Works in Progress

Ozzie talks about his experience during the works in progress of his 1900 terrace refit:

Insulation

 ‘We agreed a date with our builder and he arrived three days before to finalise things. He started at the agreed time on the start date and he finished almost exactly on the finished date. And the delays finishing, were either because we added items e.g. the roof, or because a supplier, such as Velux Windows, delayed, or we discovered there were decisions we had to make and didn’t have the data to make them with.

We were not in the house, so we didn’t experience any real disruption:  It would have been impossible to live in the house during the works in progress. But that is because of the construction work not the eco-work.

 One problem was with the cold water supply:  When you lay a water pipe under concrete nowadays, the regulations show that you should have your blue water pipe in a sleeve.  It also needs to come out of the house 750mm below ground level.  This hadn’t been complied with so fortunately or unfortunately for us, the pipe checker said it’s failed, and so this needs remedial work spending on it.

 What is holding us back the most at the moment is finding someone to supply and fit triple glazed rear windows and doors with a U value of one or less, and supply these in a reasonable time.  We now have another option but it means that we are forced to go with windows that will be of a higher U value than we wish.  I think we should have cut our losses sooner and gone with another company rather than trying to persuade green companies to offer a better service.  For every month we are not living in the property, it costs us £1000 in rented accommodation. 

 The other thing that has made things complicated has been finding out about mechanical ventilation and heat recovery (MVHR).  The range of quotations we have seen has been between £1500 and £5000 for the same kit.  Companies are not that interested in one off projects.  They want large orders for new builds, or large orders from housing associations for refurbishment of 25 or more houses.  So there is a place in the market, for people who can do the job and are prepared to run it as a small business where they may make a moderate amount of money.

 We were told by one company not to do MVHR unless you can get the building airtight.  Getting an old house airtight is unlikely. Their specialist, who was brilliantly helpful in explaining what went on, said actually, I’ve got three months work and the director said you can’t go on talking to people when you have all this work piling up.  It is an area where there could be jobs but it’s more open to cowboys because good people are at capacity.  What I’m trying to put over is the complexity of finding out, making choices, and finding companies who are willing to work with you to do the work.

 The Solar Hot Water system was fitted by someone who had only previously completed four other systems.  He had been trained to an extent, but not in the detail.  Our heating and plumbing engineer knew more about it and had fitted more systems than the guy who had the certificate.

Solar Thermal

The system is not quite finished yet.  We haven’t had the hand over and we haven’t had the training.  The hand over is delayed by the water problem and the water problem is quite big; frustrating and complex.  Now that we have the window problem fixed, we can set our project plan in terms of where we are now and where we want to be.’

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