# Builder starting small extension, will I regret it



## Oldman (3 Aug 2009)

I have a builder starting work tomorrow on a small extension to the rear of my house, we have wanted the extension for years but with young kids we could never quite afford it.
Kids are teens now and since being made redundant a couple of yrs ago I have been semi retired.
Costs for just a bare shell single story ext with flat roof were quoted as 15-20k a couple of yrs ago but now with the lack of work prices have come right down so a 3x4mtr shell is now costed at £10500 inc moving drains and reroofing another extension beside this new one.

With the feeling that prices will only go up again should I leave it longer, I have agreed to have the job done.

If its such a good deal why do I have butterflies.

I had a patio laid a few yrs ago and had to finish the job myself and not pay the last payment.
Last yr I had new central heating complete with boiler and had water through ceilings and am still waiting for the plumber to come back and fix the system so my lounge gets warm. He got paid in full as it was summer when he finished.

So nothing to worry about really eh!


----------



## johnf (3 Aug 2009)

Sounds pretty cheap to me . 

Material costs aren't any cheaper and labour costs haven't halved in the last two years and the profit margin was unlikely to have been 50% two years ago. 

So how can the cost be half what it was two years ago. 

What about VAT 

anyway Oldman I hope it all works out OK good luck and I hope you have found a genuine desperate builder.


----------



## Oldman (3 Aug 2009)

Builders around here had so much work 2yrs ago they were like plumbers, put in a high price and if its accepted great, loads of profit. If not who cares. Some wouldnt even bother to quote for such a small job.

Now it seems reality has come to roost.

I did check with others who I know had used him before and got good reports.

prices quoted are as usual not inc the VAT.


----------



## Doctor (3 Aug 2009)

My extension was the worst year of my life, supposed to be a 3 month job lasted 11 months in the end and kicking the builder off site.


----------



## johnf (3 Aug 2009)

You should be ok if he comes recomended


----------



## tekno.mage (4 Aug 2009)

Personal recommendation from other people who have had similar work done is the best way of finding a reasonable builder - especially if you have the opportunity to take a look at the finished work they have previously done.

Having said that, in my own experience, building work always takes much longer than expected, is never done to the standard of finish I would like (especially painting), and builders never clear up the mess they make properly - so you can expect to have to do some final clearing up when they've left.

Good luck with your extension - maybe if they are really short of work they will finish quickly.

tekno.mage


----------



## Anonymous (4 Aug 2009)

It will never come in at that price. I had an extension done last year. I chose the cheapest builder but he came with recommendations. I have no complaints (in general) about the work he did. Unfortunately there were things which he produced extra invoices for which should have been included (fixed price job). In the situation you're faced with telling him to pay (which he never will do) and potentially losing him or paying up.

The only really bad part of the work was the electrician (who wasn't working on fixed price). He totally took the water with his pricing. What he didn't realise is that he would have got a lot more work had he been a bit more reasonable.

Dave


----------



## Oldman (4 Aug 2009)

Hating it already, digger turned up too wide for side entrance gate so they dug up my fencing that was only put in 2yrs ago.

The existing patio slabs were supposed to be carefully removed for reuse by me elseware, carefull isnt in builders dictionary. 
Dont kango anything that you can do with a mini digger, even if it takes 3 times as long. Dont get out of that seat if you can help it!

Should have gone away for a week or so to miss this bit I think.


----------



## Anonymous (4 Aug 2009)

Oops, sorry, forgot to mention that bit. Living with builders is about the worst part. Destruction, mess, lack of respect for your property....thank god they're gone!

Wait til you get the days/weeks where nothing gets done. No apparent reason for this...just nothing gets done.

Dave


----------



## Dibs-h (4 Aug 2009)

A friend has had his house effectively demolished and rebuilt (bigger). Builder came with recommendations etc. except the job never got finished and ended up wanting 20K more.

Now this chap is faced with either paying up or getting the trades in to finish off. Him and his family have already been out for a year - I don't see them moving in this year either and since his builder isn't likely to continue I have no idea what the status is with B\C, and I suspect neither does he. :shock: 

Another mate has had a very large garage built and his nbr 1 requirement was the builder must be FMB. He said he wasn't concerned whether the quote was 5-15% more, but was safe in the knowledge that if the builder tried to stiff him and walked off - the FMB would finish the job. 

On a small job like yours - you should be ok. Hell you could always open up a thread and post some piccies for the rest of us to comment on.


----------



## Oldman (4 Aug 2009)

Now you made me feel so much better!

My main problem I guess is that Im trying to do this all on a shoestring budget. 
I have a bathroom above the existing kitchen that needs a total refit, we already bought a P shaped shower to go in place of the bath as none of us bath, we all use the shower over the bath. The toilet/vent stack needs moving anyway to allow the extension to go in so we are moving the toilet to a new position in the bathroom more suited to the new stack position.
The old kitchen is also in need of a complete refit, so our plan was...
Have the shell of a new extension built with a new warm roof on both that and the exisiting extension alongside it, knock through from the existing ext into the shelled one and (dont laugh) fit our old bath in there for a week or two while we rebuild the bathroom, once the bathrooms finished and back in action we can either do what we can afford as and when we can to finish the new extension like electrics, plasterboard and plumbing. Then fit it out as the new kitchen as money permits while still having the old kitchen intact.







Its being done under a building notice rather than full planning permission so I cant quite get the back of the new extension to line up with the existing as there is a 4mtr limit on the build, pity as I am going to have a step back of just 200mm or so.


----------



## Dibs-h (4 Aug 2009)

You mean one step forward, 2 back and then one forward? Or a similar version?

That sounds like my house, except the bath is still in the bathroom in our case and is not expected to move, until it goes away for re-enameling, but the other bathroom will be complete by then.

I don't think B\C have anything to do with stepping the new bit back from the existing - I've usually found that to be a planning thing. Wanting to make the new obvious, etc.

As for the plan of action - sounds good.

Keep us updated.


----------



## head clansman (4 Aug 2009)

Hi ALL

Trouble is you all go off half cocked .

first get a written quote stating all that is included in the quote in minute detail, that is a fixed price which your builder cannot waver from . do not get an estimate that is exactly what it say s an guesstimating rough idea.

Second ask if you can see some of his work with other customers and ask if he minds if you talk to them , if he says he can start Monday morning and it's Friday evening show him the door immediately , good builders are difficult to come by and you wont mind waiting for him, if he has any objections to your request for you to talk to his other customers then also reject him straight away .

Make sure what he has quoted for ,things like , IE:- has he sub contracted any of the work if so is the cost included in his quote if not ask your self do i want this builder or do i get individual quote from each tradesman to complete the job ( but that bring other problem) like lining each trade to start when you want them , so your now the project manager and not your builder . 

Finally arrange completion stag payments as the work reaches each stag make sure it completed to your satisfaction and don't pay him anything till it is completed , regardless of all the sob stories he will try on you .

Good luck with your choice of builder there are what seems to be more & more bad builders nowadays than good ones but if you choose the right one it will be a joy to have him on site working for you . hc

ps. make sure the cost of skips are included in the quote as well as thes are very expensive each time it is emptied , and can add up to quite a large amount. :wink:


----------



## Oldman (4 Aug 2009)

Well the mini digger wasnt mini enough so they were lucky if they managed to get 1/3 of the trenching dug with it as there was nowhere to put the digger while it dug them out. Its being dug by hand now. First skip is full.
The digger broke the remaining patio flags before they figured to put scaffold boards down for it to track on so there's another job for someone once its finished.

The existing extension built around 1974 doesnt appear to have a foundation other than a 4" concrete slab which will have been the old "back yard" from when the house was built in 1964 so theres me in trouble right away. I have lived here since 1979 and its not fallen down yet but the lack of concrete under its wall and the water seeping out from there to the trench isnt making life look full of fun for the near future.


----------



## Dibs-h (4 Aug 2009)

Hi HC

Good advice.

Although, I think in the OP's case the builder has already started.

Dibs


----------



## Oldman (4 Aug 2009)

Well while I was writing they brought the mini digger back round to try and use it to finish the trenches, they only had maybe 2hrs of hand balling left, but the digger got used anyway with its tracks right up to the edge of the trench....you know what came next dont you!

I noticed a crack in the clay side of the trench and warned the operator to stop. He just managed to get the digger away from the trench in time to see the trench fill back up from the side dropping away where the digger had been.
Now there is 4hrs hand balling left and a load of shuttering to do before its ready for the concrete thats booked for tomorrow.
The BCO will need to inspect before that anyway.

Hope your all enjoying this escape from the wood? Wish I was.


----------



## head clansman (4 Aug 2009)

hi dibs 

oop's  let's hope they turn out to be good .hc


oops just read the old man's reply doesn't sound to good a start doe's it :roll:


----------



## Dibs-h (4 Aug 2009)

head clansman":22zwpyep said:


> hi dibs
> 
> oop's  let's hope they turn out to be good .hc
> 
> ...



Nah - I think you may be onto something there. Lets hope it improves.


----------



## BradNaylor (4 Aug 2009)

This is all very interesting and timely.

We got our planning permission through a couple of weeks ago for a single storey extension right across the back and all along the side of our house. The existing corner of the house will be removed giving us a huge new kitchen and extra living area together with a study and cloakroom. As soon as I can work out how to post a copy of my architect's PDF file of the plans on here I will start a thread about it.

We have engaged a builder and paid him a deposit. Fixed price is £28k for the construction work only; all other trades I will manage myself and I will do my own internal carpentry.

The builder comes highly recommended by the plasterer and plumber I will be using. They are both dads of classmates of young Dan's and good friends of ours who both work closely with this builder on all his jobs. I can't imagine getting better references than this - they wouldn't recommend him if he wasn't top notch. (I hope!)

Work starts in 2 weeks. I am quite relaxed about it but Mrs Naylor is starting to panic. As we are going to be without a kitchen for 2 months she wants us to move out and rent somewhere. I have told her that I will fit a temporary kitchen in the dining room but for some reason she doesn't seem to be reassured. Women!

Any other advice on how to deal with the builder on a day-to day basis will be gratefuly received. 

Cheers
Brad


----------



## Doctor (4 Aug 2009)

BradNaylor":2zgotien said:


> Any other advice on how to deal with the builder on a day-to day basis will be gratefuly received.
> 
> Cheers
> Brad



I found the best bet was to take him by surprise, a good punch in the guts when he wasn't expecting it soon brought him down, however he was a big fella and the ensuing tussle was neither pretty or rewarding.
In hindsight, I wish I had pushed him of the scoffold.
Mind you his major error was messing me around and then realising that I owed him £8000, oh how I delighted in listening to his grovelling little messages on my answer machine, made him sweat for 3 weeks, then he returned and just about finished the job.
They are a very odd breed.


----------



## jasonB (4 Aug 2009)

> Any other advice on how to deal with the builder on a day-to day basis will be gratefuly received.



Tell them to provide their own portaloo, kettle & teabags :wink: 

Jason


----------



## xy mosian (4 Aug 2009)

Brad, In case you've not got it sorted yet. BullZip pdf printer is capable of printing a pdf file to jpg. It is free and avaialable here:- http://www.bullzip.com/
Sadly it only seems to convert the first page of a multi-page pdf document. I don't doubt it could do the others, but one at a time.

xy


----------



## BradNaylor (4 Aug 2009)

xy mosian":cvpqpbyv said:


> Brad, In case you've not got it sorted yet. BullZip pdf printer is capable of printing a pdf file to jpg. It is free and avaialable here:- http://www.bullzip.com/
> Sadly it only seems to convert the first page of a multi-page pdf document. I don't doubt it could do the others, but one at a time.
> 
> xy




That's brilliant, mate!

Here's my plans. 







Brad


----------



## Mr Ed (4 Aug 2009)

Funnily enough Brad I built more or less an identical extension on my last house. Here's a pic to give you an idea of what yours might look like;






The downstands on the hips are to hide a deeper rafter in these locations so were accentuated to contain lighting.

Cheers, Ed


----------



## BradNaylor (4 Aug 2009)

Thanks for that, Ed. I'll show your pic to SWMBO cos she hasn't got a clue what we're going to end up with. I've only explained it 486 times!

](*,) 

Meanwhile I'm starting a thread on my extension build over on the projects forum. It won't be very woody to start with but it will eventually feature a truly historic walnut kitchen...

 

Brad


----------



## head clansman (4 Aug 2009)

hi doctor 



> I found the best bet was to take him by surprise, a good punch in the guts when he wasn't expecting it soon brought him down, however he was a big fella and the ensuing tussle was neither pretty or rewarding.


 :shock: 

hence the need for stage payments with at least 25% of the full quoted costs as a final payment at the end which is not payable till the work is finished to your satisfaction .hc :wink:


----------



## head clansman (4 Aug 2009)

Hi Brad 

look forward to following your thread plenty of pics i hope .hc


----------



## big soft moose (4 Aug 2009)

Oldman":3w5d3nwb said:


> The existing patio slabs were supposed to be carefully removed for reuse by me elseware, carefull isnt in builders dictionary.
> .



was that written into the contract ?

if it was, you could legitimately deduct the price of replacement slabs (plus making good any other damage) from their final bill.

My prescription , and i deal with contractors everyday at work, is to put absolutely everything in writing and get it signed off before work starts.

My old dear had her garage converted into a utility room recently and the builder thought he could take the michael - however he wound up with me standing over him making him fix the 18 faults before he got the final payment


----------



## head clansman (4 Aug 2009)

Hi big soft moose 



> STANDING OVER HIM



quite rightly so , good on you , i was the assistant property manager in Portland naval base dealing with the daily day to day contractors.

ha ha some of the things they thought they could rip off HM government for was a real eye opener , didn't do them any good though i was on there backs 24/7. the amount of contractor that i had escorted off the base in the last few years before it closure in 1996 was down heartening, mostly trying to pad out there bills by claiming extra work that had not been done , claiming extra hrs that had not been worked , but mostly the very poor standard of work , my grandson Ryan could and can do better . 

The standard of trade people, no not trades people , but people masquerading and employed as AS TRADMEN BY contractors who were not  tradesmen was extremely poor. hc


----------



## Oldman (4 Aug 2009)

I stood and watched to make sure most of the flags came up intact after seeing the first few damaged. I did expect some to be unusable as I had pointed them all in by hand myself and they were not going anywhere.

The dissapointment was with the flags around the outside of the trench which mainly have been destroyed by the digger being sat on them with no boards under it.
I have no reason to doubt that the builder will as in the contract make good the damage around the workings, for that he will need to use the flags I had reclaimed today so they match the rest of the patio thats left.

If at the end of the job thats all I have to worry about, then that will suit me fine.

Tomorrow should be interesting with the trenches gaining more water as I type and no its not rained for a few days. Seems the clay is keen to give up its water content to the open trenches.
First job will be pumping or bucketing out, then shuttering where the side fell in. The BCO is due late morning and the concrete is booked for around 1pm.


----------



## johnf (4 Aug 2009)

big soft moose":1k7go92b said:


> Oldman":1k7go92b said:
> 
> 
> > The existing patio slabs were supposed to be carefully removed for reuse by me elseware, carefull isnt in builders dictionary.
> ...


 

It is the customers responsiblity to draw up a full specification of work and a bill of quanties detailing everything right down to the colour and type of paint . 
unfortunately most customers do not want to pay someone to do this leaving the poor old builder second guessing the standard and type of finish required you should also employ some form of profesional type of site management such as an architect or qualified site manager.

These things all cost money but greatly assist customer relations and hopefully prevent the builder turning into the builder from hell or the customer being the customer from hell whitch is just as bad.


----------



## Oldman (5 Aug 2009)

Well the sun is shining and the guys have bucketed the overnight water table out the footings and finished leveling up the sides and bottom. 
The BCO has been and although he said wanted 1.7mtr footings not the 1.2mtr as dug due to 2 very old pear trees around 5mtr away, he agreed to the 1.2mtrs as long as I sign a legal undertaking to keep the trees below 6mtr tall.
He suggested they are 8mtr atm but I really dont think they are anything like that, If they are more than 5mtr now I will eat my hat, but I wasnt about to argue with him as another 1/2 mtr digging would have been a disaster.
Height markers are in for the concrete, just waiting now for it to arrive and get poured.


----------



## Oldman (6 Aug 2009)

Concrete arrived Wed pm and got poured.

Thursday early sand, cement, type 1 etc arrived arrived and is now all in my front garden.

Builder arrived and did the concrete blockwork, well most of it as he left gaps for the temporary rainwater pipe connections as its maybe going to thunderstorm over the weekend.

The new drains around the outside of the blockwork will be done Monday along with moving the main sewer manhole and removing the old sewer pipework which is in the way for finishing the blockwork.


----------



## Oldman (10 Aug 2009)

Monday has been and gone so has the builder. He arrived to "do the drains" today.
They trenched out around the outside of the footing blocks and laid drainage to couple up to the existing rainwater downpipe from the old extension flat roof, connected my french drain run into the pipework and ran down the side of the building with a connector in place to join the 2 section of Aco drain that I will be having to get rid of surface water I get from next door when it rains hard.
From there they took the drainage straight into the old manhole.

I was supposed to have a new IC but when they went to fit it it was deemed impossible without wrecking the downstairs toilet which enters the existing manhole in the same plane as the outgoing, the new plastic round IC's dont allow for such antics so it was down to modifying the existing.
One small problem with the pipe run as laid in, we are on combined drains so stormwater and sewer in one. I noticed after they left that there is no bottle trap in the line before the manhole so all the smells can vent out of the Aco drain or any other drain on the run, so tomorrow I have to ask him to fit one in the line he already finished.
Cant see that would ever get past the BCO anyway, though he was conspicuous by his absence, perhaps they didnt call him to check the drains yet as they still have another day removing the old upstairs toilet stack and fitting a new one outside the building line.

The oversite prep is the next thing on the list after that.


----------



## Oldman (11 Aug 2009)

Well the problem with no trap on the Aco drains has resolved itself, he had set aside a trap to put in line before the Aco, so sorted.

