there's line items for "profit" and "overhead" on there? If so that's not something I've ever seen either as a client or a contractor myself. Every contractor I've worked with has either charged an opaque amount for either the whole job or parts of the job and that amount included overhead and margin, or they've charged a day/hour rate in a similar fashion. For the fitting of my small bathroom this crew charge a standard £3,400 (i.e. he charges that amount for all bathrooms, not that it's necessarily an industry standard). That includes any construction and fitting required, and tiling (inc subfloor and adhesive), but doesn't include the hardware, fixtures, tiles, or grout. I believe he charges similar amounts to fit a kitchen. I agree with Indolent Bastard's suggestion.
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Sep 18, 2017 07:22
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You tear at my dark capitalist heart with your transparency and equitability.
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Sep 18, 2017 09:11
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Leng posted:It looks like you were living on site during the whole demo and build? What was that like? How much time did you actually spend on site overseeing the reno? Not only living on site but working there, as I work from home. So I've been on site pretty much 24/7 with the exception of a couple of months where I went to stay elsewhere. I would not do it again. Being around made it a lot easier for me to keep an eye on what the builder was doing, not to supervise, I trust them to do things right, but to make sure they're doing the thing that I think they're doing. Being off-site would involve much more stringent and precise communication than was really workable with this crew, but probably a good idea regardless. Being on-site saved me, what, 6-10k in rent, but I think it would've given me much much lower stress.
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Sep 18, 2017 15:00
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dreesemonkey posted:Loving the work and updates. I like the opened up front entry/staircase a lot. The big gap at the top of the stairs gets half filled back in when the bathroom gets rebuilt, but it does at least clear the entryway itself and removes the header wall over the upper back hallway.
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Sep 18, 2017 15:02
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Still in May, we uncover the remaining tilework. Was a shame to rip that out. This wall was a little.. wobbly.. so we replaced it.   Some temporary "not dying" structures outside my room.  The sparkies get to work.    Clearly it would be too much trouble to specify whether this fuse was 60 or 80 and it's illegal to open it so.. put a call in to UKPN.  More junk     Rear extension gets covered and studwork    Putting in the extra steels and replacing various walls cost £2,640. Total cost so far £114,246.52.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:37
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Speaking of some of those walls..  This catnic gotta get raised yo, it was made for a grandma   A craned-neck view of the rafters above the entry hall  Brick up dat window bicth    Side extension gets wrapped and studden   More floors go bye    More power   The oven supply is rated for something like 42A but even that's a push, as the likely range to go in would hit 63A@230V if all of its functions were cranked at once. Had to move the gas supply    Gas supply work £760.80. Total cost so far £115,007.32.
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Sep 18, 2017 17:50
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This has remained my entire aesthetic for many months now Uncovered the hearth, and while lifting the floorboards, an old hammer presumably left by the builders.    Downstairs floorboards come up and boy are these joists rotten as heck    And sistered joints propped up on stacks of slate  See ya    Lintel time    Picked out likely choice for internal doors  This spot is probably a good choice for An Art later on   Replacing floor joists £552.00. Total £116,111.32. Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 17:59
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End of May and I spend a weekend or so running some cat 7a. Don't @ me.     Not super fun working up on this     Babby's first toolbelt, I won't work up a ladder again without one  I accidentally burnt out the builder's £300 drill, fortunately the replacement part was £20 delivered.  In the end I wound up getting the builder to finish off the wiring. He used too much so I had to buy another reel. There's like 700m of cable built into this house now. Network cable £624.85. Drill part £23.98. Total costs so far £116,760.15.
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Sep 18, 2017 18:24
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POSTS! It's late June and Things are Happening. The new pad goes under the kitchen, lowering the floor there so we can fit in the new floor height  Up go some stud walls    Underfloor heating on the new downstairs joists   ta-daaa Decided to add some remote-operated Velux skylights. One in the master bedroom, one above the entryway.     Velux costs: £2,946.10 Total spent: £119,706.24 Jaded Burnout fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Sep 30, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 16:01
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Going to have to clear out this fireplace at some point. Network cabling gets finished     Hoofa doofa that bundle.
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Sep 30, 2017 16:13
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