Feature entry

Really, this a proper free offer. We ended up with two because my mum’s house has an electric power shower, and it doesn’t work with those, but I digress…
We went to this offer website for a free eaga shower smart water saving device, ordered it, it arrived, and it works! I was a [...]

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Things are looking brighter, hotter, dryer

by Paul | posted in Eco living, Good stuff, Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

It looks like we may actually be getting somewhere with regards to our year old problem of water ingress. More tests have been carried out this week and it actually feels like we’re getting somewhere. It’s been a slow, slow, painful process and horrible to live through, but it seems like we’re heading in the right direction.

It seems, after all this time, the problem lies within our windows and doors. If it’s a construction, design or materials problem we may never really understand in full, because we’ve no doubt been suffering more than most. What is certain it is the windows (and at least one door) for sure, and it would seem as a result of tests today, nowhere else.

Good news is, it looks like we’re on a way to a resolution, and then we’ll have our house put back together properly, and then perhaps the rest of our snags and problems will be resolved, and then perhaps we can just get on with living! Certainly hope so.

On another positive note it looks like our small lot of veggies are going from strength to strength. The potatoes has surprised me by doing really well (we planted them too late according “the rules”) and the tomatoes are looking pretty good, some of the corn is beginning to look really strong (some not so) and “my” blueberries are getting bigger and bigger.

Pretty good day really.

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Happy Anniversary to us?

by Paul | posted in Eco living, Good stuff, Problems, architecture | tagged as , , , , , , ,

Well, it’s a full year now since we completed on our Oxley Woods eco house, and it’s been nothing if not eventful!

It was 10 days into our ownership, before we moved in, that leaks were first discovered on walls scattered about the house, and I’m writing this from an office with tide marks above the windows, next to a living room with one wall completely pulled apart as George Wimpey and Wood Newton between them still struggle to get a grip on the situation.

Other than the painful, continuing debacle of the the leako-home eco home the year has been pretty interesting. Our eldest Son moved into a local school and has coped incredibly well coming from an absolutely tiny little village school. Our daughter has gone from babe in arms to toddler trying to talk, and our cat is still as loopy as ever!

It’s been fascinating watching the estate as a whole develop and learning about the area. I’ve lived in Milton Keynes most of my life, but never on this side of town, and it’s surprisingly green and open. But that can actually be said for most parts of Milton Keynes, there’s a natural surprise around the corner in most estates.

On a personal note I’ve enjoyed watching the development here grow and seeing different people moving in, young families, retired couples, people just starting out… there’s a really good mix and I like that, reminds me of the street I spent most my time growing up in and it lead to a really nice atmosphere. Hope that happens here too.

It’s been interesting watching people shape their little front gardens as people tear up, re-arrange, or tend to the original planting that George Wimpey supplied. For our part we’ve planted a few bits of corn out the front, along with peppers, tomatoes, strawberries up on a balcony and my personal favourite, blueberries, in the back. We’ll be growing more of our own for sure when we can afford to reorganise the back garden. At the moment it’s all lawn and patio, which suits the kids brilliantly really, but we’d like to grow more of our own food too.

As for the houses themselves, well the shortcomings are obvious to us, having suffered most of the more common issues and some completely bizarre ones too, but overall it’s shaping up great so far as I can see. The mixture of houses and different street scenes, although apparently not to RSHP’s liking, is pretty nice, very open, more so than most new developments in the area, lots of people comment it still feels like a holiday village, because it’s so bright and different to everything around.

Feeling better in general than I was last week, no idea why really, considering our house is slowly being pulled apart around our ears. Perhaps it’s the weather, or the fact we had a nice BBQ and I didn’t poison anyone.

Also considering sticking a forum on this site for locals to chat. Not sure how many locals spend any time here, and if they (you?) think it’s a good idea. But it might be nice.

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Still no end in sight to water ingress problems

by Paul | posted in Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday was spent spraying the front, bottom half of the house with water with dye injected into it. To no avail.

Water leaks were seen again, this time in the middle and to the right top corner of the kitchen window. But where it is coming from, nobody knows.

The attitude of Aiden from Wood Newton seems to have mellowed and improved, although he’s not even on site today as far as we can see.

Cutting a long story very short, today our living room on the first floor, visually unaffected and our only “haven” from all the leaks and work on the house, is having an interior wall (plaster board) removed to see if any water is tracking around the window in that room. It’s a painful process and absolutely horrendous to witness.

For all the work, destructive and intrusive as it is, we seem to be no closer to finding all the problems affecting this, and quite probably other properties on the Oxley Woods eco house development.

Not much fun being a Guinea Pig.

Tomorrow we will have owned the house for a year. Not a very happy anniversary at all. At the moment, it feels like the biggest, most expensive mistake of my life.

