The House Projects Thread

[McSwede]

What are you planning for the inside wall?

That'll come out at some point and insert a steel beam to open it all up. If you look carefully you'll see that the old back door is still there. They just boxed it in One of the many bodges!

[Swervin_Mervin]

Photos?

I'll grab some tomorrow at some point. The gable end of the extension is...quite shit.

[Simon]

We had our new boiler fitted on Tuesday. BG man did a reasonable job of it all, considering that the old boiler was the original from when the house was built 30 years ago. A nice new Vaillant sits in its place. Have Hive too, as figured we'd only go 'full Smart' when evohome is updated and we're in the next house.

Smart meters fitted last Thursday but the gas meter is still not sending readings and Bulb have been utterly fvcking shit at fixing it. They just don't care.

[DeskJockey]

We had our new boiler fitted on Tuesday. BG man did a reasonable job of it all, considering that the old boiler was the original from when the house was built 30 years ago. A nice new Vaillant sits in its place. Have Hive too, as figured we'd only go 'full Smart' when evohome is updated and we're in the next house.

Smart meters fitted last Thursday but the gas meter is still not sending readings and Bulb have been utterly fvcking shit at fixing it. They just don't care.

We were told there was a "known issue" with the gas meter readings. Ours has never worked, been over a year. Also found that the display unit often loses the connection to the meter and have to be turned off and on again.

I'm fairly sure that the data is centrally gathered and outside the control of the energy supplier, so I suspect there is little they can do until whomever controls the backend system decides to fix it.

[V8Granite]

Our display unit is in a drawer somewhere as it used a battery a month and I can’t see how having a device plugged in will help me save on electricity.

Dave!

[McSwede]

New boiler fitted - it's a beast of a thing, like having an appliance hanging on the wall! Was a 2 day job and they also sorted out a load of weird pipe runs and restrictions. Annoyingly the smart meter only has 15mm connections so that throttles everything coming into the house. However, the combination of what they have been able to sort has had a drastic effect on the upstairs supply. It was always only ok, and would drop to a trickle if any other outlet was opened - usually the wife putting hte washing machine on whilst I'm in the shower.

Well, no more! The difference in flow is amazing and this morning's shower was incredble

We're having a Viessmann 050 35kw fitted and all the microbore ripped out. Replacing with 15mm.

We originally asked about the 111 but he described it as far more than we'd need and it'd look massive in the kitchen. Awesome thing though by all accounts.

[Simon]

We had our new boiler fitted on Tuesday. BG man did a reasonable job of it all, considering that the old boiler was the original from when the house was built 30 years ago. A nice new Vaillant sits in its place. Have Hive too, as figured we'd only go 'full Smart' when evohome is updated and we're in the next house.

Smart meters fitted last Thursday but the gas meter is still not sending readings and Bulb have been utterly fvcking shit at fixing it. They just don't care.

We were told there was a "known issue" with the gas meter readings. Ours has never worked, been over a year. Also found that the display unit often loses the connection to the meter and have to be turned off and on again.

I'm fairly sure that the data is centrally gathered and outside the control of the energy supplier, so I suspect there is little they can do until whomever controls the backend system decides to fix it.

I was told by Bulb that there was some missing info on the account and asked to send in photos of the serial number. Which I've done, and followed up with them again, but had nothing back.

Elec is fine and is sending 30 minute readings correctly. Is yours a SMETS2?

[Swervin_Mervin]

Our leccy smart meter hasnt worked for years now. As soon as we switched from BG to Eon IIRC, they couldn't "find" it. We've even been back to BG one year for leccy and they couldn't find it either

[GG.]

Do you generally get a discounted rate if you have a smart meter? I've always pushed back on having one installed precisely because of the above nonsense.

If the only benefit is that it automatically reports your meter readings then I see no point given on a monthly direct debit payment plan it is adjusted once every six months anyway.

[Swervin_Mervin]

New boiler fitted - it's a beast of a thing, like having an appliance hanging on the wall! Was a 2 day job and they also sorted out a load of weird pipe runs and restrictions. Annoyingly the smart meter only has 15mm connections so that throttles everything coming into the house. However, the combination of what they have been able to sort has had a drastic effect on the upstairs supply. It was always only ok, and would drop to a trickle if any other outlet was opened - usually the wife putting hte washing machine on whilst I'm in the shower.

Well, no more! The difference in flow is amazing and this morning's shower was incredble

We're having a Viessmann 050 35kw fitted and all the microbore ripped out. Replacing with 15mm.

We originally asked about the 111 but he described it as far more than we'd need and it'd look massive in the kitchen. Awesome thing though by all accounts.

Yeah so far I'm impressed. But then anything was always going to be an improvement on the 20yo WB 24cdi we had. It was hugely underspecced for a 4 bed house really.

[Jobbo]

Do you generally get a discounted rate if you have a smart meter? I've always pushed back on having one installed precisely because of the above nonsense.

If the only benefit is that it automatically reports your meter readings then I see no point given on a monthly direct debit payment plan it is adjusted once every six months anyway.

Same here - I read the meter each month anyway so the readings are fairly up to date. I've read so many stories about them not working if you switch supplier, or for other reasons. We also have a poor mobile signal at home, so if they use GSM to transmit readings (which I believe to be the case) then they probably wouldn't work in the first place. I'm not anti having real-time usage data but as yet the whole smart meter roll-out seems to be half-arsed and not for the consumer's benefit.

