Leaks in the roof

The rain in the UK has caused flooding, so you can imagine that quite a lot of water has fallen the last month or two. With it comes an ongoing problem that we have from our otherwise superb glass extension: The three vents (aka windows) all leak. Not from the frame, but from the rubber seals in non-consistent places on all three.

Sometimes one does it, sometimes two, but never so far all three. We've had Sunfold Systems (who installed it) out four times to remedy the problem over the last couple of years. This usually results in some rubber getting cut to improve drainage, then a fella coming back to seal up the hole which is too large. Then a fella coming back to cut a hole in the seal when the vents start holding water, a bit like an overhead glass-bottomed boat feature.

This time though they decided to pull up the external rubber and replace it with a wider version which should channel any water (rain, condensation, overflow from washing the windows etc) into the holes. From here it trickles over the glass and down into a gutter. That's the theory anyway. And yes, apparently we're STILL the only people to have this problem.

The top photo shows the dining area sporting roasting trays on the floor to catch the drips.

UPDATE

Two of the leaks have come back, so Sunfold are coming back next week to have another look...

Kitchen drama

Happy days - Teia's been back to the house a couple of times this past week to make lists of things that are still to get done. He even managed to put the first coat on the kitchen wall where the splashback is going to go. As you can see it's a pretty strong colour - I have fluorescent socks in a similar shade. The idea was to break up the white with something a bit punchy... and yeah, it's pretty punchy. I'm getting used to it, and am looking forward to the second coat and the glass for a proper analysis. (Of course by then, it'll be too late to change it but hey ho).



On a different note, it was raining this evening so I had the sliding doors open a smidge. I heard a heck of a racket which turned out to be an enormous wood pigeon which had either crawled in underneath the door on dropped in from the top. Goodness knows why. And how come we've never had a problem with birds popping in when the entire end of the house is wide open? Anyway, in a pure cliché I got Rob to chase it out with a broom. Luckily all the poop ended up on the black ledge... gross. Will hose it off tomorrow.

An inconvenient truth

We've just had the longest day of the year, with an inky sky just getting dark at 10.20pm last night. It's definitely a warmer summer than previous years and notably so because of our glass extension. This photo was taken at 8.20am one day last week. Yup, it was a very balmy 30 degrees, even though we'd left the three roof vents (big windows) open all night. This explains why most of our pot plants died while we were on holiday - during that week the roof vents were closed and it got up to 36 degrees (the thermostat shows the highest and lowest recorded temperatures, until you reset it). I guess the prickly cactus should be our plant of choice.

We very nearly didn't get the roof vents at all as they added around £1,000 to the cost, and we thought we'd throw open the concertina doors on hot days. Being east facing too it seemed less likely the place would turn into a hothouse than south or west facing gardens. Of course you can't leave any doors wide open if you go out, which is why we went for the vents. If you're contemplating a double glazed glass roof don't skimp on the ventilation, unless you'd like to know what living on Earth will be like circa 2050...

No keys, no response...

Still nothing from Sunfold. It's now been six long weeks since the installation. While the installers were here I emailed to complain about their slackness, and the following day I rang and spoke to the staffer who was co-ordinating the process. Both times I made it clear that if they didn't get their act together we would deduct our builder's additional costs from the amount we owed them. They had the opportunity then to motivate their installation staff and avoid having to get our builder back. They could've also taken the opportunity to reassure us. The staffer I talked to admitted they'd had similar complaints from other customers.

After the installation I sent a letter from our architect outlining why we were with-holding £400, and sent two follow up emails asking for a response. Last week I sent a letter by post again asking for a response, and a version by email so they couldn't argue they didn't receive it. On Friday I finally got a message back saying that they had received my letter, and the head of installation would get back to me as soon as he could. It's now Wednesday and I've just emailed again as guess what? No-one's been in touch.

I find it unbelievable that despite contacting them 7+ times they can't get it together to do some damage control. In this day and age you'd think the public relations part of this company would wake up and see that at least acknowledging the issues (terrible service, slack staff etc) and apologising for this might make the customer marginally more happy. As it happens, I now think that withholding £400 was not enough and for the amount of stress this has caused we should've withheld a lot more!

I posted about what to do on the Livingetc Forums and got some good advice. One suggestion was to pay the £400 under duress then advise them we'd go to the Small Claims court to retrieve £1,000 for the true cost of the inconvenience/suffering/stress. Rob and Anthony-the-architect said that this was a slow and painful process and to try and get them to respond first.

I can happily recommend Sunfold System's product, but the customer service and conflict resolution side of the business is so poor that I would advise you to use another company.