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Live and let dye at Oxley Park

by Paul | posted in Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

After being seriously messed about by Wood Newton earlier in the week, and another decent meeting with the George Wimpey site manager on Tuesday another full day of disruption followed yesterday (Wednesday) as more water testing was underway on our eco house.

I could ramble on for ages about how unhappy we are with the attitude of Aiden from Wood Newton, how rude he was to Abi because she actually wanted to be in on their conversations about OUR property (stomping about saying “I can’t work like this”… and worse), and how little time they spent actually spraying the house with water in various locations. For example, ten minutes on one window, so I asked if they thought that was enough to really simulate a decent amount of rainfall “How long do you want us to spray it for then” came the reply from PR guru Aiden.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that only one thing was established, it seems that water is coming in through the reveals and into and through the window frame in the full length window in the living/dining room. This to us seems to be an inherent and rather stupid oversight and design flaw leaving no room for the slightest deviation in manufacture, and also not suitable for weather, because in the words of Aiden when it gets hot and cold it will expand and can open up new gaps.

The rest of the testing focused on the front of the property and not one of the known points of water ingress, some witnessed as recently as Friday last week revealed themselves. This is part of the problem, one day there’s a leak in one location, the next, due perhaps to weather changes or the water Gremlins living inside the walls, the leaks have moved somewhere else. This doesn’t help the Wood Newton and George Wimpey guys finding the various faults and flaws, but it also is no help to us having our home continually pulled apart and tested on.

The only thing that did appear was two NEW water patches on the kitchen ceiling. These are in a location towards the front of the property where we have never before witnessed any water ingress, tide marks, or moisture. Unfortunately these appeared relatively late in the day at 15:30 after about 115 minutes of spraying the windows on the top floor. Weirdly, the moisture metre and finger tests in the holes drilled in our walls revealed NO dampness anywhere near the windows on the second or first floor or anywhere leading the water marks on the ceiling. Water is somehow penetrating the walls and working into the property. But still, nobody knows how.

The plan is that first thing this morning (usually meaning 8:30, but there’s no sign yet of anyone gathering outside, and it’s five to nine) they will begin again with spraying ONLY the first floor of the property with water injected with dye. This will continue as long as feasible to see if the water marks re-appear. If and when they do appear, they will track them back using holes, the moisture metre, a small probing camera etc. to attempt to find the root cause of at least these leaks.

So far it would appear we have faulty windows, inherently faulty windows in several locations, which were fitted using an inherently faulty method (now “fixed” with flash banding using Resistit) in addition to other, unknown faults leading to this further water ingress.

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The grim reeker

by Paul | posted in Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today, after a longer than usual break, the eco hat “fresh air” vent is blowing an absolutely abhorrent smell into the house.

Not much more to say on this. We’ve reported it, Wes from George WImpey has experienced it at full whiff, and Nuaire can neither explain or fix it.

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Plans changing without notice. Again.

by Paul | posted in Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So today we were due to carry on with the various water leak tests that were underway on Friday.

Only instead at 8:30 Aiden from Wood Newton who was the senior staff member on site on Friday was nowhere to be seen, nor the other two Wood Newton workers who were aiding with the hose and Trespa panel removals on Friday.

Apparently, between when ourselves and the site manager from George Wimpey left it as “we’ll carry on on Monday, starting with checking and trying to find the source of the water ingress at the front on the ground floor”, plans changed to something along the lines of “we’ll not bother coming back, but feel free to stick clear silicone on the Trespa window reveal edges and take a look at the other window (at the rear). Which had previously been visually inspected anyway.

This really is a pathetic way to carry on by Wood Newton. You could see that Scott wasn’t fully in the know, and didn’t know what we had been told on Friday afternoon with regards continuing proper testing on Monday. You could also see that Wes, the George Wimpey site manager in Nigel’s absence, was also clearly annoyed by the change of plans that he and us knew nothing of until when the testing was due to continue on Monday morning.

To us this pretty much sums up the Wood Newton attitude and approach to trying to find proper, long term resolutions to the several-fold inherent problems they seem to have created on site either through bad design, bad construction, or a combination of the two.

We’re awaiting a talk with the George Wimpey site manager(s) tomorrow (Tuesday) to find out how things are going to progress from here.

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A day of disquiet

by Paul | posted in Problems, architecture | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s approaching 4pm on Friday and the guys from Wood Newton are just finishing putting the Trespa panels back on the side of our Oxley Woods eco house.

Today has been a very stressful day, and although more faults and problems have been found, it feels like we’re only scratching the surface, and that any genuine solutions seem a long way off.