This morning was spent breaking up reinforced concrete between my downstairs loo and the manhole to gain access for a new soil stack and drains for the old kitchen to keep that in operation till I get the new one fitted out.
BCO came and ok'd the drains with the proviso that a rubber coupling is fitted in the plastic run before the manhole for expansion. Thats now done.

Its back to clearing the oversite this afternoon ready for building up. Tomorrow will be more drains work like smashing out the old china stuff under where my new block wall should be so that can be finished off and of course temp redirecting all the drains and toilets so building work can carry on.
I was aprehensive at first but it seems to be coming together ok so far.


----------



## Oldman (11 Aug 2009)

Work went quicker this afternoon so the builder broke out the existing drainage china pipes and finished off the concrete blockwork over where the original sewer pipes crossed the footings. I now have an unusable upstairs loo as the pipework goes to an open end in the base of the new extension. He will break that up tomorrow when he prepares for the type one.
He did bring one matter to light that I was not too keen on, he dug up a very sorry looking copper pipe which it would seem is my mains water supply!
He wants to just bury it again, but I am off the opinion now I have seen it that its best to change what I can see of it for mdpe before the sub base goes down, I hope to get some 1/2" copper to mdpe adaptors in the morning first thing and change it before he gets too far.


----------



## bugbear (12 Aug 2009)

Oldman":1zh2wu74 said:


> He suggested they are 8mtr atm but I really dont think they are anything like that, If they are more than 5mtr now I will eat my hat



A bit of trivial "playing at surveying" would measure them.

Get some known distance away, take an angle on the tree top, do some easy trig.

BugBear


----------



## Oldman (12 Aug 2009)

Sorted the mains water supply, cut back the copper to where it enters the extension blockwork and used plastic in a big loop up out of the footings and back down again to join to the old copper as it enters the original kitchen below dpc. Once the building work is finished I can cut and blank off the old original pipework and supply new feeds from the new plasitic pipe. But for now everything still works which is the main thing.

All the original sewer pipework got broken up today and the sub base of type 1 laid over level. The cavities were filled 1 block from the base with type 1 and cement dry mix, tapped down then watered.
Then a bed of sand on which a plastic membrain went in the base, followed by 90mm Celotex and Celotex verticals around the blockwork.











Once that was all trimmed to a tight fit the damp proof membrain went in, shortly followed by a lot of concrete.











After it was tamped to a rough level the builders departed for the day, shortly after it rained for a few mins, just long enough to get a puddle to form. After around an hour it started to fester like an underground volcano getting ready to do something...






I am guessing this is the concrete curing and gassing up though the puddle.
The concrete is btw around 40mm below finish level as they tell me they dont do the finish screed until much later in the build.


----------



## RogerS (12 Aug 2009)

I don't want to worry you unnecessarily but.....

looking at your pictures of the damp proof membrane...

1) is it the correct gauge?

2) did they seal the joints or have you got a _really_ generous overlap?

3) where the dpc meets the brickwork it doesn't look as if it goes up high enough. I always like to see the dpc carried up all the way round and above the finished concrete level. I don't see that in your pictures.


----------



## Oldman (12 Aug 2009)

Roger, thanks for the comments, Im no builder so feedback is always helpful.
I have no idea of the guage of the membrane, its Visqueen from Builder center looking at the packaging and my vernier says its around .3 of a mm. The guy has a brand new roll so there was more than enough to do the job without any joints.
The next to last pic shows near a metre folded back where he didnt bother to cut it back, there is also loads spare laying over the blockwork.

How is he expected to take it up higher to join with the existing house and old extension ? I dont quite understand. Those 2 parts of the house are doing there own thing re damp proofing.
I guess you think that the membrane should have been left higher than the existing damp course and cut off when the final screed is laid?

Well the BCO will be coming to look and if its wrong or the dpm is wrong, they can take it all out again.
Its all on plain view for him to see.

If it makes any difference both the existing walls from window width are coming out down to existing floor level, red brick one first and later once I have the new kitchen up and running the other wall along with all the pipework will also come down. 

"I don't want to worry you unnecessarily but..... "

Well you have! :?


----------



## RogerS (12 Aug 2009)

This explains my concern..but most likely it's just the way things look in your pictures.






I suggest that when dealing with the BCO that you raise all your concerns with him. They won't always pick up on things as they have aheavy workload.


----------



## Oldman (12 Aug 2009)

Thanks Roger, I will see what he says...


----------



## Cowboy _Builder (14 Aug 2009)

Don't worry the reason they left it like that is , when they remove the exsisting walls they will remove the first two courses of bricks below the exsisting DPC and there will be enough of the new DPC to fold down over the brickwork to form a new barrier .
Looks to me like they know what they are doing ...


----------



## RogerS (14 Aug 2009)

Cowboy _Builder":1p0bo165 said:


> Don't worry the reason they left it like that is , when they remove the exsisting walls they will remove the first two courses of bricks below the exsisting DPC and there will be enough of the new DPC to fold down over the brickwork to form a new barrier .
> Looks to me like they know what they are doing ...



Agreed and that was my initial thought but in the picture - out of the two existing walls, I can't see any DPC left above the concrete plinth to fold over.


----------



## Oldman (14 Aug 2009)

There is no dpc left above the concrete so nothing to fold over on the 2 old house walls. I see exactly what Roger is getting at now.
Had I been doing it I (now I know) would have raised the membrain up the walls 6" and battoned them there so they didnt fall back in the concrete while laying and that would have been job sorted but as the builder hasnt shown except to drop off a few pallets of bricks and blocks on Thursday and wont be on site till Monday there isnt much I can do or say.
My guess would be hes going to pitch paint and lay membrain up from where he finished to the dpc line before final screeding to get round this problem, if indeed he considers it a problem.

We will find out in a later instalment :wink:


----------



## Oldman (17 Aug 2009)

Well the bricky and labourer were busy today, they got on quite well.





















Lots of temporary cutting and shuffling of rainwater downpipes and hoppers to clear them out of the brickies way and be ready for the rain we are due soon.
The upstairs toilet has become a casualty as it seems the outlet may be in the way for the flat roof flashing so its been disconnected from the old soil stack which will be gone tomorrow.
I had intended to move the toilet to another wall of the bathroom after they had gone but seems my plans may have to be brought forward some.
I also need to run wastes from both the bath and basin out through another wall tomorrow into what I hope will be a new soil stack by then.

desperately trying to keep the builder just doing whats in the fixed price so I dont get any surprises at the end of the job.


----------



## trousers (17 Aug 2009)

In my neck of the woods the BCO would expect to see a vertical slot cut through the existing external skin of brickwork, between where the new external and internal skins will be tied to the existing (ie where the new cavity is). Then a dpc into the slot.

Are they short of sand?


----------



## Oldman (18 Aug 2009)

trousers":l80qwul4 said:


> Are they short of sand?



You are going to have to elaborate a bit more, trick question? :wink: 

Does it look like the mortar is a very strong mix to you?

As to the vertical dpc slot, I have absolutely no idea if our local bco would expect one, but as he's not due to visit next until wall plate level he will be too late to see one anyway.
I have to assume that with "trusted builders" they must forgo some of the usual site inspections as the Council web site says they will inspect at Oversite hardcore & Damp proof course and they sure missed those now.

Cheers


----------



## RogerS (18 Aug 2009)

Oldman

Suggest you continue to take copious pictures and keep them. Keep a log of all your concerns and missed meetings/inspections by the BCO. So that if in the future it all goes t*ts-up then you have evidence to hammer the builder and the BCO. 

re BCO - there seems to be a wide variation between councils as far as workload, inspections, interpretations, personal hobby-horses are concerned which, when you stop to consider that much of Building Regs are precisely that - regs - and enshrined in law, is rather surprising.

What's the news on the DPC ?

Roger


----------



## Oldman (18 Aug 2009)

Yes Roger, I had no clue that the BCO's just did as they pleased. I did think that paying all that money to the local Council got me some sort of guarantee that at least what got inspected by the BCO was likely to be up to standard and that they would insist on inspections at the points of the build they list on their web site as a minimum.
When instructing a builder you really have no idea if he's going to do the work to regs or just short cut it for profit or in error, so I was relying some on the BCO for guidance/interpritation of the regs into reasonable workmanship.

The builder suggested the gap in the dpc was no problem at all and he would sort it when the screed went down, I got the impression that had I not asked then nothing would have been the result. I didnt get a clear answer when I asked why the membrain wasnt just cut larger in the first place.
I dont have a good feeling about all these dpc gaps and cold junctions (vertical dpc) so as usual I will keep taking lots of pictures just in case.

Still with the amount of views this thread is getting i'm hoping members here will spot any glaring errors if there are any and help me out as needed.

Cheers


----------



## RogerS (18 Aug 2009)

I feel for you. My philosophy has always been to try and nip problems in the bud before they occur. Better to get things fixed now then try and sort things out at a later date. That sort of thing.

One thought although it will cost, but on the plus side give you piece of mind, would be to get an independent surveyor to inspect at this stage. If you do decide to do that then get one out of the area/county...so avoiding vested interests, cliques and cabals, that sort of thing.


----------



## trousers (18 Aug 2009)

Oldman

No, not a trick question about the sand. Just an observation regarding the amount (lack) of mortar in most of the beds and perps (on the inside face of the wall). 

I agree with Rog - keep a good stack of photos for every stage. 

If the BCO has missed a stage it's p##s poor really. Having said that, the onus is on the builder to inform him when to come looking, and not carry on until he has.

I've seen an instance where the job has been finished without all the necessary inspections (builder just crashed on with it), and Building Control has refused to issue a completion certificate when the job was finished. Big wrangle then over getting work uncovered to prove it was done correctly.


----------



## RogerS (18 Aug 2009)

I agree. Here's my take on BCO (but based on one instance of personal experience on a two year project).

BCO's are understaffed. They have targets to meet. They may be spread very thinly over the area. Mine in Herefordshire have a huge area to cover. So they have to be pragmatic. Over a period of time they will get to know many of the regular builders on their patch. They will develop a working relationship with them. If the builder is deemed 'trustworthy' then for a run-of-the-mill project the BCO is, like as not, going to let it go by with only a nod in the direction of proper inspections. And builders being builders, eventually they will cut corners because they know the chances of it being picked up are slim. So they won't necessarily call in the BCO as they know 'they'll get away with it' as they are trustees. For example, bet you won't get the BCO coming along and monitoring the pressure test on your soil pipes.

Equally, BCO's have their own 'pet' hotspots. One of my BCO's (you are getting different BCO's aren't you?) is keen on fire prevention etc and twice I caught him out trying to get me to do something that I didn't need to. When I challenged him, he backed down. 

Thinking this through a bit more I really think that you ought to consider some pre-emptive action. After all, you don't want builder and BCO to disappear and then two years later start getting damp through? If it was me then I would be writing to Building Control outlining your concerns, their missed inspections being contrary to their website etc. But then I am confident that I can argue the toss with them if they tried to bullshit me - as they have done - since I used to take the Building Regs book to bed with me (yup..saddo). In your case I do suggest that you investigate the cost of getting an independent view from a chartered surveyor (from out of area as suggested earlier).


----------



## Oldman (18 Aug 2009)

Thanks for the detailed replies chaps, one thing the bco wont be able to do is pressure test the drains, they have around 8mtr of french drain connected to them and its all since been backfilled. He did see the drains before the fill though.
As the other other concerns, I am going to have to think very carefully before taking any action at all. I am doing this on a shoestring as it is.

Why me Lord, must have been real wicked somewhere in my past...


----------



## RogerS (18 Aug 2009)

Oldman":3iilnj6e said:


> Thanks for the detailed replies chaps, one thing the bco wont be able to do is pressure test the drains, ....



Not talking about the storm water drains and soakaways but the soil pipes from your WC's. If you're putting in new soilpipes etc then they usually like to test them for leakage before they are covered/concreted in. If your soilpipes are emptying into a French drain then you're _really_ in trouble!


----------



## jasonB (18 Aug 2009)

I think oldman said he had a combined system so both run together. The french drian will be flowing into the foul water drain not the other way round. You are mixing up a leaching field with french drains, the former spreads the water out into the surrounding ground the latter collects water from the surrounding area

You should still be able to put a bung in the end of the french drains and test the rest.

With regard to the sand or lack of it, perps are rarely fully filled and it look slike the bed joints were OK until the last few where they were probably stretching out the last mix of the day. I hope he's not working to that string line in the second picture though :wink: Mix looks alright to me as its still very green, should dry out Ok. A lot of the colour will be goverened by the colour of the sand being used.

Jason


----------



## Dibs-h (18 Aug 2009)

jasonB":3siz1l0o said:


> I hope he's not working to that string line in the second picture though :wink:
> Jason



That does look way off. What's the upright that has been placed on the external corner (in the same picture as above)? I can see it's purpose - has it got a name?


----------



## jasonB (18 Aug 2009)

Its a gauge rod but probably has a propriatory name.

Jason


----------



## Dibs-h (18 Aug 2009)

jasonB":3dlm8ds6 said:


> Its a gauge rod but probably has a propriatory name.
> 
> Jason



Thanks Jason - bit of googling got me,

_Gauge Rod:
Used to control the level of each course of a wall as the corners are built. Made from 50mm x 25mm wooden batten and long enough to reach one storey high of the building; the top of each course is marked, with saw kerfs, to the specified brickwork gauge. Used from a level datum set at external, and internal, corners the rod controls both the vertical rise of the work and its level from corner to corner. The levels of window and door heads can be included._

So will have to make one for my workshop build.


----------



## RogerS (18 Aug 2009)

That's what a gauge rod is, true. But that ain't a gauge rod as I can't see any correlation between the holes and the courses. I think it's called '_a gash bit of angle iron wot we fix to the corner so we can tie our string'_.

At least they haven't (hopefully) done what one builder our way did...used a flagpole as his vertical reference line. Or not, since the flagpole made the Leaning Tower of Pisa look very upright.


----------



## Oldman (18 Aug 2009)

The drainage run is following the new walls of the building so L shaped for stormwater. So from far end its Trapped gully-110mm pipe-sweep tee picks up the french drain- 90 deg bend-tee for 2 x Aco sections via a trap-more 110mm pipe and into manhole (combined service)
The toilet pipework is a vent stack with hopefully later today an upstairs toilet takoff, other bathroom wastes into it, down to ground level where it enters the manhole too. downstairs loo also enters the same manhole so its a bit busy in there.
There is nowhere to bung the french drain without a redesign.

The brickies line is a red herring, end of day and its been moved up some to clear the last course.

The steel section on the corner is in fact a bit of my Unistrut so bears no relationship to a guage rod other than the fact its not bent and is being used to butt the bricks up against :wink: and give somewhere for the string line to clip onto.

http://www.unistrut.co.uk/index.php?par ... %20Channel

I just finished a temporary replumb of the bathroom waste, what a pita that was with old 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" married up to 32 & 40mm, still its done and poking out the wall now waiting for a stack to put it into, he did say he would be back to build the stack today, hope so as the family need showers.
Bricky is hating the weather, must be near 30 deg here, not so good for building walls in I am told.


----------



## trousers (18 Aug 2009)

Not a gauge rod, it's a diy version of bricklayers corner profiles.



> > perps are rarely fully filled
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## jasonB (18 Aug 2009)

I hadn't looked that closely at the holes but as you say they have no relation to teh coursing, looks like a bit of Unistrut to me.

Jason


----------



## Dibs-h (18 Aug 2009)

jasonB":15qsaqw2 said:


> I hadn't looked that closely at the holes but as you say they have no relation to teh coursing, looks like a bit of Unistrut to me.
> 
> Jason



Could one use angle section as corner profiles - say s\s if corrosion is an issue? Say something at least 2"x2".


----------



## Oldman (18 Aug 2009)

Todays progress for your perusal.







New window to go in there when it arrives. Dont ever order a upvc window by phone, gave the sizes and they made it different, by the time I got the written confirmation it was too late to adjust the size so now its a case of adjust the brickwork to suit....grrrr...











Very "busy" in the corner by the downstairs loo with a vent stack very close to the window edge (once its vertical and fixed) downpipe still to be adjusted :wink: Got the shower/basin waste into the stack for now anyway so we can shower tonight.






This big window is coming out, pity I dont have a use for it. The roof cladding is all going too as the new and old roof will be joined and the fall changed to away from the house.
The old black soil pipe is all going soon I hope.


----------



## Oldman (19 Aug 2009)

Another fine day and lots done by the bricky.











He says it will be tidied and siliconed down the join between the new and old brickwork in this busy corner.
Dont take notice of the old brickwork, it was a pigs ear when done before I bought the house and I have been threatening to have it rendered over ever since.











Blockwork nearly finished too.






Hope I didn't go for too small a window, once the wall on the right is gone it should get more light in there.

Tomorrow is lintel over window and some cut blockwork, start to remove the cladding on the old extension to see whats hiding under there. Again that was done before I moved here so I dont have a clear picture of what they will find.
The Aco drains should also be going in tomorrow and the damaged and removed paving replaced.


----------



## Oldman (20 Aug 2009)

OK so the rain held off and it was yet again a hot sunny day.

The plastic boxing over the old extension came off, what a strange affair that was, underneath it was a conventional gutter and felting edge.






Then a quick rip off on the front corner to see what was there reveled what looks like a wall plate with 8" timber beam with would you believe 4" x 2" close boarded together all over the roof which is I guess covered in ply then felted. We shall see on Monday when I think they may be stripping the roof.






Good news for me if it is covered in 4x2 as its now well seasoned and will make good timber for a shed rebuild I have in mind.

Once they had figured out the old plate levels the new walls were taken up so hopefully it all ends up the same level when the joists, ply then 90mm celotex sheets then ply again gets added next week.






Lintel is in over the window and the cut blocks are on to plate height.






The broken paving got taken up today as well though I couldnt quite see the logic in that as they have plenty of other work to do before laying the originals back down. Laying the ACO drains didnt happen today either, so thats still for another day.


----------



## trousers (20 Aug 2009)

My money is on the boards being 4 x 1 and no ply over the top.