Being held to ransom?

Five weeks ago we paid Sunfold the last instalment minus £400. This sum was to cover the cost of getting the builder back for one and a half days plus a half day's compensation for the over-run in installation. Not only were the installers inefficient and work-shy, but Sunfold had forgotten to drill the right holes, so the framework had to go back to Norfolk for the weekend. As previously posted about, our architect agreed that all of these holdups were Sunfold's problem, we had been greatly inconvenienced (not only the cost, but it was freezing in those weeks before Christmas) and that £400 was a very reasonable amount to withhold.

I've contacted Sunfold twice to ask for a reaction to our the architect's letter, and despite presenting our cheque they have yet to respond. Yesterday I wrote to ask when we were getting our keys, and this morning they replied: "Our accounts department will send your keys once full and final payment has been made and cleared, which as I understand there is still £400.00 outstanding".

I'm sure there's a better word than 'blackmail' for this situation but I can't think what it is.

Ground floor goes down

Anthony-the-architect wasn't impressed with our installation headache, and he's dealt with many glass manufacturers in the course of his career. He helpfully wrote a letter to send to Sunfold, outlining all the things that have inconvenienced us as clients which ended with the explanation as to why we were withholding £400 from the final bill. This works out at one and a half days of Teia's time, and half a day as compensation. The entire bill was over £20,000 to Sunfold, so £400 is actually a very reasonable deduction given the circumstances.

Most of the the bamboo flooring on the ground floor was laid yesterday so there's a layer of fine dust all over the house again. The plasterers were meant to come today to do the walls but have gone awol (mmm, it is the Saturday before Christmas!). Bit of a shame as we were hoping to get all the mess out of the way before the carpet goes down on the stairs on Tuesday. Teia stayed over last night so he could get stuck in to finishing the floor today and despite what must be a blinding hangover is enduring the noise from a skillsaw with a cheery disposition...

A roof over our heads...

Now where were we? Oh yes, the aluminium was re-drilled in Norfolk and delivered at the house by 8am this morning. The installation guys didn't show up on site till 11.10am. Quelle surprise. I wonder if my email/phone rants got passed on, because when I arrived home tonight they made a big deal out of telling me they hadn't eaten anything since 8am. I noticed that the job was nearly finished too. They're back tomorrow to deal with the last bit of glass then off to do another job in London (why are so many people getting extensions in the middle of winter?!). I felt a bit bad about dobbing them in, but the person on the other end of the phone said that other customers had said the same thing (ie: they talk too much and could work harder...)

Aside from the job taking six days from start to finish I'm pleased it's happened this side of Christmas as it's getting colder by the day here. Teia's back tomorrow to start lining the walls, and he's planning on laying the bamboo flooring before Christmas too. The actual product from Sunfold looks superb and the doors are really weighty, with a nice closing action. The installation guys said they'd put Ewan McGregor's sliding doors in, and if they're good enough for him, they're good enough for us...

The roof has gone down

No, you're not seeing things. This is a photo taken today as the rain bucketed down. The framework for the roof that was put up yesterday has been removed and taken back to Norfolk. It didn't have the correct holes drilled to take the windows that slot in, and they can't be drilled on site. The framework needs to go back to the factory where the holes will be drilled over the weekend. The installation men will be back on Monday to start putting all the bits back in place. So what was meant to be a two day job is now going to take three or four, and of course we're enduring another chilly weekend with what is now very gappy hoarding. Hey, at least the doors went in and as you can see, they fit. One step forward, two steps back...

The roof's going up

Yesterday the two blokes from Sunfold arrived at 8.45am and decided they needed some scaffolding or trestle tables. (This is despite an email recently saying that no such thing would be required for our fitting). So they disappeared for two hours to hire the right bits from a local building supplier. By local I mean it's five minutes drive away. As you can see from the photos here the roof bits were eventually laid out and hauled into place. At 5.30pm the blokes downed tools to go Christmas shopping in the new Westfield Mall. Before they left, they told Rob that they had to leave early on Friday to get back to Norfolk for the weekend, but would come and finish the job on Monday.

We were under the impression that this job would take one day, though earlier in the week we found out they allocate two. To have to run to three days is inconvenient (I am writing this while wearing a blanket, the entire back of the house downstairs is open) ...and expensive.

Teia was on site to remove the hoarding and tarp and pointed out that if the blokes had knuckled down they could've finished the entire job in one day. Apparently they spent a good part of the afternoon talking rubbish and downing cups of tea.