[DeskJockey]

We had our new boiler fitted on Tuesday. BG man did a reasonable job of it all, considering that the old boiler was the original from when the house was built 30 years ago. A nice new Vaillant sits in its place. Have Hive too, as figured we'd only go 'full Smart' when evohome is updated and we're in the next house.

Smart meters fitted last Thursday but the gas meter is still not sending readings and Bulb have been utterly fvcking shit at fixing it. They just don't care.

We were told there was a "known issue" with the gas meter readings. Ours has never worked, been over a year. Also found that the display unit often loses the connection to the meter and have to be turned off and on again.

I'm fairly sure that the data is centrally gathered and outside the control of the energy supplier, so I suspect there is little they can do until whomever controls the backend system decides to fix it.

I was told by Bulb that there was some missing info on the account and asked to send in photos of the serial number. Which I've done, and followed up with them again, but had nothing back.

Elec is fine and is sending 30 minute readings correctly. Is yours a SMETS2?

No idea.

[Mito Man]

Do you generally get a discounted rate if you have a smart meter? I've always pushed back on having one installed precisely because of the above nonsense.

If the only benefit is that it automatically reports your meter readings then I see no point given on a monthly direct debit payment plan it is adjusted once every six months anyway.

Same here - I read the meter each month anyway so the readings are fairly up to date. I've read so many stories about them not working if you switch supplier, or for other reasons. We also have a poor mobile signal at home, so if they use GSM to transmit readings (which I believe to be the case) then they probably wouldn't work in the first place. I'm not anti having real-time usage data but as yet the whole smart meter roll-out seems to be half-arsed and not for the consumer's benefit.

If you're thinking of fitting solar panels its worth keeping the analogue meter as it will run backwards when you're exporting. Ka-ching.

[Jobbo]

Our dumb meter is already digital, sadly.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Ok then, we're now 1 week in. Here's a few pics of the "progress" so far. Feast your eyes on some of this stupidity:

Surprise number 1. The house has sprung floors. We know this from previous excursions under the floor to have an old gas fire capped off, and a new water main moled. However, we were expecting, from the water main moler's sub-floor adventures, to find that in the rear of the house there would be a lot of rubble practically up to just under the floor joists.

The first job was fitting the new boiler, and they took up some of the floor in the utility room, which is in a side extension. Huge void (c4ft at a guess), which is as expected as that's what's at the front of the house. But no rubble or bare ground down there - in fact there's a slab. Bit odd, given the foundations are concrete beams on mini-piles. Why would there be a slab down there?



More surprising, however, was what was lurking beneath the sprnug floors of the original part of the rear of the house - where we were expecting rubble to under the boards - yep that's a slab about 5" under there. WTF?



And here it is in all its exposed glory - much bemusement all around. Anyone ever seen anything like that before? I mean, if you're going to pour all that concrete why wouldn't you go the whole hog and make it a screeded concrete floor?



Moving on, here we have the magnificence of the rear extension.


A bit of history in case you can't guess - they built the wall to the right, the neighbours complained they hadn't been consulted, the planners said "WTF?", they got retrospective permission for a conservatory. With a full height wall one side, and dwarf walls the other 2, and glazing on those 2 walls and the roof. At some point it then became a fully built room, thankfully far enough back in time when we bought that planning wouldn't be a problem.

This next one focusses in on the premium construction of the space. Yes that's plasterboard between the two inner leafs. And yes, there's no keying in whatsoever. And that thermolite block is all fvcked


It continues - behold the roof structure


Next up, the floor slab construction. Nice thin bit of clear plastic sheet (the kind you might cover your furniture with if you were decorating) and no insulation. This is after they'd broken a 2" thick asphalt coating off the top, which was the reason for the annoying differential in floor levels to the adjacent room



So that was all broken out and then a skip's worth of all sorts of shitty rubble removed. That slab goes under the inner leaf though which is yet more genius. They left that in place rather than create more problems



Sand blinding layer was put down and whackered, before the proper visqueen, insulation and fresh concrete. They've also started putting the same peculiar timber floor arrangement down over the top - purely because they've been advised regarding what UFH system to go with to accommodate in the other space, and felt that taking the same approach throughout would be best.




Lastly, for now, back into the main space to look at the steels holding up the original gable wall between house and extension. Non-matching, and not fireboarded. Does the job I suppose.

[Explosive Newt]

Offer accepted on the house with no parking.

It’ll be fine.

[JonMad]

So now we have a large patio, what recommendations for the lazy way to clean a large patio?

Brushing it and then an occasional jet wash is the default answer but
- with paths and other areas about 10m long, with fence one side, house the other, that's a lot of brushing, to sweep loose stuff all the way off onto the grass.
- jet washing requires dragging the pressure washer and extension reel around, as well as the hose, which is a pain to do more than a small area at a time.

Thinking about, for getting up the surface stuff
- a sweeper such as this
- or a wet/dry vac, like

Then for a proper clean
- maybe a cordless jet washer that can connect to the mains water supply
- some kind of brush that you can attach the hose to? (which might just mean a brush attachment onto a cordless jet washer)

Any recommendations?

[Swervin_Mervin]

How is it jointed? The issue with using pressure washers is if you damage the jointing material and then you're on a quick path to weeds and uneven paving.

If it's a resin mortar then you should be ok

[JonMad]

A shit load of this stuff
https://homefix.co.uk/products/patio-pa ... 9069101251

edit: pushed in with a pad tool thing, not just brushed over.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Hmm, having looked at that, it seems to be permeable. I'd be loathed to use a pressure washer on it tbh. It does suggest you can, from 6" on a fan spray lance but I'd still be wary.