Any further bets? :lol:


----------



## Oldman (21 Aug 2009)

Nobodys betting Trousers  

OK Friday has been and gone, Bricky & mate arrived before 8am today expecting all the timber for the roof to be here at 8am. Reality kicked in and it arrived at 10:30am  

They cut a slot in the house wall for the main beam.






This was supposed to be tight up against the original roof but as the old roof water run off was that direction the felt and overhang stopped them getting any closer than butted against the edge of the felt as they didnt want to make the old roof not watertight by cutting it back. 






Shows the concrete pad for the plate to sit on, note the blocks seem to run out below the window.

95x45mm timbers were set on top of the blockwork.
Once the 3 timbers (190mmx45mm) were in place in the slot they were drilled and bolted together, then hangers attached and the joists attached.











A bit of trimming to do later...






All was well till 2pm when the Builder turned up with a twisted ancle & told them to stop the job and come with him, seems he had another job on the go and had the roof in a state where water could enter so needed help to finish it up before it rained. :roll: 

So I am left with what will very quickly become a swimming pool if it rains more than it is right now as the extension is a sealed tank atm with no roof.
The main house roof rainwater is set to run onto the old flat roof and thats got no gutter now so pretty much all that falls will be in the new extension as the old roof fall is that direction.

Here are pics of the sheets of ply & osb, firings and celotex which I was hoping would be on today, well on the new ext anyway.














Hmm...its just started raining harder, oh bother!

Looking for fine weather now until Monday or Tuesday at least.


----------



## Oldman (21 Aug 2009)

Going to be an awfully thick roof structure when completed, just been looking at this detail for a warm roof. Looks to add around 5" on top of the joists at the thin end of the firing & 8.5" at the Lead flashing to original house end.
Thats 16" of roof structure at maximum. Boy thats a lot.






Quote:
A warm roof has the insulation on the outside of the structure which means the roof decking is effectively inside and therefore the deck is kept warm (hence the name). Because the deck does not have two opposing temperatures, i.e. cold from outside and warm from inside the chance of condensation or damp is eliminated, Because there is no dew point at decking level this means that ventilation is not required, which in turn means that any pipework, wiring, ducting, etc is not subject to extreme temperature differences or moisture.

Going to need to figure the permitted drilling zone for that treble thickness joist too as I do need to get a bunch of cables through that.


----------



## superunknown (21 Aug 2009)

I am just over a year in to my house extension. I have done all the work myself except the groundworks, brickwork/blockwork and the roof timbers. I also work full time and I have to say its been killer especially the plastering, that seemed a never ending job.

We have a coat of paint on the walls and ceilings now and getting ready to second fix and start to make bathroom cabinets etc .



Good luck.


----------



## Oldman (21 Aug 2009)

Would anyone like to comment on the chosen direction of joists on this extension?
Seems to me as a layperson that they have run them a strange way, I would have bolted a wall plate to the main house wall and run the joists from there to over the window opening allowing the firings to then sit directly on top of the joists along the complete length.
At 4mtr the span seems still to be within the timber size chosen with 400 or 450mm spacing.
The firings will now just be in contact with the joists where they cross them at 90 deg which is what looked a bit strange to me.


----------



## studders (22 Aug 2009)

Oldman":gps8z2fh said:


> Would anyone like to comment on the chosen direction of joists on this extension?



The shorter span, whichever way that is, would be my choice.


----------



## Oldman (23 Aug 2009)

OK Studders, its as you say on the shortest span, just didnt seem logical to me that way round.

Trousers, you win, you were closer than me.
The old existing extension has 4" wide by 3" wall plates on top of the final brick course, then 2 1/4" x 7" joists with 3 3/4" x 1 1/4" boards close boarded all across the top of that.

I think some bricks may need to come out on Monday, just had a measure and the outer opening for the window frame to the underside of the lintel is a few mm under 1mtr. The window inc sill is 1mtr. Whoops!
It means a course of cut down bricks under the sill I guess. Needs a bit of clearance there to square up the window frame I think.
All this cause the window supply company didnt listen when I told them 1070mm and made it 1000mm which messed up the brick spacing.


----------



## Oldman (24 Aug 2009)

A bitty day today with firings and osb laid on the new roof joists. Getting the sheets up there disturbed the top row of outer bricks so bricky had to pull the row off and start again.
The trap and connecting pipework went in for the Aco drains though he was short of a connector so the Aco itself isnt in yet.
Then the rest of the day was spent cleaning up and relaying the paving around the extension plus cutting slabs to fit up to the new walls.
Bricky put the still diamond cutter through the outer walls where they are coming out and says he will do the inners once the old windows are out with a saw or bolster to save on mess.

Roofers will be on site Thursday weather permitting to lay the new felt and I got asked if I wanted solar reflecting paint or chippings on the roof, I hadnt considered paint and it seemed like a good idea reflecting the heat away and nothing for the moss to attach itself to in the winter.

The BCO turned up 11am and was on site all of 5 mins, he glanced at the roof from the ground and asked where was my ventilation going to be. I said its a warm roof...
I did ask him if he was ok with a solar paint on the finished roof, he advised against it suggesting that its only going to last 3-5yrs before needing painting again and its a very expensive product. So looks like its going to be chippings again for me.

The builders elseware again Tuesday so that gives me time to remove the existing kitchen units/sink thats against the wall thats coming out, repipe the hot and cold supplies and wastes etc so when they remove the wall I can hopefully still use the old kitchen, just with no wall behind the units.


----------



## RogerS (24 Aug 2009)

Progress is looking good. What happened with the DPC?


----------



## Oldman (26 Aug 2009)

Going on the form of my day I just typed a very long detailed reply and somehow hit a key near Z which completely cleared all I wrote! :evil: 

So again... Tuesday I did all the plumbing jobs ready for the old kitchen wall to come down and fitted a new outside tap for them while they were away. 

Today Wednesday they arrived and rushed into stripping my old extension roof so they could board the whole lot as one roof.

Seems the gods were not with me. The old roof had joists that were set lower in the middle to force the water to the middle of the roof area before the firings direction sent it off the side. I wanted to add timber strips to the low middle joist tops to level it up but they thought it would take too long and didnt want to do that as they needed to finish today for the roofers to start first thing Thursday.
So I got a hodge podge with the first 1/2 of the old roof shuting water away from the house as I wanted, but then the slope changes direction to push the water towards the new roof so god knows what will be the result, though they assure me all will be ok.

The ply sheets turned out to be a mistake by someone but they used them anyway, looks like shuttering ply to me. I thought roofing sheets were supposed to be wpb?
The rest is osb.






After they left I began to wonder about the insulation in the cavities and didnt see them being filled before the roof went on. I checked the side of the new ext and sure enough it was 50cm short of the top of the cavity.

The front over the window opening was hard to check as they have added a joist to the outer brick edge and there is another just next to the blocks on the inside. Lucky there was a gap where the gutter spout used to be so with a mirror on a stick I found no insulation above the lintel  

To my thinking this leaves a huge cold bridge and has to be corrected, a waste of time and money putting 90mm celotex on the roof and letting all the cold in through the wall tops.

Only 2 ideas I came up with is to either remove some of the top blocks over the window to get insulation in there or maybe drill holes and foam fill with insulation?

Here is what it looked like some days ago and still would if you could see inside.






Anyone know what the noggin spacing should be on these timber joists to stop twist? 
The builder wasnt going to fit any untill I asked, I thought you had to fit them or when they moved about your ceiling gets cracks?

Here are some older pics









Spacing of joists is around 450mm.

Could do with some feedback tonight so I am ready for tomorrow pls.


----------



## studders (26 Aug 2009)

Oldman":vo87dlhf said:


> Could do with some feedback tonight so I am ready for tomorrow pls.



Well I'm certainly no expert having only done 3 or 4 of these roofs for friends.
You are the customer and you are paying good money for this job so, if you're not happy with something it is totally irrelevant IMO that 'it has to be done today because..' that is their problem, not yours. Have you paid for WBP Ply? If so then thats what should be on there (have to say mine isn't and I've not had any problems in the last six years.) My roof only has a noggin in the centre (5.5 metre span) and there has been some twist so I should have put more in I think.
Can't really help with the missing insulation as I don't know but, it doesn't sound right to me.
If the roof doesn't shed the water as it should, and the said would, then they'll have to come back and fix it.


----------



## BigShot (26 Aug 2009)

From memory, 1 noggin every 3 metres is the norm. I'd check my notes but that'd mean firing up AutoCAD and I'm about to head off to bed so nothing doing. Hopefully someone will be able to confirm or refute that.

You're right about the cold bridge. Stopping the insulation short of the top of the wall is a no-no. Again I've got details lying around somewhere but I'm not sure where. (I don't usually need to design to that level of detail so I can't say for absolute certain and I seem to recall there's meant to be something to plug up the top of the wall too.)

Are the joist hangers nailed through every hole? If not, they should be. Sounds excessive but that's how they are meant to be fitted.

Drilling through beams for cables is usually done right in the middle (the top of a beam is in compression along its length, the bottom is in tension along its length, the middle should be neutral so can tolerate some drilling).

If in any doubt talk to the building inspector - the main inspector I deal with is brilliant, really helpful, and if yours is anything like him he'll be only too happy to help.

Warm roof thickness... I dunno if it's too late now, but it's possible to put some of the insulation BETWEEN the joists so the whole shooting match comes out thinner overall. I have specifications for Kingspan insulation here but things may be a tad different with Clotex. The technical department at Celotex should be able to answer any questions you have though, as should your building inspector.


As for your vanishing post... (I assume you're using a Windows or Linux PC here, I dunno what it's like on Apple machines)
If you're typing and lose the lot, try pressing Ctrl+Z. That's the keyboard shortcut for Undo and if it was all deleted with the Backspace or Del key, or all cut by pressing Ctrl+X (near Z so could be that) then pressing Ctrl+Z stands a good chance of bringing it all back.

Sorry you're having a hard time with builders. Some take pride in what they do and make sure you get a good job, others are completely feckless and shouldn't be let near someone's house.

Thankfully the guys I usually do drawings for tend not to be the useless types and actually act like they've done the job before and do it properly.

Hope this post helps you out a little bit,

Good luck with it.


----------



## Oldman (27 Aug 2009)

Thanks for the replies guys, not looking forward to 8am. I'm not too good at confrontations and the builders already have me marked down as a picky pipper.

From what I could find on the net so far it seems that I have a small list of items to address.

Lack of insulation at top end of cavity walls (cold bridging)
Joist hangers not nailed enough, lots of holes unused.
2 rows of noggins needed, one center and one over the wall plate
No restraint straps holding the roof down
Possible ponding on the roof, will need to hose test that once its laid.
Also probs with DPM and screed height to sort.
Much too late to add a vertical dpm where the new walls join the existing.

One thing noticed with this warm roof structure is that the facia boards are going to be really ugly, very deep. Ho hum...


----------



## Oldman (28 Aug 2009)

Right next instalment...

Thursday the roofers were left to felt the whole roof, they had to take felt over where I originally had a cavity wall between the old extension and garage as the builder had removed the capping stones (blue house roof shaped blocks) down to new roof top level.







The spec called for lead flashing all along the house but the builder asked the sub contractor roofer for felt and thats what he got.
So it looks like the builder will be putting lead over the felt sometime soon.
















To be continued...


----------



## Oldman (28 Aug 2009)

They wanted to come knock out walls and remove windows today but as its a long weekend I put them off doing that till Tuesday, so today was guttering and downpipes, cut and lay more replacement flags and do a second bench up in the manhole.
Now the vent stack and downpipe for the downstairs loo is done its looking very busy in that corner.
Still got a brick surround filled with pea shingle to come where the rainwater drain and sewer pipes are.






You may have noticed the cavity closers are in ready for the new window.






Now the latest problem may be a biggy, but I will continue that in a later post.


----------



## Oldman (28 Aug 2009)

We have at present this huge window in the old extension, its 1.5mtr tall by 3.10mtr wide.











(something up with imageshack, not all stored pics are available)

Now originally when the new extension timbers went up the tripple beam was supposed to be tight against the old ext roof, the idea being to bolt the lot together, but the bco said he didnt want to see any joining of old to new.
Also due to the rain drip being that side they had to space the tripple beam away from the old wall plate anyway.

Since then work has gone along with nobody (even me) giving a thought to what happens when the old wide window comes out.
I am guessing as I didnt get to see in there when they had the roof off and the bricky who was up top doesnt recall either, but I think it will be the 7" joists sitting on a 4x3" wall plate over the window and nothing else.  

When the window was originally fitted the old crittal came out and the new went in without the need for acrows, although the fitters had them on hand just in case, but I dont think that its a satisfactory way to leave it with a 4x3" wall plate holding that lot up.

Suggestions on a very cheap postcard please, bricking up the proposed opening is not an option.


----------



## StevieB (28 Aug 2009)

Given that you have a triple joist on the new roof just next to your window without any support below it, why are you now concerned with removing the window from below the old joist and leaving a joist as the roof support? If it really concerns you, simply add a second joist alongside it like the new triple. So long as you do not join the new to the old (and personally I cannot see a problem with that given the new is in a socket in the house wall anyway - not sure what the BCO is upset about) you should be fine. You must have similar joists every 3 feet or so in the old extension anyway and they are supported at either end. Windows are not supposed to act as structural supports, particularly UPVC ones, so the window itself is not holding the roof up anyway.

100% cast iron guarantee is to put in an RSJ when the now internal wall and window come out and have a pillar at each end but that would be a) total overkill and b) leave you with a drop in your ceiling to hide the RSJ internally.

To be totally honest, apart from the DPC issue I cannot see a huge amount to worry about on this build - sorry!

Steve.


----------



## Dibs-h (28 Aug 2009)

Didn't you go with one of the newer generation of torch on roof coverings?

Noggins - on 7" joists I did 2 lots of solid strutting evenly spaced - proabbly slightly overkill as the requirement was 1 lot of herringbone strutting in the middle.

Since you don't have access to the top side - I'd be inclined to do solid strutting. I used 4" screws "toe-screwed" if you know what I mean.

If you want to know the exact spacing - it's in one of the Building Reg documents - will have to look it up for you.

Here you go - very useful.

http://www.luton.gov.uk/Media%20Library ... floors.pdf

Although for floors - can't see it not being useful in your case,


----------



## Oldman (28 Aug 2009)

Steve, I think you dont quite understand what I have over the window. I guess you assumed all the old joists run from house wall outwards, but no they run the same way as the new ones do parallel to the existing house.
As far as I can see there is a 4x3" wall plate running the whole width over the window from house side to the other end and all the old roof 7" joists are just resting on that.
Almost a copy of the new build outside wall where all the joists there rest on the new wall plate, so if the window comes out all that will be holding all the joists in place will be a 4x3" timber which I wouldnt call a joist.

So yes it does look like I am going to be needing an rsj.

Dibs, thanks for the useful link, toe screwed they will be. As to the roof covering, I admit to not wanting to test out a new system when the old covering had lasted 30 odd years without leaking. If this does anywhere close to that I wont be around any more to worry about it.


----------



## StevieB (28 Aug 2009)

Ah, got you. I did indeed think they came out from the house. I still think you can put a joist from the house wall out down the length of the 4x3 wall plate. If you put it on the outside and make it taller (top to bottom) than the wall plate you can also screw through it and into the end of the old rafters. Akin to an edge on a shelf to stiffen the shelf and stop it sagging.

Still think an RSJ is overkill for that roof to be honest. If it wasn't for the BCO I would say go through the new triple and into the old, so that the new triple acts as a midline joist supporting new roof one side and old roof the other. Did he say why you couldnt join the two? Rather than an RSJ which would need pillars, can you get a 4" square box section in there in place of the wall plate (or as well as on the inside?) In this way it will not protrude below the ceiling and you can plasterboard over the two flush to hide it all.

Steve.


----------



## RogerS (28 Aug 2009)

StevieB":22ho2tub said:


> ..... not sure what the BCO is upset about) .....
> 
> Steve.



It never ceases to amaze me that they all seem to have their pet foibles and interpretations of what, on the face of it, is written down in black and white in the regs!


----------



## Oldman (28 Aug 2009)

Steve, thought so :wink: 

I am going to strip off a covering of 3mm ply which is hiding the wall plate and joist ends and I will take some pics so its clear what I have at present.
The bco didnt want the 2 buildings joined as he was unsure of the original foundations, he didnt want the old extension moving and damaging the new. At least thats the word from the builder.
Seems pointless as the new walls are tied to the old ones both sides anyway.
The existing extension had planning permission in 1973 ish and is still standing so if it was going to fall over I would have thought it would have done so by now.


----------



## studders (28 Aug 2009)

Oldman":2ewhqd6t said:


> The existing extension had planning permission in 1973 ish and is still standing so if it was going to fall over I would have through it would have done so by now.



Ooooh I wouldn't be too sure about that, buildings are strange, unpredictable beasts, turn ya back just for a second and over they go. :lol: 
Can't the 4x3 be 'beefed up'? Seems more sensible than an RSJ.


----------



## Oldman (29 Aug 2009)

Remember a few posts back when the builders stripped the old roof covering and timbers they said that the roof not only had firings to shute the water to the direction of the now new ext but also the joists were set lower in the middle too.
Well I just found out why the roof dips in the middle, its the strain of all that weight sitting on an unsupported 4x3" wall plate.
It drops by almost 1" in the center of the 3.10mtr span over the window frame. I have no idea if it was always like that or if thats the reason the original builder put a pair of 1.55mtr steel crittal windows in there bolted together?

I dont think I can now jack the roof joists and wall plate level again as this would no doubt damage the new felting, not sure what the effect would be on the directions the water would want to flow either so it looks like any new supports would need to be bolted through the existing 4x3" in its present bowed state.

What I really dont understand is why when they had the roof covering all stripped back to the joists and firings and were up there with spirit levels moaning about the roof changing direction and having lower joists in the middle it didnt set off alarm bells, I assumed from their discription that the middle of span joists had either been trimmed down in size or set into the wall plate to gain this strange mid span dip.
I would have thought as builders they would have come across this sort of thing before and would realise right away that something was fundmentally wrong.