I fired off an email to Sunfold to complain and to say that if we have to pay Teia for a third day (to remove/install the hoardings) I will deduct his day rate from the amount we owe them. I don't mind wearing costs when there is a legitimate reason but when it's because a couple of installation staff are taking the mickey I see red!

Stairs and Christmas

The extension started being installed today. Yippee! Will give a firmer update once I've seen the progress. This photo shows the state of the stairs right now - we've had the faux parquet ripped up in preparation for the carpet, which will be laid in a couple of weeks. The wooden strips that are visible are full of tiny sharp nails, this is what the underlay attaches to. The kids have had a few scrapes and have got the hang of wearing slippers inside at all times, though the back of my Ugg boots are looking really scratched up.

The photo below shows our concession to Christmas. Rob (and the girls) would be keen for a real tree, but owing to the mountains of unpacked boxes I've managed to persuade them that it'll have to wait until next year. I dug out my fibre optic tree for the third year running. I love it. It looks tiny because it's perched next to a 40" flat screen TV but the lighting effect (which changes every couple of seconds) is perfectly festive for me. The DVD players and the Sky box are going to be housed inside that cabinet. Rob found some infra red devices which means you can use remotes without having to have the cabinet doors open - genius.

Two more days of chill?

Here's a photo showing what's separating us from the elements right now (ignore the mess on the counter top, this photo was taken in October). Yesterday I had a call from Sunfold Systems saying they'd had a last minute cancellation, and would we like our glass and steel installed this week. Would we what!

Teia-the-builder confirmed he could make it to the house on Thursday to remove the hoarding and tarp and prepare the space for the installation team to do their magic. The brickie needs to come back too to fit the flashing and the cornice stones on the party wall, but he can't make it until the weekend. I've got Sunfold calling me back today to confirm if it's OK to progress with the installation if the brickie's not on site, their concern would be if it rains before the flashing is fitted that water could seep in. I've checked the forecast and it looks like it's going to stay clear until Saturday, fingers crossed things progress and it doesn't rain...

The walls are up

Here are the new walls for the extension (taken a week ago) - Anthony-the-Architect was enthusing over this space when he popped round last weekend. He reiterated that it's best to build out as much as you can to improve the size of the house, and that in our case it's great that this means we can still have a good sized garden (rare-ish in central London). After looking at the back of the house for so long, it's weird to see it with these new walls protruding. It'll be even weirder this week when the back of it gets knocked out. Of course, the fantastic late summer we've been enjoying has just ended and now it's raining, good timing huh?

Another brick in the wall

The concrete didn't stay lonely for long. The brickies arrived and within minutes there was the beginning of our new walls (yep, two of them). The cinder blocks were going down in double quick time and the walls will have been finished within a couple of days. When this photo was taken last Saturday it was a really balmy summer's day (despite being mid September) and I felt sorry for the building crew having to work over the weekend. They'd had some days off during the week for various reasons so I shouldn't feel too bad I guess… but at this rate, the glass people will be able to measure up next week and as this is the slowest part of the equation it's really important that this happens as soon as possible.

Concrete is hard

I popped round to the house on Friday afternoon, five weeks after the build kicked off, and was beyond thrilled to see the extension foundation had been poured. Here's the view from the bottom of the garden in the late afternoon sun. (Yippee - the east facing garden gets sun for most of the afternoon!) If you look closely you can see that the fence that used to run along the perimeter of the garden has been removed to allow the concrete to be poured right to the width of the house. The fence will be rebuilt in time, with a small access gate allowing people to arrive straight onto the deck area.

Furniture shopping no go

So on Sunday morning we raced off to Ilva to purchase a few items, namely a dining table, possibly a corner lounge suite, some rugs and a pile of these cute Arne Jacobson style kids chairs (which were down from £16.99 to a tenner) only to find the place had been well and truly picked over. There was virtually nothing left. Rob was miffed and mortified. I was surprised. I thought there'd be more stock as the receivership news was only made public last week. I guess this credit crunch means people are keen to buy mountains of stuff they don't really need if it's 50% cheaper than usual.

I'm glad we went though, because if we'd waited a couple of weeks then the place really would've been empty and Rob would've blamed me "If we'd gone in the first weekend we'd have found everything!" Ack. Back to Ikea and Habitat then I guess.

Our builder was meant to start work this week but we still haven't had the final quote in from him, any day now I'm told, and then we need to have a meeting with him and the architect.

In other news, I got the company who's manufacturing our extension glass to re-quote and it's now nearly £1,600 more than four months ago (due to the Euro strengthening, and the cost of petrol etc - the glass is made in Germany). Ouch. That's the cost of a Velux window and installation... something's gotta give.