Following on from this mornings work attention moved to the front of the property and bedroom two on the top floor. This was harder to pinpoint, and once again several holes were drilled on the inside walls to see what could be seen, as water was liberally sprayed, in different locations and at different rates, across, over and around the window.

Once again water could be seen coming in via the actual window frame, in the same way as on bedroom four. The channel where the Trespa settles into hasn’t been “sealed properly”, or whatever, and water is coming in down, into and through the window, and eventually through the interior wall and plasterboard and paint.

Then it appears that despite two previous “fixes” of caulking and then clear silicone enough water is coming through the window itself by the “door” panel, then making its way across the window/OSB/plasterboard and showing in the middle of the window. Which isn’t very reassuring, considering the new guy on site from Wood Newton (or at least, new to us) was suggesting the “fix” for the problem where Trespa meets window is basically stuffing it with clear silicone sealant.

While lengthy investigation of the top window was underway it turned out that the water being applied to, around, and over the widow and where the balcony joins wall had made its way down from the second floor to come through the ceiling above the kitchen window on the ground floor. This seemed to throw another curve ball and had everyone scratching heads and seeming completely unsure as to where the water is coming through, especially considering that window has got the Resistit flash banding “fix” as well as a “belt and braces” layer of Tyvek over the top of that.

So, the new plan is to take off all the panels on the front of the house on Monday and try and work out what the hell is going on with the water that is STILL appearing above the kitchen window.

I have to say I feel like we’re not really getting anywhere fast, totally downbeat, and just thoroughly miserable about the entire situation.

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We’re half way there…

by Paul | posted in Problems, architecture | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well, actually, not quite half way.

So today is yet another “big day”, another day finding and plugging leaks, another day of our exterior panels being stripped off, another day of disruption, another day of lost sleep for our 16 month old daughter, another unproductive working day, and another day of seeing our house taken apart inside and out while workmen scratch their heads and try to find problems then fathom out solutions.

The first area of investigation has been water ingress in our living/dining room above and around the full length window. This has been put down to a few… apologies, train of through broken by phantom smoke/fire alarms ringing through the property… Anyway, this has been put down to a few possible causes, they’ve been sealed and all the other work…

It has now been put down to the fact the door directly above for our first floor Juliet balcony is letting rain water seep through below the door, down through the floor and showing on the ceiling and down the window frame below. We’ve seen it, it seems a good theory. We have no idea on the planned fix, because it’s all apparently been designed and fitted correctly. Work that one out, doors designed to not offer a full weather seal. Baffling.

Then moving up to the small bedroom four on the top floor. It seems the problem is at least two fold. We’ve had several holes drilled into the wall in our daughters room to see where water tracks when the widow area was sprayed with a hose.

Problem one appears to be largely by design. The windows have channels vertically notched into them where the Trespa goes into. This is apparently sealed and engineered so water cannot get through. Only it is. The suggested solution is to patch this area with clear silicone sealant.

The second, and possibly third issue like in the window construction itself. The timer has expanded and contracted due to the weather (amazing I know) and this has apparently given rise to cracks at joins in the frame, at junctions between two or more edges, where water can also enter through the frame. Also, it appears that the weather seals have been poorly installed and trap any water coming through, and allow it to pool, and pass over into the inside of the window frame. Again, it seems that simply patching and plugging these problems is the favoured option of the representatives on site.

Next up we believe is a water test using a hose of the kitchen window area(s), followed by working on the window on the top floor at the front of bedroom two.

Seriously stressful day, and nobody seems entirely pleased with the discovers being made.

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Another day of panels off, water on, fingers crossed

by Paul | posted in Problems | tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tomorrow has been scheduled as another day of disruption as the guys from Wood Newton and George Wimpey search for possible entry points for the rain water that is, somehow, still finding its way through our walls and/or windows of our Oxley Woods eco house.

So, starting from around 8:30am we’re going to have panels stripped off, and water sprayed over the property, from top to bottom. This time the water may have dye added to it to help track what goes where.

We hope they find something new, as they all seem baffled by how water is still coming in at a number of places, but it has to be said that we’re not hopeful. Let’s face it, it rained more than once, heavily, between November and June, but it took that long for some serious water ingress to appear, it seems very hit and miss and temperamental.

Anyway, we’ll be updating here with any new news. We’re not really even sure what we’re hoping they will or will not find. We just want this ordeal over with, and to feel confident all possible avenues have been explored, and everything possible has been done to ensure long term happiness and dryness in our home!

As an aside, we had a visit the day before yesterday. We had workmen in adding insulation/sticky lagging/cladding, weird stuff to the insides of our eco hat. Apparently, in some case, condensation and cold bridging can get very bad, so as part of their continuous improvement programme, and to avoid any such problems appearing, they’re putting this sticky backed insulation on the metal parts inside the eco hat.

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