Here are a couple of pics showing the bow clearly now that I have removed the ply facia that was behind the original guttering and taken the top trim off the upvc window frame.










Here from the old extension side nothing shows, the little plaster damage was when the upvc window was installed.
It gets tricky if I were considering putting a new support beam across on the inside of the room resting on the 2 end pillars as this would involve lots of shims to get the new beam to support each joist in its present bowed position











I am guessing here but maybe if the cut in the house wall was made wider to get another new joist say 7 or 8" x 2 1/2" set in and the padstone concrete block the other end was shaped to take it, I could bolt through the old 4 x 3" wall plate into it leaving the wall plate in its present bowed state?


----------



## trousers (30 Aug 2009)

Oldman

Been away a week so just catching up on this thread.

My advice to you (as a builder) is to STOP now and take stock of where you are at.
Sorry to sound harsh but as I see it right now you are going from one unresolved issue to another, quickly, and are hoping some people on an internet forum are going to help you see the thing through. If you feel under pressure from the builder to keep pressing on, resist and tell him you want time to sort out some issues before any more work is done.

The latest issue with the existing roof support is a tricky one because I suspect that your BCO will say that it does not impinge on his jurisdiction over the new extension (they cannot impose regs on existing structures). In other words, he may later issue a completion certificate for the new works, but he won't be interested if the existing extension falls down.

So who specified the structural details (any details :roll: ) for the new extension? Architect, builder, structural engineer, or you? Perhaps the first port of call should be that specifier. However, if it was you or the builder I would be very cautious that you don't make the situation worse. A lot of the things that are happening now are either because there is no spec for the builder to follow, or more likely he has not taken much notice of what he might be up against when it comes to doing the job = cheap price = you pay to get over his problems later on over and above the agreed price.

And what about all the other building details that have now been covered up? Some of it is just down to poor detailing, but the wall insulation issue is fundamental. Did the cavity wall insulation get carried up so that it was *continuous *with the roof insulation (ie no cold bridging)?

I would be inclined to sort all outstanding details now before you get anywhere near internal finishes, otherwise when the BCO refuses to sign the project off/the builder stings you for extras the dung will really start to fly.


----------



## Oldman (30 Aug 2009)

Hi Trousers, this project was set up as a fixed price job, he wasnt the cheapest builder to quote but I got feedback from satisfied customers with this one, its was spec'd as shell only (no plasterboard even) and the specifications of work I drew up was detailed from quotes I had from others. 
I do think the job has probably cost him more than he bargained for and now just wants to finish as quickly and cheaply as possible.

As to the wall insulation, the outside wall without a window in has now been filled with insulation to plate level and has 90mm celotex in between the joists on the outer skin, I intend to fill the void to the inner wall with more insulation before the ceiling boards go on.
The wall with the window has certainly got insulation to lintel height and above that is doubtfully completely filled, what did go in after my complaint is packed in too hard so wont act as insulation very well. Rather than argue I will remove 3 blocks under the wall plate after he finishes and reinsulate that top area properly, then replace the blocks.

The need for vertical dpc's on the joining walls was something I didnt know about until well after the walls started to go up so really dont think there was anything I could do to change that, I will use Thompsons waterproofer on the exisiting outer walls near the joins in the hope that this may counter any problems.

Some reasonable news re the bowed wall plate above the 3.1mtr window, I stripped off all the window finishers today and found the window frame sits around 1" lower than the wall plate and the fitter had screwed up into the wall plate with no packing pieces in place so had jacked the wall plate down to meet the frame! The frame had also gone up some in the middle but once I got the screws out the frame dropped and the wall plate recovered some.
So now I am not so worried about it all falling around my ears when the window comes out.
I will still put the extra joist across as I suggested earlier and bolt it through the plate to get it good and strong. I also realise that the bco wont be interested in what I do to fix this as long as it doesnt get attached to the new build roof joists.

Things like the roof flashing in lead was on my detailed spec so he will be doing that before he finishes, the noggins and retaining straps also.
Much of the work is now complete with just the 2 windows to come out, walls (already cut) to be taken down and the new window to be fitted.
The final screed of floor to existing heights (around 40mm) may be a problem with the new dpm being cut to existing concrete level on the old house sides, but when I mentioned it to the bco he didnt think it would be a problem for the builder to correct.
Lastly before he gets paid I would like to try and get the bco to do a drains test and sign that off as well as the other items the builder has done. 

Anything done after that point is down to me, I am semi retired and intend to work at my own pace as and when I have the spare money so the job may well take a while ;-) 

My thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, I have learned a lot since this started and im sure others reading it are now better informed too =D>


----------



## BigShot (30 Aug 2009)

Trousers...
Sounds like some sound advice there.




RogerS":gzkm58li said:


> It never ceases to amaze me that they all seem to have their pet foibles and interpretations of what, on the face of it, is written down in black and white in the regs!


With you there Roger.
We're partnered with a BCO in one of the local authorities (there's a few round here) and we go through him no matter what council the job site comes under.

Even if we had a job on in London (unlikely) we'd use our local (Bury) lad.

Fact is, he's flippin' marvelous. Very helpful, friendly, good with regs and very open to finding the best solution when something tricky rears its head.

Could be worth using something like that if it's an issue you often face. They set up the scheme after local authorities started losing loads of work to private inspectors.

Once you're partnered you can put any job you get through that one officer (but can use the normal avenues whenever you prefer) and what they say about a job goes no matter if it's in their area or not, basically.


----------



## RogerS (31 Aug 2009)

That sounds like a cracking scheme, Big Shot. My guys seem to go the other way and not encourage the same person on the same job even. However, they are helpful and pragmatic even though they 'try it on' with their pet foibles.


----------



## trousers (31 Aug 2009)

Oldaman

You wrote

...."and the specifications of work I drew up was detailed from quotes I had from others. "

And therein lies the issue that arises with alot of small building works eg extensions of this size.

The customer in these situations doesn't think the project size warrants the cost of architect or structural design and supervision, and to save money relies on their own expertise and/or that of the builder to come up with a spec. Trouble is, any two or ten builders will have their idea of how the project should be done. Leave them to quote for "a shell" and you will get (wildly) different quotes. The customer then sees a cheap one, accepts it, and then expects the BCO to iron out the mistakes and shortcuts as it goes along.

It seems that you distilled _your spec_ from the various builders' initial descriptions of what they intended to build for the price they included. Did you then get them to requote to your spec? If so and you accepted a fixed price quote against that spec then it means 2 things.
1. You are the project manager and are responsible for ensuring that each detail is done to your spec
2. If anything arises as a variation to that spec, then you need the builder to quote for the price variation and agree it before you carry on.

So did you specify the horizontal and vertical DPC detailing, the amount of slope on the roof, chippings or reflective paint finish, etc etc? If not then you are in the hands of the builders idea of how it should be done.

In a worst case scenario, the builder will rely on the absence of a spec, and the customers ignorance of building details, to cut more corners than a getaway driver so the job is finished asap. Customer pays in full, BCO hasn't been on site once in entire project and refuses to issue completion certificate, and builder doesn't answer phone when he's contacted.

Show some builders a detailed (last nut and bolt) spec and they will run away (can't be bothered to price and know they can earn a living cutting corners with hapless customers). However, most clients are not sufficiently clued up to produce their own spec and manage it. This is when they rely on their builder, or bite the bullet and pay for the spec/management. 

Not a rant this, honestly :lol: And nothing personal to you Oldman. It's easy to see why the building trade has a generally poor reputation, resulting in TV progs and horror stories in the press. A lot of it is about trust really. Just like voting in your local MP to parliament and then finding out he's on the take on a much bigger scale than your builder ever was :shock: 

[/quote]


----------



## BigShot (31 Aug 2009)

RogerS
I'll see if I can find the info about the partnership scheme.

If you've got a good one in one of your local authorities it could be well worth going through them.

That said (and this is the one part I'm not 100% on) it could be that the partnership is only for the plan inspection. I can't see why the site inspections wouldn't be the same guy (where it's in his area) as that's one of the draws of using a private inspector, but it could be that it can be different.

In any case though, I imagine you'd have no trouble holding the other inspectors to the approved plans if they try to have their own way with the regs.

I'll have a look and get back to you on that.


----------



## Oldman (2 Sep 2009)

Well its pretty much done now, the windows and walls have been removed, the ends of the old cavities bricked up, the house covered in a layer of dust..

I put a prop in for when the builders went on the new roof to fit the lead flashing and finish off the drainpipes and such.






The old extension was built on a concrete raft, here is the wall base back to original dpc






Once they cleared past that to the raft they stopped so they could treat the concrete.






They poured black bitumastic paint from new concrete up the side of the raft and across the top.






Then did the same at the point where the old exisiting kitchen outside wall used to be.






The guy who does the screeding is coming tomorrow, he will screed to a level the same as the existing old kitchen and old extension floors but will leave an area that is I am told too thin to screed, like above the raft. I am to use a self leveling compound in those two areas later. At least thats their plan, hope it works out.

The noggins went in, nail gunned and begrudgingly pee'd.






Last view from the dining room with the old kitchen back end just visible.


----------



## Oldman (4 Sep 2009)

The BCO has been and looked, he's asked the builder to fit resraint straps and to nail the metal joist hangers through every available hole rather than just a few.
He was happy with the damp proofing paint.
He also visually checked the drains, but said until the bathroom work and new kitchen are complete he cant oversee a drains test so that will have to wait some time now.

The screeder has been and done his bit too, near 2 ton of sand in there, I think the builder could maybe have gone for a bit more concrete or type 1.










I need to wait a few days now before walking on it, then I can use some leveling compound to finish off the edges.

The builder will be back next week to do the snags, then thats him done.


----------



## BigShot (4 Sep 2009)

I dunno why so many still try to get away with only nailing a few holes on hangers. It's not like BCOs ever don't ask for them all to be done.


----------



## Oldman (8 Sep 2009)

He's finished!

Straps & hangers nailed, I got him to remove some thermolite blocks above the lintel and take out the 2 loose bricks, clear the lintel top of cement droppings and put insulation right up to the top of the void.

I just need to sort the Latex leveling out for the floor edges and find the best cable run from CU to extension, draw some cables through fit a secondary joist to support the old extension roof and thats then it for now as the bathroom has priority.


----------



## trousers (8 Sep 2009)

So, was it on budget?

And do you regret it?


----------



## Oldman (8 Sep 2009)

He did almost exactly what was on the shedule, there was to be an extra charge for altering my mains water in from old copper to new plastic pipe and a new shut off valve which I had agreed to, but one pane of glass cracked 36hrs after fitting by the builder and the suppliers sent a fitter to see if it was a manufacturing fault and suggested the builder had used too narrow packers which had slipped off one pane causing it to crack.

After negotiations they agreed to a nominal fee of £8 for a new glazing unit fitted by them.

I agreed to pay that cost and the builder forgot the pipework cost.

So there were no extras whatsoever in the end, finished on budget as they say.

The builder left me 1/4 ton of sharp and pit sand plus a couple of 90mm celotex sheets which he couldnt be bothered to remove from site  

As to regretting it, in the end no as I have what I wanted but I did find the whole episode quite traumatic. Mid way through I would have gladly rewound and not had it started due to the upheaval to my home and garden, the constant clearing up every day once they had left site and the thought that it may never end up being what I wanted.

Would I use him again? I think on reflection now that he knows how picky I am his quotes in future would have a "grumpy old man" factor built in so he may be just too expensive. He informed me that he made little or no profit from my work, just enough to keep his guys in work.

I still have an extra joist to put in to support the old extension 4 x 3" over the removed window frame but I will do that myself as I figured I can manage that job. :wink:


----------



## Oldman (13 Sep 2009)

Just in case anyone is still following this thread...

I have now beefed up the wooden lintel spanning the opening that used to have a very large window in it.
I probably went a bit overboard, but I figured its better that than having the decoration ruined later on.
First I acrowed the old joist up a few mil just to take out any slack there may be in it.












Then a 200x 47 C24 timber joist sandwiched was against the 3x4" lintel using 4" 10's set in a hi/lo pattern.






Also made some brackets and hung those from the m12 bolts in the triple joist, these were also screwed with 4" 10's into the new joist.






The joist was also cut to rest on the concrete pad that the triple was sitting on and strapped near the cut to stop splitting.






Then just to finish off a c24 100x47 was after running down on my table saw and rebating for the brackets was screwed onto the side of the new joist, overkill I know but it hides the brackets from view :wink: 






I then set to removing a radiator and another 60cm of wall from behind it, the opening just didnt look right with that bit still there. Got a slim tall rad to go in the 60cm space thats left once I drain the system down for some other work.











Need to brick up the open cavity there now and render all the cut walls ready for plastering, plus get the cables run in and I can then drop this project in favour of finishing the wrecked bathroom first.


----------



## Max Power (13 Sep 2009)

Will miss this thread, its been my most eagerly anticipated part of the forum for weeks. don't forget to keep us up to speed on the bathroom


----------



## Oldman (14 Sep 2009)

Thanks Alan, I will pop up the odd pic as an when something changes on this project if its still being viewed with interest.

Not so sure I want you all in my bathroom though :wink: 

Personally I do enjoy reading others posts when they have plenty of pics as well.


----------



## Oldman (20 Sep 2009)

A small update :wink: 

I used an electric planer on the bowed timber lintel where it dipped below my new straight C24 joist and that worked a treat, its now pretty much level looking and will take a plasterboard covering without looking like the ceiling is pregnant.

Next I needed to get the mains cabling into the new room from the Consumer Unit. I had a measure up and it worked out to a 20mtr run.
Luckily my 36ft garage where the CU is has a cable tray fitted by me already so I didnt think putting the cables through to the new room would present much of a problem, should have known....

I had to drill through from the attached garage to the dining area, I measured up carefully as I wanted to come through the wall just below the ceiling coving and run a 40x25mm mini trunking along under the coving for now with a view to siting the mini trunking under the coving at a later date. 
Drilled some starter holes in the dining room and instead of finding a cavity I found red brick behind the outer blockwork, scratched my head and then remembered the original back of house (dining area is also an extension remember) was rendered with brick piers that stuck out on the corners by 4" or so. Thats what I had drilled into, so plan be move along the wall 6" and drill again, ah cavity good. 
Now into the garage and drill again at my carefully calculated point, now the garage is a good 12" lower than the house so I knew I had to drill at an upwards angle of 45 deg and below the wall plate for the garage roof to get the holes to line up but the clever bloke who wired the original dining room had put his cables through and left a coil of spare in the cavity :roll: right where I wanted to drill through.
Luckily I spotted them before hitting them and again had to move my hole position, so now I am drilling at 45 deg to vertical and 45 deg to horizontal to get the holes to line up.
Whats this in the blockwork? Nails! set into a block just where I want to drill are some 2" wire nails, they must have got in there when the block was made? so now I have to drill round them so I can remove them as they would tear my cables to bits, eventually I have a reasonable sized hole and with a bit of fishing I manage to get right through.

At least I did better than the alarm company engineer who some years ago managed to drill up through from the garage, through the bedroom floorboard and the base of a fitted wardrobe, then had the cheek to wire the alarm cables through those holes, caused me no end of grief when I tried to remove the wardrobe.

As the wife hasnt an idea yet of what kitchen appliances she wants or where they will be sited, I had to guess with my circuit designs and allow for more than she will probably want, so I ended up selecting the following cables.
6mm for cooker/hob
6mm for maybe reducing to 4mm and use as a radial for under counter kit
2.5mm pair for a ring main
2.5mm for a dedicated fridge/freezer radial (non rcd) 
1.5mm for all kitchen lighting inc wall cabinet/pelmet lighting if needed
1.5mm for outside lighting around the new extension

So thats 7 cables in all, I ran them all out up the garden, added a couple of mtrs for luck and cut them all 22mtr long.
Taped them all up in pairs to save getting crossovers while feeding them through walls and gathered the troops (well wife and 2 kids) I put a red marker tape on the bunch to show when enough was fed through from the dining room to garage and off we set, worked out quite well really, once the cables were through the wall to the garage I clipped them all to the cable tray with just the right amount spare by the time I got to the consumer unit.
Fed the other end through from the dining area to the new kitchen where they will remain coiled up until the wife knows what she wants where.

I did take her along to both Homebase and B&Q to see if I could inspire her into a plan but Homebase had limited display units and seemed to be getting ready to drop most in favour of I guess new ranges.
B&Q had little more available and a friend says they are reducing their kitchen ranges as well.
If anyone knows of a supplier down sarf of reasonable quality kit please let me know.

Right, I'm off to the bathroom now....


----------



## RogerS (20 Sep 2009)

I think that the second 6mm is overkill and you could have just used the 2.5mm ring main. 

The dedicated 2.5mm to the fridge/freezer is a good idea. You say non-RCD. Is this because you already have a split load CU? Reason for asking is that I'm not too sure what the regs are re retro-fitting but your sparky will advise. Any new circuits had to be protected by RCDs' I thought but one way round this would be to fit an RCBO on the non-RCd side of your CU to feed the fridge/freezer (assuming you can buy/fit one). Again yor sparky will advise.

I have fitted several Magnet kitchens in the past and were very happy with them.


----------



## Oldman (20 Sep 2009)

Hi Roger, yes I know the 2nd 6mm is over the top but I had a 100mtr drum sitting here and I cant for the life of me think of anything else I am likely to want to use it for so what the hell its in there now, perhaps I can run my plasma cutter in there....  

The dedicated freezer non RCD circuit in a kitchen is ok as long as the cables are surface or not less than 50mm from the surface (for nail strikes etc) so it will be in earthed conduit where needed chased to below plaster depth.
I'm not short of ways in the consumer units, either RCD or not :wink: 






I was until I retired an electrical engineer in a factory, so although I'm not quite up to date with all the regs and do need to go look things up I hope to not make any bloomers along the way.
Others reading this may not be aware that the kitchen is an area where part P comes into play and electrical work in this aera should in general only be done by a sparky who is Part P registered, so he can sign off the job when complete.
I have elected to diy and get the council to check my work and issue the certificate.

I will take a look at Magnet for the kitchen units, thanks for that.