Dreaming about a piano

Img livingetc.com

Dum dum de dum. Still twiddling my thumbs. Have had an email from a friend today who's been out of the country and just arrived back saying 'I expect you're all settled into your new house by now…'

Ha!

If only. I had the most amazingly convincing dream last night that we were shopping for a shiny black grand piano on eBay to fill out the massive space. This wouldn't happen anyway as we have kids, ergo, space is generally filled up with kids stuff and secondly, I'd rather have a pair of Technics turntables and some decent storage for my vinyl if we were going to introduce a musical theme.

The photo at the top here is from Livingetc and shows an extension with a roof and sliding door system not too dissimilar from what we're planning. Our roof pitch won't be as steep as this, but the solid side walls and long narrow room are definitely on the same page. You can buy a film to go on the glass which helps reduce glare and sun damage, and potentially negates the need for special blinds (visual clutter, urgh) but as we've literally wasted thousands of pounds by having the house sitting empty I don't think we can justify shelling out more on things that aren't 100% essential, so maybe we'll just endure the brightness. Also, the extension is facing east so by mid afternoon when the heat's at it's most intense (for London…) the sun won't be pouring onto the glass, I hope.

Hopefully Teia (one of our prospective builders) has recovered from Glastonbury and is busy working on our quote. It's nearly July and if there isn't a builder starting work on it very soon I may well spontaneously combust!

Love me tender (document)

This is a double height extension on a narrow Victorian property, so I don't really know why I've included it, other than I don't have a relevant photo to go with this post.

So, what's happening with the actual build?

Not much.

The tender schedule document won't be finished until next week. It's imperative that everything gets included (from which way the joists are running internally, to which walls will be demolished, to structual information, everything we actually want built etc etc) so that the builders can give an accurate quote. This will probably take a few weeks after we've supplied the tender document. Once we have the quotes in, we then have to wait for the builder to have a 12-16 week gap in their schedule in order to start the work.

Way back in December when we exchanged contracts we imagined moving in around May or June, but this looks to be more like July or even August now. The glass for the extension takes 9-12 weeks to manufacture and this can't be ordered until the extension walls are built, so it's possible that we'll end up living in the new house while work is still going on (great with two small kids) or we may have to sell our flat in order to finance the cost over run. Neither of these outcomes is ideal so I'm going to not think about it for a while.

When we originally bought the house I was a bit ambivalent about moving as we're close to the tube and the local school, a great drycleaner and loads of useful shops. The new property will mean having to get up earlier and being more organised about getting supplies in. But I have to admit, after so many conversations with our architect and his fabulous assistant I am starting to get VERY excited about how our house could turn out and am anxious for things to kick off soon (as I'm sure you are too if you've been reading this for the last month!)

POSTSCRIPT (24 hours later) - the tender document has just been despatched to the first of three builders. I was really excited until I read this post on another building blog which said they were waiting for 8 months to get a quote in - argh!

Imagining the extension

Image from LivingEtc

I seem to have aquired a lot of photos showing black folding doors, which is quite weird as I thought we were being really adventurous and bold. This image illustrates quite closely how I imagine our extension will look - with folding doors, a similar sized garden and wooden floors.

Instead of a solitary skylight we'll have about four metres of glass on the ceiling running the whole width of the room, also I think we're laying our floor running across the room rather than down it. This serves two purposes - it makes the room seem wider, and it also won't draw your eye to any issues if the lines don't exactly run straight. We're completely sold on the bamboo floor, but I must check whether it's from a sustainable source and if the glue is free of toxins and nasties.

Ground floor kitchen

Image from livingetc.com

This is along the right lines for our extension, ie: the kitchen leads into a living area which is separated from the outside world by glass. This image shows black folding doors which are similar to what we've chosen (well, they're black, and they fold...)

Our room will be long and quite narrow, so it needs to have good light and the right colour scheme inside to make it seem wider. The bamboo flooring samples arrived today, and the finish actually looks quite good. The price is great too, coming in at about a third the cost of engineered wood. I originally wanted poured rubber or highly polished concrete but if we spend the money here there won't get any left over to pay for anything else.

Hubby's not too keen on having wood in the kitchen again (hastily cleaned up spills always show up and it scratches easily) but having the same flooring throughout will help the space seem bigger. Plus it's more cost effective when you buy more of something. Anyway, I think bamboo will be a good compromise as it's really hard wearing, apparently it's even good in bathrooms.

I've just taken a Le Creuset cassorole pot out of the oven and it really peeved me to have to bend over and haul it up to to the hob - it's really heavy - so a wall oven is definitely going in the new place!