Our new kitchen Thurrock Council and Keepmoat

[buttons-and-bows]

The fan i had Sid was an xpelair window fan and they said you cant put fans in DG units and the only bit of wall we could put one in would expel it's self into next doors back yard, not worth the hassle, but they had to use one of those great honking drills to get through the walls to get all the pipe work though, you know what Welsh walls are like, took them almost half a day to get through it.

[astral276]

...they said you cant put fans in DG units...

You can, but you have to order the DG sealed unit with the hole already in it. Used to have one years ago. I can't see that you wouldn't be able to get them now.

[buttons-and-bows]

Care and repair did it mel so I had to just accept it. I asked them for help with getting the roof done as water was pouring in, they did not help with the roof but insisted we had new end on the kitchen as ours was wood and they said a security issue, didn't seem to matter to them about the water pouring in all over the electric built in cooker.


Hang on no i didn't I asked them for help with fitting a shower not the roof and got a back door, two windows and breeze blocks at the bottom, maybe the thought was we could have a shower in the kitchen when it rained.

[emmily121]

Buttons, I'm curious, I can't see a council or housing association getting away with the state your home appears to be in, do you have a private landlord?

Monday 12th October. New, smaller radiator fitted in kitchen. (I say new, had all new radiators and combi-boiler installed a short while ago, middle of July, I think)

[sidthelamp]

The fan i had Sid was an xpelair window fan and they said you cant put fans in DG units and the only bit of wall we could put one in would expel it's self into next doors back yard, not worth the hassle, but they had to use one of those great honking drills to get through the walls to get all the pipe work though, you know what Welsh walls are like, took them almost half a day to get through it.

ive just measured an internal wall between the living room and the rayburn room its 21inches thick ,blocks of stone,the outside walls are at least 2foot thick, still the older places had walls at least 3 foot thick, with the prevailing wind wall 6 foot thick with an ingle nook , still this is west wales, up your way they copied the pyramids.

[buttons-and-bows]

Buttons, I'm curious, I can't see a council or housing association getting away with the state your home appears to be in, do you have a private landlord?

Monday 12th October. New, smaller radiator fitted in kitchen. (I say new, had all new radiators and combi-boiler installed a short while ago, middle of July, I think)

No I own the ruddy thing

[emmily121]

Thanks for reply Buttons, it appears that your 'care and repair' were maybe ignoring your requests and making decisions about your home, which led me to think you had a landlord.

Tuesday 13th October. Tom, Keepmoat manager, visited to see how work was progressing. I told him about the wrong shower rail, he explained it has to be an L-shape to protect the fan, which is at the opposite end of bath to taps and our shower, very unlikely water can reach that far, though I can see the point in it now, still don't like it, but may have to accept it for safety reasons. Tom seems to have a calming effect on me, I also changed my mind (after conferring with OH) about the wrong colour vinyl laid in toilet, instead of changing it, I suggested changing the paint colour to suit the vinyl, so now the bathroom and toilet will be decorated in the same colour.
Decorator, not Terry, a non-English, or rather very little English speaking decorator arrived at around 3.30pm to decorate toilet, he's doing ok, better than I thought.

[emmily121]

Wednesday 14th October. Had arranged yesterday with decorator that he'd come back at 9.00am this morning, and told him we were going out (shopping) at 1.00pm. Since 9th September I've hardly been out of house and was getting stir-crazy, I had to get out for an afternoon. Decorator turned up at 9.00am, to collect his tools and paint...I'd guess he was put on another job where he could work all day rather than until 1.00pm at our house. Hopefully he'll be back tomorrow at 9.00am to finish what he started.
Carpenter came, great I thought, finally getting worktop on small cabinet next to cooker, I can take photos of completed kitchen, nope, he'd brought the wrong colour worktop with him. I'd been told several times worktop was 'in the yard' and all the time the wrong colour was in the yard... Hopefully he'll be back soon with correct colour worktop. Carpenter also shaved a little off bathroom and toilet doors as they didn't close properly after the plywood and vinyl had been laid.
Now weather is turning cold we're missing our accidentally disconnected gas fire in front room, it's usually our main heating, the radiator is working, but no where as good as the orange heat and warmth of gas fire. Will chase-up the re-connection tomorrow.

[emmily121]

Thursday 15th October. It's now been 28 days, that's working days, not including weekends, we've both had enough, we want this finished and Keepmoat out of our home and out of our lives. Had phone call from Keepmoat this morning, no trade in today, another day with no decorator to finish the decorating, no gas engineer to reconnect gas fire. I get annoyed easily (I blame it on my fiery birth sign, Aries), Michael doesn't, but even he's getting annoyed at the time this is taking. We've got Keepmoat's local office address on some paper work, so he suggests we drive down there have a chat with them, so we find their office, a portacabin. Didn't find out any more than we already knew. Michael had a chat with someone on phone, it had been me taking phone calls at home, so he'd not got to talk to anyone, I think that was good for him that he got to ask his questions.
I'm being told 2 different things about having gas fire reconnected, I was hoping I could find out which was correct. On phone taking cabinets out was mentioned, the gas engineer who had accidentally disconnected our gas fire said he could use the pipe in corner of kitchen, assuming I understood him correctly. But, looking at the photos on page 1 of this thread it looks like he's also cut off the connection to that pipe too. I got someone in Keepmoat office to find this thread so I could show them how the gas pipes looked before and after the gas engineer had been, but their laptop is smaller than mine, colour was darker, so you couldn't really see much, the print out was even worse photo size and colour wise.

[emmily121]

Friday 16th October. Gas engineers came this morning, they reconnected gas fire using the external gas pipe that goes along alley to front garden where our gas meter was moved to early this year, end of last year, not sure. We now have our gas fire working again.

As has often been the case bad news comes with good news, no idea if we're being unlucky, or if all the homes are having similar problems. Most recent problems are, at least one, possible more of the newly laid floor tiles are cracking and breaking in the corner, and I think I know why. Where pantry was taken out a trough shape hole was left in floor after the floor leveling compound was laid, and I'm guessing that as it was mostly hidden under new cabinets the floor layer didn't fill the hole in before laying the floor tiles, so now they are breaking up at the edge of cabinets.
Also, a shelf in one of our floor level cabinets collapsed this evening, when we checked, one of the shelf supports was missing, so we checked the other cabinet shelves and discovered another 2 shelves were missing a support. I'm temped to call all the issues we've had a comedy of errors, except it's not funny...