----------



## RogerS (20 Sep 2009)

Oldman":1aasl4vk said:


> Hi Roger, yes I know the 2nd 6mm is over the top but I had a 100mtr drum sitting here and I cant for the life of me think of anything else I am likely to want to use it for so what the hell its in there now, perhaps I can run my plasma cutter in there....  ........



Knew there must be a good reason!



Oldman":1aasl4vk said:


> Others reading this may not be aware that the kitchen is an area where part P comes into play and electrical work in this aera should in general only be done by a sparky who is Part P registered, so he can sign off the job when complete.
> I have elected to diy and get the council to check my work and issue the certificate.
> .......



Smart move! It's what I did. Only surprise was the lack of testing...just a visual check !


----------



## Oldman (29 Sep 2009)

I had a look in Magnet Roger, I was worried when I saw nothing had prices on, then they gave me a book with them in and I retired quickly. Starting at £4500 for self fit  Well out of my price range.

I was thinking I could do it for around £1000.

The job has almost ground to a halt now, I am supposed to be working in the family bathroom which is toiletless since I had to remove the stack for the kitchen extension to go in.
The idea was to temp move the bath (used with a shower in) to where the basin and toilet were with the basin moved along the same wall so the rest of the bathroom was clear for tiling and fitting of a P shaped shower (we dont want a bath) then once thats side is done, tile the rest and fit new toilet and basin and dump the bath...but...

I really need to get the electrics finished in the new kitchen so they can get signed off and I can get the walls plastered/plasterboarded and to do that I need the units chosen so I know the positions for under counter sockets, wall sockets, switches etc. Then there is the hot and cold feed and waste to plan and now she has made up her mind I need to get a gas supply in for the hob :roll: 
I cant believe the amount of dust thats still coming from that area into the rest of downstairs so I would like to get the ceiling fitted, plaster work done and floor tiles down before I go making even more mess upstairs.

I am going to take a look at Wickes flat pack kitchens, the Houston range has 30% off atm and I hope I can get still more off it.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/content/ebiz/wi ... ton-30.jpg

I will try to get one of their guys to do me a design layout so I have a better idea of cost.
Maybe I should then start a new thread in projects on the kitchen units so I can get some pointers as my last kitchen install was 30 odd yrs ago.


----------



## StevieB (29 Sep 2009)

One word for kitchens - Ikea. don't laugh, easy to fit, cheaper than B&Q (slightly) much cheaper than Homebase. You can design yourself, they always have stuff in stock (unlike B&Q, DAMHIKT) and they deliver if necessary. The only downside is their styles tend to be quite modern, but if that fits your taste then certainly worth a look. 

If you go with Wickes I would be interested in the quality as they generally do heavy discounts after xmas and I need some workshop cupboards  In fact if you can wait until Jan you are likely to get a kitchen considerably cheaper, particularly if SWMBO's taastes run to solid oak doors or similar :roll: 

Steve.


----------



## RogerS (29 Sep 2009)

Oldman":1n4lv6j6 said:


> I had a look in Magnet Roger, I was worried when I saw nothing had prices on, then they gave me a book with them in and I retired quickly. Starting at £4500 for self fit  Well out of my price range.
> 
> ....



That's list and no-one pays that ! Haggling is always possible.


----------



## Oldman (29 Sep 2009)

Popped into homebase to get them to draw up a plan.

Chose white Como range and with middle of the range handles and worktop, no sink or appliances it came to £2600 dropping to £2400 ish tomorrow. Gulp! Seems like I am in the past price wise.






I took a look at Ikea's range and liked it but we dont have an Ikea anywhere close to us so it would be an online purchase if I were to go that route.

Off to Wicks this afternoon to see what they come up with.


----------



## BradNaylor (29 Sep 2009)

Oldman":2r2edhu4 said:


> Popped into homebase to get them to draw up a plan.
> 
> Chose white Como range and with middle of the range handles and worktop, no sink or appliances it came to £2600 dropping to £2400 ish tomorrow. Gulp! Seems like I am in the past price wise.



That seems like a good price to me. I don't think you will save much by shopping around.

The best I could buy that lot through the trade for would be around £1250 plus VAT; so my selling price would be similar to Homebase.

Ikea might be cheaper, but I can't think that anyone else would be.

Brad


----------



## Oldman (29 Sep 2009)

Wickes budget range self assembly Houston range came to £1300 as in the pic, same specs as Homebase, no appliances or sink. I am hoping I can get another 15% off that price if I play my cards right.






Sorry about the quality, not enough light for a picture tonight, here is the Wickes link instead.






Seems this is a good seller, the salesman said 70% of the flat pack sold recently are these shiney white ones.

If I can go through it all again tomorrow I will cost the units from Ikea online.


----------



## Oldman (31 Oct 2009)

Well its been a month since I posted here, I spent a long time looking for a kitchen I could afford and nearly ended up with a B&Q one in desperation as they had a 15% weekend and that along with discounted units brought one down to my price level. 
Luckily as I really didnt much like the idea of a b&q kitchen with ordered bits that never turn up, I went into Homebase with the quote and get them to match and an extra 10% off on a imo better kitchen.

So I have now ordered a shaker style light oak kitchen with quite a few alterations from the plan I posted here recently.
The worktop caused some head scratching as the wife wanted black granite gloss laminate and I had been warned off it due to it scratching easily and they show due to the gloss.
In the end we did go for it with the proviso that I changed it next year if it does look bad that quickly.
I bought some worktop savers so hopeful it will last.
Kitchen final price was £1200 which will please my bank account  

Handles were joke prices at the sheds, but I found what I wanted via google for under £40 the lot.

I bought a new 90cm chimney style hood cheap from a friend who had 2 delivered for a kitchen project last year, a gas hob from B&Q on 10% weekend, the stainless 1.5 inset sink caused some grief as we didnt want a reversable one with a blanking cap in front of you. Finally found a left drainer one in my price range...well almost.
I have a double electric oven waiting to be fitted, so its nearly sorted.

I bought 27 sq mtrs of floor tiles as we want to do the new and old kitchen floor plus the hall leading into it all in the same tiles. Got those on a 10% off and sale price 

The electrics are almost finished, a few more boxes to sink and some cables to run to them and I will be ready for plastering.

Yes plastering, I was going to use plasterboard dot & dab but at my work rate the olympics will be over before I get that far!
I had a couple of plasterers in to quote and best price I got was £570 for putting up ceiling boards and plastering, plus rendering all the walls and finish plastering, so he's got the job.
Plasterers down here seem to be on around £250 a day still.

On the same theme of me farming out work I got a guy to lay the bought floor tiles in the new kitchen after the plasterer has finished for £240, that includes latex leveling the floor as it need between the new floor and other 2 rooms.

So a few days of odd hrs here and there will see my electrics ready for first fix inspection, then I can get the plasterer and tiler in.

The kitchen delivery I have delayed until 2nd week in December to allow time for the plaster to dry and us to paint the new walls and ceiling.

No pics as its not really changed much apart from slowly filling with tools and junk.


----------



## Dibs-h (31 Oct 2009)

Oldman":1okc6bsu said:


> not really changed much apart from slowly filling with tools and junk.



Sounds like my house. :roll: Actually it is my house!


----------



## Oldman (22 Nov 2009)

Time for an update and maybe some advice on the plastering or state of it.
I finished the first fix electricals and got them signed off. I got quite acrried away making sure all the back boxes were cut in deep enough for plastering, I even rendered in the small gaps around the boxes to hold them good and firm so the plasterers couldnt clock them out of square when floating on the hard wall. All looked good at this stage.






Plasterer was booked once the wiring was signed off, had to wait over a week for him, or so I thought.
A couple of days before he was due I phoned to confirm hes coming. He told me he wouldnt make it and put my job back a week. I'm on a shedule here as swimbo would like it finished for Xmas...
Near the end of the next week, call plasterer again, hard to get him but eventually find his wife has gone to hospital and he now cant give a start date at all.
I had by this time a back up plan to use a local company who though charging slightly more profess to be specialists etc...
Well they came in 4 days from instruction. I guess that should have sent me warning bells, but beggars cant be choosers etc...
2 guys turned up and set to work, by lunchtime the ceiling plasterboard was up and scrimmed/plastered and the walls were getting hardwalled, another guy then arrived so now I have 3 working in an area only big enough for 2.
By the eve they had all the walls hardwalled and all bar one wall (window one) finish coated.
They left for the day. Non of the electrical boxes had been cut back so were full of setting plaster, I also noted the window sill had 15mm run out along its length. Oh dear its not looking good.
Day 2 and 1 guy arrives to finish off, he has to re bead and plaster the sill again to get it level. The plaster breakes around my electrical boxes when he tries to chip it out.
I asked him to confirm with his long leveler that the walls are flat and level/square as worktops are being fitted.
Not having had a room plastered before I was unsure what to set my expectations at and found it difficult while its all wet/drying to see how well it had been done.














I had already got a booking for the floor to be tiled just 1 day later. He turned up on time and did a good job even if it did cost a lot more than I would have liked to have paid, being tight on cash and knowing if I had more time I could have done it myself.














Beige tiles with limestone grout, nothing expensive but looks ok to me 

Had to stay off the tiles for a day so still wasnt able to get the check the plaster finish till then.
Well now I have and I did somehow think I would be able once its had time to dry just give it a wipe down and paint it. No chance.
Just about every right angle requires sanding/filler to get rid of lumps depressions. The 2 walls that have units and worktops going on them are out of square and run out both vertially and horizontally, one by as much as 10mm over 2.5mtr.
I conplained to the company and they are sending their estimator back Monday to take a look but as I dont know whats normally acceptable...

At the moment my 60yr old house walls are in a better state than the new ones imo. I am not sure what can be done to put right the errors but if they do anything at all its going to put me back yet another week waiting for the walls to dry before I can paint


----------



## studders (22 Nov 2009)

Looks OK from what I can see and floor looks good. In my experience, unless you have true walls and get a gem to plaster them, no plastering is as good as one would like so you may well end up scribing worktops and cabinets to get an acceptable fit.


----------



## RogerS (22 Nov 2009)

I'd go along with Studders. To level it all out means you'll lose another 18mm or so plus all the mess on the floortiles - plastering after tiles have been laid is never a good idea (although I'm having to do this myself at home). One dodge to check how good plaster walls are is to get a halogen light and shine it down the wall and parallel to it, if you follow me. This really shows up all the indentations etc.

You're getting tight for time to let it all dry out properly before you paint it before you put the kitchen units up, I reckon. You do know not to get a dehumidifier in to speed the drying process up, don't you? Apologies if granny is sucking eggs.

Re the plaster boxes, my plasterer usually clears them out himself before its' had time to set hard. If he's tight for time then I do it. Usually the plaster breaks off quite cleanly on the edges of the boxes.

Those floor tiles look really nice, btw.


----------



## Oldman (22 Nov 2009)

Thanks both for the replies, Here is a close up of the sort of finish I have. I realise its very difficult to show defects in photo's but I will try.

First is the edging bead, not only showing through but so bad it will need filler before painting.







Next is a corner going floor to ceiling, this was perfectly square brick to blockwork before the plasteres got at it.

Lower view




and progerssing up the wall





The plastered wall varies from 50mm to 70mm wall to edge bead as it wanders in and out up to the ceiling.

Here is a spirit level at the line the worktop would be at, the gap behind it is near 10mm






I cant see how this can be acceptable work?

I realise not to use a dehumidifier and I also dropped the cental heating a degree and removed the rad closest to the work to let it dry nice and slow Roger.
I too like the tiles, pity I didnt use them on the walls :wink: 

The wife likes them so much she wants the old kitchen, hall and dining area done in the same now.


----------



## RogerS (22 Nov 2009)

No, it's not. That plaster is rubbish and no excuse for it to go so far out of true. in an ideal world, it should be hacked off and redone...but you didn't want to hear that.


----------



## Oldman (22 Nov 2009)

Hacking off isnt realistic Roger, I would even entertain that if the walls didnt contain electrics that would no doubt get damaged in the process.

Im left I think with 2 possibilities, either they pva and apply more hardwall to level the wall then finish plaster again.
Or they dab 9mm plasterboard on level! and skim that.

I have fillers in the kitchen units on both walls allowing me the possibility of building out the walls by up to 50mm without coming to grief fitting the units.

As for the ceiling....

](*,)


----------



## matt (22 Nov 2009)

I don't think I've ever seen plastering out by so much. It's obvious where the box is showing the levels going out but will it notice once the kitchen is in? Is there room to be pragmatic about it from a remedy point of view whilst demanding some money back from the plasters?


----------



## studders (22 Nov 2009)

That is pretty bad though not as bad as some I've seen. I wouldn't let them back in myself, I doubt their ability to do any better. I'd bite the bullet and tidy the bits that will be visible when the kitchen is finished. The other bits could be dealt with by scribing or judicious(sp?) reduction/removal of plaster to get an acceptable fit.
That said, do kick up one hell of a fuss and get some money back off them.


----------



## Oldman (22 Nov 2009)

The wall with the window in is the worst of all and even with scribing the worktop in there are no other units above it on that wall so it will show.

I wonder if they would lay plasterboard on my tiles with sheets over to protect them if they want to go making lots more mess. Laid the right way up the plasterboard could still be used on another job and sheets are cheap.

I do have some new ply sheets that I could lay but I dont really want to.

On the ceiling they floated towards the cables I guess as I have a raised thickness of plaster by the lighting cables, this will be a problem as I have a fluorescent fitting mounting on these 2 points so it will be now proud of the ceiling instead of being flush.











Getting resigned to a 2010 kitchen now.


----------



## Jake (22 Nov 2009)

That's appalling plastering, I thought I'd experienced a bad one (and a couple of very good ones since) but that puts the bad one in the shade.


----------



## Oldman (23 Nov 2009)

The firm's estimator turned up this morning first thing, he agreed it was unacceptable and said the plasterer will be back later today to redo as needed.
He just arrived and has pva'd the wall and window revels, has cut some much wider than last time expalmet type beading for round the window and is setting that in carefully using a spirit level.

They also brought bonding plaster and multifinish, I have everything crossed...

5:30pm update, that one wall 2.8m x 2.4 tall with a 1.8m x 1m window in has taken 3+ bags of bonding and lots of scraping/checking. Its scratch finished for tonight and hes back tomorrow pm to finish it.
Then there is a stub wall to redo.
My extension will be a broom cupboard by the time its finished :roll:


----------



## Triggaaar (23 Nov 2009)

Ouch, I hope the plaster gets sorted. My build is pretty much in line with yours, I started a week or two before you, and my plasterer started today. I've not used him before, but he did some work at a friends place. I think he's pretty good, but I'll check as we go. Good luck with the second attempt.


----------



## Oldman (24 Nov 2009)

Well Studders was right...dont let em back...I should have taken notice of what he said.
I am so peeeeeed off now.

They came back today to finish the job for the 2nd time. I watched them like a hawk all the time, getting more nervous as the multi finish went on and on and on, how thick does it need to be!
I already got a barrowload of bonding on it yesterday.

Anyway much mess later they pronounced it finished and left quickly.

I cleared up...AGAIN!

Ran a finger along the beading on the sill edge and got stabbed.














Not sure how well you can see that but the snips were blunt and the bead got bent off rather than cut I think.
How he managed to float off the wall without grinding to a halt each time he got to there I dont know.

Then I looked more carefully at the revels, not much window left there after all that plaster.






Its also nowhere near vertical or horizontal in the revel when a level is put up to it.
So now I have a mini window surround with not enough meat left to rescue it by tiling square even.

Close inspection of the beading shows the metal showing through and the base bonding plaster.











Here is a vertical that had the bead showing through before, its been reskimmed.


----------



## houtslager (24 Nov 2009)

sorry to say this, but I'd hack it all off and tell them to stuff themselves where the sun never shines :evil: :evil: :evil: I hate plasters , but not as much as plumbers :x 

hs


----------



## RogerS (24 Nov 2009)

houtslager":2xz31l03 said:


> sorry to say this, but I'd hack it all off and tell them to stuff themselves where the sun never shines :evil: :evil: :evil: I hate plasters , but not as much as plumbers :x
> 
> hs



There are some good plasterers.. I use one. John Devaney is his name and works out of Shropshire as far south as Worcestershire.


----------



## Doug B (24 Nov 2009)

houtslager":qrfenhm4 said:


> I hate plasters , but not as much as plumbers :x
> 
> hs





Gee, best get my coat.......................Fully qualified plumber who took up plastering 20 years ago.

Arch nemesis or what :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## Triggaaar (24 Nov 2009)

Sorry to hear your troubles, it can be such a nightmare. Some of the work shown in your pics is horrendous.


Oldman":2ewn2slb said:


> Here is a vertical that had the bead showing through before, its been reskimmed.


I can't make out properly from your picture, you're not just talking about the metal corner of the bead are you, as it's fine for that to show.


----------



## Oldman (24 Nov 2009)

No Triggaaar not the bead edge, cut a bit of 50mm beading from both sides then bend and twist the actual corner part cause your snips wont cut it and you will end up with a barb that sticks out at right angles to the bead. Thats whats there. 
Sorry I was too angry to take better pics.

My daughter got in from school just now and asked if I wanted a tarp as there was one blowing down the road.
I went to look and its the plasterers :roll: 

I just spoke to the plasterer who, if his wife wasnt ill was originally doing the job, he says at the very least the plaster around the window reveal needs stripping off and starting again.

He's coming to have a laugh...sorry look tomorrow.


----------



## Mcluma (24 Nov 2009)

mistake after mistake, I feel for you

Redoing the electrics and start from scratch again was/is much less hassle then repairing the error of these people 

sometimes you just have to take your losses

I would get the angle grinder and slice it so you can take it off

I would take it off myself rather then let them do it, and then get compensation and get another company in to do it

there are good people who can do it spot on. these people were not plasteres. or they were plastered when they did your house


----------



## Triggaaar (24 Nov 2009)

Oldman":h93wh605 said:


> Sorry I was too angry to take better pics.


I can understand, some tradesman are so bad and they can wreck your home.


----------



## studders (24 Nov 2009)

On this occasion I'm very sorry to have been right. I was really hoping they might just come through and do a decent job. You've had a very raw deal from these cowboys. Some help from Citizens Advice might be worth a try; you may be entitled to have the work redone by someone competent and bill the cowboys for it? If nothing else I would get on to trading standards, maybe the local media might be interested?
Meanwhile I've just buggered up a worktop by cutting it too short.  These things are sent to try us, and boy is it working.
Keep going though Mate, you'll get there in the end.


----------



## Oldman (24 Nov 2009)

When I ordered my kitchen I ordered 3 lengths of worktop. 

I only actually need 2 lengths, but knowing my luck lately...

I am pretty sure to need the third :roll:


----------



## studders (24 Nov 2009)

Trouble is I bought this worktop several years ago, the kitchen has taken rather longer than I planned :lol: , so I doubt I could get anymore even if I could afford to. It's only 10mm short so it's gonna get errr.... bodged


----------



## Triggaaar (24 Nov 2009)

Oldman":10wce4e4 said:


> When I ordered my kitchen I ordered 3 lengths of worktop.
> 
> I only actually need 2 lengths, but knowing my luck lately...
> 
> I am pretty sure to need the third :roll:


You definitely won't need 3 lengths. You'd only need 3 if you had bought 2.


----------



## Oldman (25 Nov 2009)

The boss of the "specialist plastering" company that did the work visited this morning first thing, he took one look at the window wall and said its all got to come off, totally unacceptable. The plasterer will be sacked.

I suggested at as they hadnt managed to get it right twice already, what chance of third time lucky!

He said he is the boss and he will come and do the job himself, I told him I was considering instructing another plasterer but he assures me it will be done right this time.

I am caught a bit between the devil and deep blue, if he strips and redoes the job its free of cost, I just have to put up with all the mess and delays before painting.
If I dont let him then he wont give any money back so another plasterer would be full cost to me again, the mess and time problem still exists.

So I dont have much choice really, they will be here today stripping off the 2 lots of plaster....

I will keep you all informed, cause I know your riveted waiting for the next instalment...or layer.


----------



## RogerS (25 Nov 2009)

Are all your electric cables behind that plaster? If they go at it gung-ho then chances are you'll need to do some rewiring especially if they sever or nick the cables. You could perhaps printout the picture of the cable runs that you posted here. That might help but I have to confess I'm not optimistic. If it were me I'd be inclined to remove the plaster over the wires myself.

Floor protection. They will say that they will put down dust sheets etc. and that they will protect your newly tiled floor. They will not. Plastering is a wet and messy business - you know this. The company (at their expense) should put down Tyvek or something similar in the breathable roofing membrane (plastic is too slippery and dangerous - but, hey, if they break a leg it's
not your problem). Then butt joint sheets of hardboard - rough side up - duck tape the joints. Then your floor will be protected.

(Jeez...this new Aple keyboard is rubbish)


----------



## Oldman (25 Nov 2009)

Roger I have already chalked the wall with all my cable runs and if the guy chasing off the plaster looks like he has less than mensa entry IQ I will take over the chasing near my cables.

I have put down my own tarp and like the last time they plastered they will bring another for over that.
I have almost gone past the point of caring about the floor tiles, I will let them know before they start that they will be paying for any damage to be put right by my tiler.

](*,)


----------



## Oldman (26 Nov 2009)

Well the guy turned up to strip the wall, put down a tarp, ply sheeting and cloths.
The plaster came off reasonably easily, some real big differences in thickness, top of the wall was around 18mm and bottom was 38mm.
Interestingly the hardwall didnt stick to my plastic cable capping so with them being careful to chop back close to my chalk marks there was no disturbance to the cabling.

The wall was carefully hardwalled and will be multifinished today.


----------



## Jake (26 Nov 2009)

That looks much better - well done to you for getting them to do it right, and credit to them for sorting it out rather than running away or being difficult about it.


----------



## Oldman (26 Nov 2009)

The plasterer came back this afternoon and put the finish coat on the wall, it looks an awful lot better now.






Looks like I will need to fit coving now though as where the 2nd bodge up was so thick its left a not too smooth edge on the ceiling where it was stripped back, same was on the 2 walls that edge this replaced one but I was able to damp the plaster and use a scraper on those to get it a little better. Ceiling coat was so thin I was in danger of making it worse so I didnt try too hard there.
Ran a stanley blade around the window reveal to trim off the tape from the window.
Reveal is spirit level proof now and the wall is straight at worktop level :wink: 

Have to wait a week now before painting, so I can get the hot & cold run around, gas pipe in and do some filling round the electrical backboxes.
Kitchen units are due 14th Dec.


----------



## houtslager (26 Nov 2009)

well done to the boss of the company for putting it all right, been there myself [ with a plumber] to my detriment and wallet.

people are people and cock ups occure when they have a "bad day "

looking good for 2nd fix then 

hs


----------



## Oldman (15 Dec 2009)

Time for an update to this saga ;-)

The plaster around the first fix socket back boxes was in a pretty poor state so I needed to make good around them, I found a double and single box "Electrical Backbox Plastering Guide" kit on ebay that I thought worth a try, it works really well leaving a nice clean shape to fix to.






After time to let the plaster dry some it was wiped down with a damp cloth and on with white matt emulsion thinned 40% with water, 2 coats, 2nd with less water and then a final proper coat on all but one wall and ceiling having filled where needed most.
Wife chose a colour for the feature wall, crown english fire matt emulsion. Suprisingly had I been more careful it would have covered in one coat, but as I had not been a second coat was needed.

Now its electrics 2nd fix time and I have done all the wall sockets, isolation switches, fcu's & cooker outlet. The spot rails are up and I just need to fit the replacement 6ft fitting in place of the hanging tube in the pics and its then ready for final circuit tests and connecting at the consumer unit.
















The kitchen units all turned up yesterday (homebase) seems from the packaging that they may come from Germany.






I still have to plumb in hot and cold water right round the walls from the old kitchen and have to get a gas supply for the hob in place.
Plus I need to alter the still in place temp waste pipework feeding the old kitchen sink and wash machine or delay fitting the last unit until the new sink etc is in place and working.

Not looking good for "ready for Xmas" but it shouldnt now be too long after before its at least usable.


----------



## Oldman (25 Dec 2009)

Merry Xmas all, no the kitchen isnt finished...

Dont buy kitchen units from Homebase, unless you want to build them blind. The instruction sheets with each carcass are generic to cover a multitude of differing uses and fail in the main to help you if you ordered anything other than a basic unit with 1 shelf. 

The kitchens are actually supplied by Interior Solutions who are an offshoot of Magnet. The doors are ok and made in Italy I'm told, though I bet they really get made in Halifax by Gower? 
They all seem to be owned by Nobia who have offshoots throughout Europe under differing names. 

The sales people in my local Homebase though polite took little notice of my feedback about instructions that dont suit individual units. 
I had several items including a 3mtr worktop (supplied just covered in a single thin sheet of polythene) arrive damaged. 
You have just 7 days to check what has arrived is all there and undamaged so if like me your busy on other stuff and wont get it all built in the 7 days you must open every box, inspect and repackage all before the 7 days are up or they wont entertain any claims. 

I reported 4 damaged items and 3 days later I have yet to hear if and when the replacements will arrive. 

The Homebase helpline actually is Interior solutions and they too were unresponsive to feedback re the bad instructions and bad packaging of worktops. 

I'm glad it was only a cheap kitchen I bought as if it was costing 2k or more I would have been pretty dissapointed all round. 

The carcasses are 16mm chip (not very dense) the doors are 20mm and the back panels are 3mm hardboard. I used glue on the dowels when assembling the base units as I really didnt think the sloppy fitting back was going to add much to the overall rigidity. OK so they will be ok when screwed to the wall and have a worktop on them, perhaps I expected too much. 

The 2118mm double oven unit had just 1 chip cross brace in the middle which I couldnt use anyway as the oven uses the whole depth to the wall so I had to make 2 timber cross braces to fit above and below the oven space as I'm sure it would have collapsed when I tried to lift it upright otherwise. 

No mention whatsoever in the instructions of anything other than 4 plastic cups and screws to hold the oven shelf in place. My oven is so heavy I wouldnt dream of mounting it on just these 4 tiny screws. I shall be putting 2 bracing strips under this shelf to add support. 
I wonder if they have ever been taken to court by customers who had ovens fall through the shelf when just following the instruction supplied. 

Rant over.... 

Now some questions, its been 30yrs since I last installed a kitchen and things have changed some.

Base unit height is supposed to be set at 870mm with 910mm being the height after worktop instal.
The below unit plinth space is 166/7mm when the units are set to this height, the plinth itself is covered chip and is 166mm tall and its got nasty looking metal clips with it that are supposed to stab into the top edge of the chip and be a tight fit on the underside of the base units to keep it in place. Looks to me like the plinth would all need to be trimmed by 10mm to use this method as the spring clips take up 10mm.
Anyone used this sort of fix before?
I'm tempted to dump this method and go for the screw on the back of plinth clips that clip round the plastic legs.

I've also deviated from the original design to try and bring the units right up to the corners to save having filler bits to take up the slack, this means having wider corner parts where the corner unit goes. Hope that bit works ok as it now means I have to work from both outer ends towards the middle (corner) rather than starting in the corner which is usual...


----------



## RogerS (25 Dec 2009)

Merry Xmas. Sorry to hear your trials are not yet over but you'll get there.

Mmmm..didn't like to say anything when you mentioned Homebase as i too had problems with Interior Solutions. The Solutions is a bit of a misnomer.

That's why my first port of call (three kitchens in the last 4 years) has been Magnet as I've always got exemplary after-sales support from Ian at my local branch.


----------



## bob321 (26 Dec 2009)

the worktops are packed as standard :x 

looking good so far :wink: 






*bob321*


----------



## Oldman (7 Jan 2010)

Well I have been busy fitting these base units and got to the end of the bases where I have a tall oven housing unit. This has a seperate extra wood grain effect end panel both sides.
How do you guys who have been there before me fit these?

As the chip is only 15mm thick it doesnt give much of a grip for screws, do you use wood glue or impact adhesive as well as screws.

I have 3 of these end panels to fit on wall units too, same thing, how to fit leaving the face without screw heads showing.

 Almost embarrassed to ask but I dont want to mess up the job at this late stage.


----------



## promhandicam (7 Jan 2010)

I would just put 4 - 6 screws through from the inside of the unit into the decor panel. You can usually hide the front ones behind the hinge plates and the ones at the back won't be seen. I've never bothered with any adhesive and never had a problem. Just make sure you double check the length of screw you use to make sure that it doesn't go all the way through.

Steve


----------



## Oldman (7 Jan 2010)

Thanks for the reply Steve, just thought it best to check.


----------



## Oldman (10 Jan 2010)

Well its getting there slow but sure. Quite a lot still to do, here's a couple of grainy pics I just took.






The 6" bend on the hood looks like a ships vent shaft, need to buy/borrow a 152mm core drill for that as my largest is 127mm.

The black sheet on the left is a spashback for behind the hob to match the shiney black simulated granite worktop.
The oven housing has to come out yet to trim that end panel off the floor, I'm hoping a router will give a clean finish to the bottom of that and keep the front edge intact.
On top of the 3 wall units is my new worktop jig so I can attempt to cut mitres on the out of square corner  






I have to make a filler for the corner where the black sheet is, I went off plan slightly by moving all the units up away from the corner so they butted up against the corners at the far ends which meant I was able for fit a drawer in the corner unit without it hitting the handle on the other drawer.
The gap is for the dishwasher, I have a matching door for that somewhere.
That bit of worktop is just for a workbench, I have a stainless sink going about there.
Hopefully end of the month should see it finished.


----------



## Max Power (11 Jan 2010)

Looking really good, love the background colour. I would just cut the left gable on the oven housing with a saw to allow the plinth to run straight through. What width is the gap at the corner?


----------



## Oldman (11 Jan 2010)

Thanks Alan, I was cutting that bottom of the end panel flush with the bottom of the units so the plinth continues on past it and was going to do the end finisher panel (not yet fitted) L shaped at the bottom so the plinth finishes against it. I have some edging tape for the plinth to tidy that end.

The gap is going to be around 20mm after fitting the finisher panel, I will need to fit a bit of quadrant or something there to tidy the end gap. The plasterers let me down on that end by not making the wall straight to vertical so the gap varies and where they pastered over the old window lintel the bead they fitted sticks out further than the side wall plaster so I had to leave a gap there as the top of the finisher panel would have been up hard on the bead but still leave a gap down to the floor.

Still have to figure what to do with the hood chimney as the ceiling is nowhere near square where its supposed to butt up to it. Trimming the stainless isnt easy as it shows any snip marks, might be easier to cut it into the plaster!

I have delayed the cut and fit operations on that tall oven unit as it has yet to come out again for a safety measure with my not very confident first attempt at masons mitres.
That run is around 2.5mtrs and so is the other side over the sink area, so my idea was to fit the sink side worktop in place, cut the female joint on that in the corner where the drills are laying, then cut the male on a full length of worktop so I get to have several tries if I get it wrong (corner not square) and once Im happy with the joint I will cut off the other end and refit the tall unit.


----------



## Max Power (11 Jan 2010)

Certainly sounds like your in control, don't worry about the worktop joints, its a fairly straight forward operation, try to do a practice one first though.
I wish I lived nearer I would have come around to give you a hand


----------



## Oldman (11 Jan 2010)

Cheers Alan, I would have gladly accepted your offer too  

I have a friend who has cut some joints for his family but he messed the last one up so is reluctant to do another just in case its a trend!


----------



## Paul Chapman (11 Jan 2010)

Argee wrote a good piece about using worktop jigs http://www.raygirling.co.uk/wtjig.htm

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


----------



## TrimTheKing (11 Jan 2010)

Oldman":wl4p9r85 said:


> That run is around 2.5mtrs and so is the other side over the sink area, so my idea was to fit the sink side worktop in place, cut the female joint on that in the corner where the drills are laying, then cut the male on a full length of worktop so I get to have several tries if I get it wrong (corner not square) and once Im happy with the joint I will cut off the other end and refit the tall unit.


How far out of whack is the corner? And is it acute or obtuse?

When I fitted one in my first house we decided between us (me and my worktop cutting mate) that the path of least resistance was to join the worktop square (to fit into an acute corner), mark the wall where the top of the worktop hit it and chisel out some of the plaster to bring the top into alignment along the carcase lengths (hope that makes sense).

This way the corners were bang on and the plaster line was covered by the tiling anyway.

Worth a thought...


----------



## Oldman (11 Jan 2010)

Thanks for the link Paul, looks easy there.

Trim the corner is acute, looks like about 10-15mm runout in 2.5mtrs.

I have read that you can cut the male side of the mitre at up to 1.5 deg out of square and still have it mate up nicely, I am going to give this a try as with all the trouble I had getting plaster on the walls I really dont want to have to go chopping it off again :wink: 

I saw a video recently by some guy trying to sell 3 plastic pegs for £30 that allowed you to cut out of square mitres, so I fired up the lathe and made some.
Seems the method is to cut the female as usual, then lay the male length under it with all up against the walls, put 3 scribe marks into the laminate with a craft knife, route back to the line in those 3 places so you have 3 half circles, turn the worktop face down, lay the jig over, insert the pegs you made into the router slots you cut , clamp down and run a pass or two, jig saw half the waste off to save the router bit wear with having to cut it all off then route till finished.
This should give the correct angle and mate exactly.
The pegs made should be 2 diameters, 31mm same as the jig slot and 12.7mm same as the router bit.

Thought it worth a try


----------



## Oldman (12 Jan 2010)

I have a couple of Homebase kitchen bits left over...  

I put them to one side when opening packets during the build and now for the life of me cant think where they should go.
They are not mentioned that I can see on any of my paperwork and the suppliers dont know what they are either.

They are 20mm wide and 50mm long with 2 c/sunk screw holes.

Not door to false drawer fixings as I have big steel straps for that.

Ideas?


----------



## andy king (12 Jan 2010)

Hi Oldman,

I would guess they may be used with those straps, fitted to the back of a door with false front, (or to link two doors together on some larder units) to give a uniform spacing before the straps are used to stiffen everything up.
Can't say that's 100% correct, but it would seem an obvious solution.

hope this helps,

Andy


----------



## studders (13 Jan 2010)

Oldman":3kj4rdga said:


> Thanks for the link Paul, looks easy there.
> 
> Trim the corner is acute, looks like about 10-15mm runout in 2.5mtrs.
> 
> I have read that you can cut the male side of the mitre at up to 1.5 deg out of square and still have it mate up nicely, I am going to give this a try as with all the trouble I had getting plaster on the walls I really dont want to have to go chopping it off again


Mine was out more than that. I thought about compensating by varying the mitre angle but it did my head in trying to work out how much to compensate to get the right fit. In the end I didn't bother and just cut it at 90 degrees then scribed the worktop for an even overhang at the front.


----------



## Oldman (13 Jan 2010)

Hi Andy yes I do have a tall double oven unit that came with an extra small door type panel that you cut to fill in the gap between top of oven and normal sized top door, I would think that maybe these are used to attach the small panel to the bottom of the top door.

Cheers for that 

Studders, as I have a fair amount of spare worktop on the side the male cut is going to be I will give the pegs I turned a go first and scribe if all else fails :wink:


----------



## Oldman (19 Jan 2010)

Got a bit more done on this project. 
The 900mm hood has a 150mm extract outlet and my biggest core drill is 127mm, so not wishing to buy a new core drill for 1 hole I elected to suffer a bit of arm ache by cutting the inner hole with a pad saw  
Its plaster and soft block so not too hard to do, just took a while to get round the circle. Doing it that way also meant I could have the vac hose up against the hole to stop the dust going everywhere.
The outer hole was done with my core drill then stitch drilled to size.

Turned out really good size wise with only 5mm clearance around the tube to seal when finished.
I have in the past had trouble using the 127mm core drill on hard brick as the pilot drill bit chews the hole out before the core has cut far enough to keep centered. This time I cut a small block of timber, drilled a pilot size hole in it and screwed this to the brickwork over the existing pilot hole, this meant the core drill couldn't wander while getting a good bite into the brick. Shall use this trick in future as it worked well.






Fitted the dishwasher and the cover door for it, thats the 2nd unit from the left. The sink door and dummy drawer I drilled and inserted stainless 8mm pins to hold the 2 together pretty much as they had done with the dishwasher door/drawer.






The plinth is just offered up for checking atm, but I think I will need to space it away from its normal position some as the floor tile line differs from the wall so the grout line will make it look odd otherwise.
Cant make up my mind re the left end filler panel, not sure if to cut it back at the bottom to continue the plinth line or leave it as is?

I do have to cut the plinth lower to clear the dishwasher door when opened & I am thinking at buying some clear plinth to floor sealing strips. The bottom of the plinth does have a white plastic strip stuck on it but I guess any spillage may get past that easily?

The worktop in the pics is just some old spare bits, the finished one will be gloss black granite laminate.

We removed a radiator when knocking through to the new extension and just got around to refitting a rad, the original was long and low under the window. Only had a small 600mm wide space so this was the best solution without going to the expense of a designer rad. 500mm wide and 900mm tall double.






I have a filler to make up for the corner where I altered the cabinet spacing to allow for drawers on both sides and the tall unit has to be removed, the outer end panels cut to size and I have some handles yet to fit, but its getting more like a Kitchen now.






With the tall cabinet out of the way I can be more flexible when mitering the worktops, cut the female on the window wall, fit in place then cut the male on a full length and if its not correct go again knowing I have plenty spare. Once its right I can cut for length then refit the tall unit.

The electrics are now all finished, electric double oven waiting to go in, gas pipework installed & gassafe plumber lined up to connect both ends once the worktops in place for £75. 

I still have the pelmet and cornice to cut and fit, I have a sliding mitre saw so I am hoping that wont turn into a drama, I need to order some mitre glue for that job.

The hot and cold supplies are run through to the sink base unit but until I have the sink fitted I cant cut through the wall for the waste as i'm not quite sure where all the wastes will end up from a bowl and a half, so not quite finished making a mess yet.

Any tips or hints on any of the above taken willingly


----------



## Oldman (24 Jan 2010)

Well time for an update, I cut all the cornice and pelmet mitres with my sliding mitre saw, had to make a jig to join them using mitremate as that stuff goes off in 10 seconds or less and trying to do it freehand was just too tricky for me. 
Anyway got them all done and mostly fitted, had to leave 1 joint for later as I needed to be able to remove the tall oven unit to aid the worktop fitting.

Today was worktop mitre cutting day...never done one before, got a friend round who had and between us we went to it.
First one was the under window length with a female joint, wall not square in the corner so scribed that end and attempted to cut it with my skill saw, that didnt end well with the top upmost chipping out. Still got plenty of spare on the length so plan B use the jig saw with an edge guide. Nope that was impossible to keep on a line and it scratched the worktop even with masking tape on the surface. The metal shoe on my Bosch jig saw picked up somehow and scratched the surface through the tape so I need to investigate fitting something to the base to make it smooth for next time.
So out with the router to trim the scribed edge again, 3rd time lucky and near 2hrs into the job and we havnt got half a joint cut yet!

Offered up the worktop and it seems ok so on with cutting the female joint, jig on, shiney side up and all clamped up. First pass at 8mm and 3 nasty sounds from under the router, finish the cut and look to find the bit has bounced and taken what looks like too much for even a finish pass (+1mm) in 3 places. How we have no idea but it did. Finished the passes and did the finish cut and sure enough its still got 3 nibbles showing. Now as this means this worktop length is now useless we elect to remove the pins and carefully reposition the jig 1mm further back on the worktop and run another finish pass over it to clean the nibbles. This worked and its now a nice clean finish, but we need to try and replicate the +1mm on the male later.
If it doesnt work we have lost nothing as this length is fit for nothing else anyway and the male worktop is 1mtr too long so we can always recut the male as needed many times without running out of spare :wink: 

I am told it seems there has been a shortage of suitable material for making chipboard and old windowframes complete with bits of nail and solids like oak have been used. I can only assume that the router hit something like this causing the error, or maybe it was operator error!

So onto the long length with a male joint, We jigged up to cut a standard male, cut and finished that then removed the pins from the jig and moved it over 1mm and recut so it just cut the front edge but not the main width. Fingers crossed and offer it up....yes it fits fine. Its now 5hrs since the start of this epic.

We then while its all butted up marked and cut the worktop to length, no dramas on this one.
Marked the underside of the joints for where we can get the toggle clamps to fit, hmmm can only get 2 in as its an 800 base with drawer and there is just no room to fit 3 toggles.

Last mini drama after cutting the toggle rebates is we noticed that the chip was not very dence at the very back of the male joint cut and that the laminate is curling up slightly by maybe .5mm in th last 30mm, not sure how I will deal with that when it comes time to colourfill the joint or if I ought to maybe try something like a hacksaw blade through that back corner a few mil below the laminate then fill the gap with a glue of some sort and clamp with a block to hopefully level the laminate?
7hrs now!

My next task is to try and cut out the hob and sink sections from the worktops. The gas hob shouldnt be too much of a problem as its in a 600 unit and I should be able to cut it in situ and fit the hob without moving the worktop much.

The sink may cause me some grief though as it bridges across from a 600 unit to over a dishwasher, so even if I remove the dishwasher I am going to have to be inventive to cut the lengthways slots as they pass over the end side of the 600 unit.
I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.

As usual any comments or suggestions are more than welcome  

A few pics of todays work, large oven unit removed for worktop fitting.


----------



## Karl (25 Jan 2010)

Oldman":n5nndftp said:


> The sink may cause me some grief though as it bridges across from a 600 unit to over a dishwasher, so even if I remove the dishwasher I am going to have to be inventive to cut the lengthways slots as they pass over the end side of the 600 unit.
> I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.



Looking good.

I always cut the sink/hob outside on the workbenches and move the worktop back inside. I've never had one snap on me yet - it's just a case of making sure the worktop is supported in the right place. But I can understand what you are saying. If you haven't already joined the worktops together then cutting the sink in-situ will be pretty easy - just mark it out and slide the worktop forwards or side to side in order to avoid running into the cabinets. It'd be a good idea to remove the door from the sink unit - don't want a jigsaw blade running into it!

Finally, depending on what sink you have, you will probably find that you will have to do quite a bit of cutting about with the rails and probably the back panel on the sink unit to allow the sink to fit.

HTH.

Cheers

Karl


----------



## xy mosian (25 Jan 2010)

For the sole of the jigsaw, hardboard and double sided sticky stuff.

xy


----------



## studders (25 Jan 2010)

Oldman":p2erduoe said:


> I am told it seems there has been a shortage of suitable material for making chipboard and old windowframes complete with bits of nail and solids like oak have been used.


That's always been the case with chipboard. The main ingredient is old pallets that are shredded, complete with nails and any grit/dirt on them. 
Chipboard... nasty stuff. 



Oldman":p2erduoe said:


> I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.


I read that too but it didn't turn out to be that bad; just need to be a bit sensible when lifting after cutting out the hole.


----------



## Oldman (25 Jan 2010)

Hi Karl, I will cut in situ after removing the doors and dragging the dishwasher out of the way as the drainer fits over that. The bowl and a half is pretty tight in a 600 base too, might need to get inventive on some of the clip positions.
I already removed the back rail and made the back panel fittable after the plumbing is done so the only part that will need cutting or removal completely is the front top rail.

xy, I started a thread in jigs forum re the damage caused by my jigsaw sole plate and after advice I'm going to put hardboard taped down in strips with masking tape under and a 1" gap for the jigsaw blade. If that doesnt stop it scratching then nothing will.

Studders, I only have 2 teen girls and a wife with one good arm here so its best I cut this in situ so nobody gets the blame if it got broken while moving from bench to base units :wink: 

Thanks all for the advice.


----------



## Oldman (26 Jan 2010)

A bit more done today.

Taped up the worktop and measured for the cutout, must have checked the measurements 10 times, just to be sure!






We have all seen a sink :wink: but here it is anyway.






Because its a bowl and a half its going to be hard up against this side to fit in a 600 unit and the front rail is going to have to go for now.






Cut some strips of hardboard and masked them down, that works well as you can see.






Thats after cutting the side and back.

Getting the cut out part out was a bit of a fiddle and I did need to get inventive to hold it in place while I did the last cuts to stop it snapping or dropping. A bolt with washers through the drilled corner holes worked well






Cut out removed and sink tried in the hole, a bit too tight so had to take another 2mm off one side. Now it fits all tape and hardboard removed and 2 coats of ext pva applied. First was watered down some to get it to soak in.











I will move on to the hob tomorrow, just hope the blades last, dug out a part nail from the cut edge on the sink cuts today and the sparks were letting me know there was more than just that one bit.

I need to face the ends of the lengths of worktop before I get carried away and fit the sink and hob.
I was going to use contact adhesive but it seems some manufacturers of worktop are saying use pva and an iron. 
What do you use?


----------



## xy mosian (26 Jan 2010)

I'll bet you're glad to get that out of the way  , Well done. In fitting kitchens with the inevitable cutting of worktops for about ten years I never came across a metal inclusion, hard luck.
Now the ends, I always used contact adhesive. Whatever you use it is important to get the surface flat. In hope that I'm not teaching anyone about sucking eggs  . Cut the worktop to length, oversize by sufficient to allow a router trim, trim with a full depth cutter in the router. This is the only way to guarantee a square flat edge. Sand the edge to get rid of the picked bits, use a wooden block backing to the paper, which can be quite course. If you do not want a square front corner, they do tend to catch hips, take an angle off. Do not attempt a radius, you cannot blend the end trim to nothing. My own trick was to use the mason's mitre joint jig to give a 45 degree angle, make sure this is flat as above. If routing an angle to relieve the corner watch out for cutter rotation picking up the laminate at the front, preferably turn the board over if needed. If this is not possible, stop the cut short of the front edge laminate and finish by hand, planing or filing so that the laminate is pressured towards the core. Keep the surface flat.

HTH

xy


----------



## Oldman (26 Jan 2010)

xy, the ends are already routered to size. But I will sand them down some as well.
Square ends are fine here as neither end is in a hip catching position.

So contact adhesive it is then ;-)

On to hob cutting tomorrow though first.

Cheers


----------



## xy mosian (26 Jan 2010)

Good stuff. Just to add the sanding bit is just to remove the very rough bits of the chipboard that stick out. Keep up the good work. 

xy


----------



## Oldman (29 Jan 2010)

Another update to the saga, I'm suprised anyone's still reading this :wink: 

Had to recut the sink cutout, there was no supplied template and I had erred on the side of caution and made it 5mm too small for comfort so had to go at it again for my pain, the sink now sits in the hole nicely so it was re-pva'd ready for sink fitting once the wastes etc are sorted.






Next was the hob cutout, that went ok. More metal bits and sparks while cutting, 3 blades later and its done. 2 coats of Ext PVA and lined with heat resist tape to keep within regs.











Trimmed worktop end strips to fit, impact adhesive applied and fitted them, waited overnight before trimming to size, they look fine.

Off to B&Q with my 15% discount voucher and bought the waste parts needed. They do their own kit in the kitchen section in silver, looks manky and is £20. Go to the plumbing section and enough marley parts to do the job is £12. Looks much nicer too.
Wanted some more sink clamping clips as I only got 10 with mine, had to buy a pack with a seal in as well to get the clips grrrrr.

Fitted the waste and overflow, dishwasher waste is quite tight to the side panel but it will go, just.






As you can see I tried to cut the worktop and the front rail in one go, whoops it snapped out. No matter once I cut the rail back to size it will hide the damage.

Next job is to fix down that section of worktop, fit the sink clips and seal it down, thinking of using plumbers mait for that to aid the foam seal they supply, core the waste hole out, then fit the tap and make the connections.

I then need to colourfill and clamp the 2 worktops together before I can fit the hob in place.

Good job we have a working kitchen as doing the odd 1-2hrs is really slowing the job down.


----------



## chingerspy (29 Jan 2010)

Kudos Oldman!!

I've just been reading through this thread. From what I read you've put up with a lot and put a lot of hours in where you can. I really appreciate these WIP threads.

I forsee something of a kitchen remodel in my future but we'll see how long I can put that off for while I make sawdust outside


----------



## would not (30 Jan 2010)

I had three days to kill so I thought I'd read through your post and guess what???? i took 4 days.. :lol: 
It made me laugh in places as I've only been doing building work for three years and at first I was worried about how good my work would be compaired to others. After seeing what other builders had left behind at some peoples houses I realised I had nothing to worry about, I don't have many customers but they keep me busy - i'm already fully booked for 2010...

I'd hate to have to get anyone in, it's such a lottery - actually you've more chance of winning the lottery.

It's a good job you had your eye on the ball through out the project though otherwise who knows what you'd have ended up with?


----------



## Oldman (30 Jan 2010)

More progress!!

I fitted the tap to the sink and used 2 foam seals around the sink to seal it down, didnt use the plumbers mait as I thought it would get too messy trying to clean up the overspill.
I may once its in use, if it seems like dirt is getting under the lips of the sink use some clear silicone around it to sort it.
Used the 16 clips I had to clamp down the sink, had a couple of the clips fail on me. where the screw didnt follow the path its meant too and it pops the clip in half then, 14 will hold it ok though I can see why others silicone them down instead, saves the neck ache laying in units trying to do the little sods up.

Marked the wall and core drilled a 50mm hole through for the waste, that ended up harder than it should have as the core kept picking up the insulation and wrapping it around itself causing the clutch to activate on the drill. I was trying to core it out from the inside only in one pass. In retrospect maybe it would have been easier to go from both sides and not have to deal with the insulation.

Refitted the dishwasher and altered the pipework to include it and piped in the tap supply too.
Test run the tap to get rid of the air and check for leaks, not got a waste to the drain yet as I need to move a rainwater down pipe first to get access to the drain cover. Thats a weekday job.

Just need to fix this one worktop down to the units in a few places now and cut a back cover panel to hide some of the pipework and its done, oh and fit the plinth.

A few pics for you.

















Might see if I can pluck up the courage to colourfill and clamp these 2 together Sunday, im told the 20mins workable time is actually around 10 so better get my skates on


----------



## xy mosian (30 Jan 2010)

When tightening up the bolts on the worktop joint, it helps if you can arrange your backside at the same level as the cupboard bottom. This takes a hell of a lot of discomfort away from the small of the back. There will be dust trying to get into your eyes, wear goggles.

Keep up the good work.

xy


----------



## Max Power (30 Jan 2010)

A ratchet spanner is also very useful when tightening up the bolts, makes the job a lot easier


----------



## studders (31 Jan 2010)

And only snug them up else it will bulge the worktop. Don't ask me... etc etc.  
BTW the jointing compound I used, from toolstation, started to go off after only a few minutes, so don't hang around once it's spread on.


----------



## Oldman (1 Feb 2010)

Well its looking a lot closer now.

Joining the worktops....

Such a silly place to have a joint! an 800 unit trying to make out its a corner unit with a drawer rail just where the joint bolts go.






So I made up a couple of hardboard and timber "helpers" to keep one end of the toggles in the right place all the time leaving me just the nut end to deal with.







I had been warned of many things to be careful of including one yesterday that the supplied amount of colourfill may not be enough for 1 joint, so with this in mind I elected to use Ext PVA on the bottom 3/4 of the joint and colourfill the rest.

With a ratchet spanner on each it was easy to pull them together and watch the colourfill squidge out the top. I used a cut up credit card to scrape off the excess.
Try as I might I couldnt get an invisible joint, I didnt want to overtighten the toggles, looks like no gap but the joint line shows lighter grey than the surrounding worktop. Maybe tomorrow I will try a wipe over with more colourfil or maybe not :wink: 






The camera flash really does highlight the joint line, in reality its not nearly as visible as this.

I must remember to slacken off the joint bolts a little tomorrow.

I fitted the gas hob and moved the tall oven unit back into its place, lots of fettling to do now, but at least it almost looks finished.

I need to join 2 lengths of plinth as near as possible to invisible to keep the wife happy....

Plinth just laid in place for the moment.


----------



## billybuntus (1 Feb 2010)

nice work, I'm yet to do my first mitred worktop but looks like you've done a great job on yours  Your on the home run now!


----------



## Shultzy (1 Feb 2010)

Did you have to scribe the plinth before you fitted it? If so, how?


----------



## Oldman (1 Feb 2010)

Shultzy":2vrdzfsk said:


> Did you have to scribe the plinth before you fitted it? If so, how?



 Its not fitted, just propped up under to see how it looked.

I was lucky I suppose as its a real nice fit without touching it, a couple of mil clearance which will mostly go when I fit a plinth sealing strip under it.

I think you can just measure the gap and deduct 5mm from the depth in most cases if the floor is reasonably level as nobody is going to get down that low to see if you butted it up to the underside of the cabinets. Makes it a bit easier to remove if need be too for cleaning spillages etc.

If the floor is all out of level try this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyORTpC3xuw


----------



## Max Power (1 Feb 2010)

What colour was the colourfill? Id be inclined to use one near to black for that worktop


----------



## Oldman (1 Feb 2010)

Alan Jones":ib1dglw5 said:


> What colour was the colourfill? Id be inclined to use one near to black for that worktop



CF145 Black granite, I think its probably the right one, that photo doesnt really do it justice with flash highlighting the join, in light of day today it doesnt look too bad. I have a mate with one the same colour, I will take a look at his joint and compare


----------



## TrimTheKing (1 Feb 2010)

I have only ever done one of these (same colour as yours by coincidence) but I didn't use anything like this, just a bead of silicone, and the join was invisible.

Not that this helps you


----------



## grafter (1 Feb 2010)

right ive just read all 13 pages! - looks like it has been quite a saga, however the finished result looks cracking!


----------



## Oldman (5 Feb 2010)

Very small update, double oven is in and working. Wife is pleased though the week I have waited (and still waiting) for the plumber to come and connect the gas pipe to the hob is spoiling the fun some.

Dishwasher has been test run :wink: that works.

The old kitchen sink unit has come out and I spent time today re plumbing all the water in the old kitchen so the washing machine can have a new home and the old worktop can have further use on a side wall for now.
The plinth lengths I have are all bowed, thought the floor was out but its not, they seem to have changed shape where the white protector strip is fitted to the bottom. Looks like I will have to run them all through the table saw before fitting and use plinth sealing strips on them.
I have a 4mm sheet of black granite laminate to trim to 900 x 780mm and I gave it a test with the router today. Seems to leave a nice edge, so I will trim within 2mm of correct with a jigsaw then finish with the router.

Have yet to choose tiles for the splashback, so must get around to that this weekend.
My friend came round and viewed the worktop joint, says its fine, in fact better than his turned out. So I'm happy to leave it as is.

13 pages and near finished!

Thanks for all the advice along the way. Hope you all enjoyed the read


----------



## Max Power (5 Feb 2010)

Its been highly entertaining  and very pleasing to see the end result, you've made an excellent job if that doesn't get you in the wifes good books nothing will :wink:


----------



## Jake (5 Feb 2010)

Great stuff - you started 2 years and 8 months after me, and beat me to it!


----------



## studders (6 Feb 2010)

Jake":25iwhnyt said:


> Great stuff - you started 2 years and 8 months after me, and beat me to it!



In which case I started 3+ years before you..... and I still can't seem to get it finished. :?


----------



## Oldman (6 Feb 2010)

I can see me still "fettling" this new kitchen for some weeks yet, the plaster has now started cracking on 2 walls where the ceiling meets the wall, I think this is pretty usual stuff with houses with central heating but it does mean I will later be fitting coving around the walls to cover it up and get a nice line rather than the rough corners the plasterers left me.

The "old" kitchen needs gutting out, new ceiling, walls plastered :roll: floor tiled, old boiler chimney stack removing and I'm half tempted to remove the wall between it and the lounge as it already had a large serving hatch and a door in it so cant see its supporting much above...

The large back porch looks like it too is going to get plastered and should then house the washing machine and tumble drier.

The bathroom is still waiting for me to start work, need to gut that, fit a temp basin and bath over one side so I can then fit a big shower unit in the space made, once thats in and working I can remove the old bath and fit a LOO at last along with hand basin.
I was looking at the fitted furniture units with vanity bowl and loo built in as I can then fit a matching tall cupboard alongside the units for towel storage etc.

Then there is our bedroom which I bought all the fitted wardrobes for some 3yrs ago which are still mostly in boxes.... will I ever get to finish off my workshop? I'm not sure!


----------



## MickCheese (6 Feb 2010)

Really interesting read.

Good job you are only young! :wink:

Mick


----------



## Oldman (6 Feb 2010)

Right its finishing touches time and I need some suggestions please.

I cut down a 4mm sheet of laminate for a splashback, but cant make up my mind if it looks good or not, the alternative is 0.9mm stainless steel with folded edges on a 7mm MDF backing board.
I intended to fit a 20mm stainless rod I have across the top back of the splashback with butchers hooks on for cooking utensils to hang on.











We have been warned against stainless as its such hard work to keep looking nice behind a hob, seems they show every little mark.

We went around the sheds today looking for tiles, I have room for 2 rows of 4" and a finishing strip below the sockets, I thought maybe glossy red tiles but everything seems to be beige, time to try a real tile shop I guess.


----------



## dickm (7 Feb 2010)

Just out of interest, if you can get tiles of the right colour, why not tile the whole area up to the wall cupboards? I've never really managed to get those edging strips looking right, and am guessing you'd have a job getting any red edging. Though black would probably look OK?


----------



## Oldman (7 Feb 2010)

Wife doesnt want tiles higher than the sockets Dick. Cant say I am that keen on cutting tiles around them either :wink: 

I did mount them quite high so we could get two 4" tiles and an edge strip below them with a bit of spare room.
Seems that both red and black trims are available btw.


----------



## Max Power (7 Feb 2010)

SS splashbacks are very popular but I don't think they look any nicer than
the one you have up , from a practical perspective they are a nightmare to keep clean as they will show every mark whenever you use the hob.


----------



## studders (7 Feb 2010)

I think 8" of tiles would look wrong somehow: I'd either go up to the cabinets or not bother with them at all and fit matched upstands (I think is the name) instead. Splashback looks fine to me.


----------



## Russell (8 Feb 2010)

I must admit that I prefer the red rather than the splash back, but paint will wear very quickly behind the cooker. Have you thought about about a bit of toughed glass or something heat resistant thats clear. Not sure what material would be best.


----------



## Oldman (8 Feb 2010)

Gas man came today and spent 30mins connecting the pipework I had already put in for the hob, thats £75  

Wife used the hob for a lunch party with her friends and now doesnt want a stainless splashback after cleaning all the marks off the stainless hob.

So its now down to leaving the black laminate I temp fitted or going for a glass one as Russell suggested.
I can get either clear glass and somehow seal the edges so the wall paint shows through it or go for a backed glass in red, I even had thoughts of maybe getting an upstand in the same colour instead of tiles.
Prices vary enormously, so it seems does the quality.

More thought needed


----------



## MickCheese (10 Feb 2010)

I would go for the glass. Make it backed then you can use glaziers adhesive to just stick it. You then have no screw holes. Don't use grip fill, it will destroy the backing.

Looking really good.

Mick


----------



## Oldman (14 Feb 2010)

Anyone ever tried hand painting or spraying glass? 

I went looking for tiles yesterday and the ones we liked were few and far between, so I thought looking at the prices for plain against coloured splashbacks and upstands I would maybe go for plain toughened glass and paint it myself or get my friend to spray it for me.


----------



## Benchwayze (14 Feb 2010)

Oldman":22ob70uw said:


> I have a builder starting work tomorrow on a small extension to the rear of my house, we have wanted the extension for years but with young kids we could never quite afford it.
> Kids are teens now and since being made redundant a couple of yrs ago I have been semi retired.
> Costs for just a bare shell single story ext with flat roof were quoted as 15-20k a couple of yrs ago but now with the lack of work prices have come right down so a 3x4mtr shell is now costed at £10500 inc moving drains and reroofing another extension beside this new one.
> 
> ...



Oldman, 

If he makes as bad a job as the 'Lone Ranger' who built the extension on my house, you might regret it! Hasten to add, the extension was already on the house when I purchased. :roll: 

John


----------



## Benchwayze (14 Feb 2010)

Oldman":2u78t2ze said:


> Anyone ever tried hand painting or spraying glass?
> 
> I went looking for tiles yesterday and the ones we liked were few and far between, so I thought looking at the prices for plain against coloured splashbacks and upstands I would maybe go for plain toughened glass and paint it myself or get my friend to spray it for me.



Just had a thought. Find a photograph that you like, have it printed large enough, then get it laminated in plastic. Stick that behind your toughened glass. You could even photograph some wallpaper you happen to like. 

John :?:


----------



## Oldman (14 Feb 2010)

Benchwayze":3ag3d5vm said:


> Oldman,
> 
> If he makes as bad a job as the 'Lone Ranger' who built the extension on my house, you might regret it! Hasten to add, the extension was already on the house when I purchased. :roll:
> 
> John



A few months too late to comment on the build :wink: Its all sorted bar the final finishing touches.
I do want to have the finish applied directly to the glass rather than sandwich something behind it so I dont get any steam/condensation in between and mainly to allow me ease of fitting using either mirror glue or silicone that doesnt affect the paint finish.


----------



## Benchwayze (14 Feb 2010)

In my case

Plain bricks used for the footings (Now going rotten).
Mortar that was more sand than cement. Scrapes out with a fingernail.

Roof made from interior grade chipboard, discovered when I had to repair a leak.. Insulation only in between the first three rafters. (Presumably the day the Inspector called.) All corrected by myself of course. 

None of this was noticed on the survey report I had done when I purchased. 
So what use these new-fangled 'HIPS'? I wonder! 

John :wink:


----------



## Jake (14 Feb 2010)

Oldman":lb2quhdo said:


> Anyone ever tried hand painting or spraying glass?
> 
> I went looking for tiles yesterday and the ones we liked were few and far between, so I thought looking at the prices for plain against coloured splashbacks and upstands I would maybe go for plain toughened glass and paint it myself or get my friend to spray it for me.



I looked into it, but chickened out. The price for the spraying isn't as much as it seems, as the low-iron (non-green tinted) glass used is pricey of itself, then the cutting, cut-outs, toughening, bevelled and polished edges. Then there is the need to be scrupulously clean (no sanding down possible as the visible face is the first coat), and the risk was too much for me (could see myself getting through a few sets of the expensive glass before getting it all right).

I did find a supplier of the paint, which will be buried somewhere in my bookmarks.


----------



## Oldman (14 Feb 2010)

I found a glass company close to me on Ebay with in house cnc cutting and the prices I have found from them for a plain splashback up to 1300mm x 750mm in 6mm toughened was £45 + delivery but Im close enough to collect.
Upstand prices were also good in up to 1mtr x 250mm in 6mm toughened was £18
This was not lo-iron glass so will have a tint, but I liked the pricing and will contact tehm on Monday to see how real they are :wink: 

I will also nip down to the glass co in my street and see if I can beg a couple of offcuts and try hand glossing and spraying some.
Homebase btw seem to do a spray can of glass paint but if its just 2 pack acrylic I am sure my friend with a coachworks company can help me out.


----------



## Jake (14 Feb 2010)

The car paint might peel. They use (or should use) special paint, which has a silane base (same technology as UV glass glues). Here's the supplier I found, the name came back to me. http://www.avko.co.uk/index.php?option= ... rate=Glass


----------



## Lons (14 Feb 2010)

Jake":180jzr0c said:


> The car paint might peel. They use (or should use) special paint, which has a silane base (same technology as UV glass glues). Here's the supplier I found, the name came back to me. http://www.avko.co.uk/index.php?option= ... rate=Glass


.


Just joined and have read whole thread with interest.

Glad you're nearing the end of what looks like a marathon but the end result looks very good. bet that's worth a few brownie points.

I wouldn't have thought twice about the job which to me is a small one but I found it very interesting to read how even the smaller problems which a pro would take in his stride, become a major cause of concern to the layman.

Too far down the line or I would have put in my pennerth a number of times but just a thought about the splashback - Having a painted red one would seriously restrict any future colour you might want to use on the walls. Unless you're lucky enough that your other half doesn't nag for new decor every few years, (no -one is that lucky), or you will always paint red.

ps
I'm obviously a builder (sole trader, small business). Problem is that people get caught because for many reasons, we all want a Rolls for the price of a mini. 
Many use the "free" services of builders (and other trades) to do most of the specification and research work for them rather than employ someone. That is a lot of unpaid work for say 3 or 4 builders for a typical job they may not get

All of my work is word of mouth - good for my customers - good for me and I won't take a job on if it doesn't feel right. From experience - it won't be!
You get what you pay for in most things and not just paying for labour but expertise, experience and knowledge as well. That surely is true of all but the most menial work is it not? 
A solid, reputable company will always have higher overheads than cowboy firms to cover proper insurance, wages, training, equipment. They will always protect their reputation hard gained over years.

Any logical person can do the sums.

I would NEVER give a fixed price for a job which involves groundworks or drainage because there is no way you can easily determine what problems you'll find.
I give a price (fully specced and documented) but assuming no unforseen problems and keep my customers informed and involved at every step, but incidently, there is nothing worse than having a customer stand over you while you work. At best, the job is slowed significantly and at worst there are heath and safety issues which could affect the tradesmans' liability insurance. Word will get around the trade and people will either not quote or load it to include the lost time - doesn't mean they're cheating, just earning a living.


Remember also - despite old saying - the customer is NOT always right.


----------



## LarryS. (14 Feb 2010)

We had same problem as you, bought clear glass, fitted it to wall, so in your case would keep all the wall red - job done (took 10 minutes to fit)

Looks a treat too


----------



## Oldman (14 Feb 2010)

Paul I take it you bought glass with pre drilled holes for mounting it? 

One of the reasons for painting the glass was to allow for silicone type fixing and sealing the edges.

I did a little more fettling in the last few days, mounted her flip down tV bracket and attached her 16" tv/dvd Xmas present.

I also bought 3 16w Slimline Linkable Fluorescent Fittings from http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LLM16W.html and by using one of these PIR's http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/TLPIR180.html tucked up under the wall cabinet I have lighting thats useful.

Normally under cabinet lights get used for the first few days then its too much bother to keep turning them on/off.
The good think of using a pir is that they only come on in the evening when needed if the pir senses someone on the way to the kitchen and once you leave they time out and turn off. 
Good amount of light to do stuff by and unlike the main lighting which tends to stay on all evening, these save electricity. If you do want the main lighting on then the undercounter wont stay on as well due to the setting of the light sensor.


----------



## LarryS. (14 Feb 2010)

yup pre-drilled holes, think she ordered it from B&Q on-line

As for the silicone seal the only place you'll neeed it is at the bottom, and if you make the gap small enough and use clear silicone then it won't be noticable anyway

we didn't bother with any silicone as it the glass fits tight to the worktop so no problems


----------



## Oldman (27 Feb 2010)

Well after lots of visits to tile shops and pricing of glass, both backed and clear for splashbacks, wife found some tiles she really liked and by this time I had really had enough of playing options and just wanted it sorted.

So we ordered the tiles and got the local tiler to fit them, not a job I enjoy and I really didnt want to delay the fitting at all in case she changed her mind. (cabinet trims not refitted yet)






We were only going to have tiles 2 rows high on the widow wall but after ordering changed our minds to have bottom of cabinet height on both walls with mitered joints on the tiling around the window sill.
So he has finished the main part of the work and will be back to finish the window wall once the tiles arrive.

I found her sitting looking at the wall last eve, she wont say but I'm pretty sure she has changed her mind on the tiles or maybe its the light grey grout, either way she will have to learn to like what she picked now!

I did cover all the worktops with cloths before he started but I have just found a 25mm long scratch right in line of sight in one worktop, not telling the wife but I bet she sees it  

Dont hold back, honest opinions on what it looks like? 

Personally I quite like the result.


----------



## studders (27 Feb 2010)

I think it looks great but.....

(and you've already experienced it) You might regret the High Gloss Worktops. I was going to have them but changed my mind after hearing how easily, and obviously, they scratch.

'Part from that, top job. I see you're not too far from me so...
When will you be round to finish off mine?


----------



## big soft moose (27 Feb 2010)

Lons":vql97oiy said:


> , but incidently, there is nothing worse than having a customer stand over you while you work. At best, the job is slowed significantly and at worst there are heath and safety issues which could affect the tradesmans' liability insurance. Word will get around the trade and people will either not quote or load it to include the lost time - doesn't mean they're cheating, just earning a living.
> 
> 
> Remember also - despite old saying - the customer is NOT always right.



I agree with your former point vis a vis doing the actual job, when i reffered to standing over a contractor higher up i meant afterwards to ensure the 19 or so defects were corrected (including scraping out the silicon sealant that his muppet subby had used in place of mortar on the outside window cill and remortaring it correctly)

Also i didnt mean litterally standing over so much as keeping a careful eye on the job to make sure it was done correctly and without shortcut.

and vis a vis the customer "being right" a tradesman can choose to believe that the customer is wrong if they wish but the customer is paying for the job and in my case a least will insist on it being done to spec before payment is released

I dont really care if the builder thinks it is acceptable to fill a hole in the floor with two loaves of bread and a skim of mortar over the top (sadly i'm not joking), I dont and i wont release his payment until the job is done to the standard which I expect


----------



## Oldman (4 May 2010)

I have been so busy with other stuff that I neglected to update this thread with the latest drama's.

The wall tiles are now complete with extras around the window area.







I had booked the tiler who did the new kitchen floor to do the dining area in the same tile, he was too busy so recommended his friend to lay them. I had already bought enough tiles to finish the job.
The guy turned up and laid the tiles, grouted and left leaving the wife and I to clear the grout dust from the floor saying he was out of time and needed to go.






When we cleaned the floor we realised why he rushed off, partly our fault for not checking every box was good before he started but as you can see from the pic, we ended up with a mismash of semi gloss and matt finish tiles when they were supposed to be all semi gloss matching the tiles already laid.
Our tiler came and looked and said they would all need to come up...BUT I tried to get replacements for the matt tiles and nothing available. 
I eventually some weeks later had managed to get just enough odd boxes from different shops stocks to match the existing and spent 2 days with Bosche multi tool cutting the grout from around all the faulty tiles and sds'ing them up while the tiler followed behind laying the correct tiles.







Yes they need a final clean but they now all match and my tiler wanted to do the work for no charge aas it was his recommended mate who messed it up, I did pay him some ££ though as he had been good enough to put anothers work right.











The tiling runs through from the new kitchen to the old kitchen area too now, we kept some of the old kitchen units and I put a 3mtr length of black worktop on one side just to be able to utilise the area while I save for the matching units to continue through from the new kitchen.











So near fettled now with just a kickboard or two to finish off.


----------



## bugbear (4 May 2010)

Oldman":2dirsada said:


> Normally under cabinet lights get used for the first few days then its too much bother to keep turning them on/off.



Not in my case. I put in a lurvely multi-headed spot in the centre of my kitchen. The whole kitchen looks GREAT when it's on.

Only trouble is...

When I'm standing at a work surface, I'm between the spots and the work, so I'm creating a shadow. Oops.

The under cupboard lights (in practice) have become my main task lights; I'd fitted them just to look nice, but thanks $DEITY they're there.

BugBear


----------



## Max Power (4 May 2010)

Looks a top job ccasion5: What did the mitered tiles turn out like? Can you post a close up of them?


----------



## Oldman (5 May 2010)

Pics as requested Alan, the guy cut the mitres freehand, tile in one hand, angle grinder in the other.
The trick is to take off the material without breaking into the glazed edge too much if at all.

Had him fit tile skirting near the patio doors.


----------



## Max Power (5 May 2010)

Spot on, as I suspected, it looks much better than the plastic trim they usually fit


----------

