Eco Friendly Houses | Oxley Woods Living

Posts Tagged ‘eco friendly houses’

Eco hat still smells…

May 5, 2009

Following on from my earlier post about our smelly Nuaire eco hat.

We hadn’t heard a response to our call this morning, so after lunch I called the George Wimpey site manager (who is on site here at the Oxley Woods development) to see what the situation was. I got an answer and apology for no sooner response, and by about 2:30 there was a knock on the door.

This is where things are bit weird. We bought the house from George Wimpey who also take credit and stand on the insurance documents with the NHBC and so on as the “house builder”. Everything I can find relates to our warranty and guarantee being with “the housebuilder” (George Wimpey). Now it seems though, we don’t deal with them. Instead a representative of Wood Newton, who actually construct the houses, sub contracted by George Wimpey, is apparently dealing with the (numerous) problems on the Oxley Woods development directly. This seems strange to us, but if problems get resolved effectively then does it really matter who is in charge of fixing them?

Anyway, we powered up the eco hat from the fuse box and waited for it to spin up and run its self checking program. Weirdly, it didn’t seem to power up first time, which I swear also happened when I switched it on briefly in the morning. Perhaps something is up there? Once it was pumping in air you could really smell it again…. only the man from Wood Newton couldn’t?! Quite how he couldn’t smell the stench is beyond either myself or my wife who could both smell it clearly blowing in through the vent, but anyway, he didn’t question us openly and seemingly acknowledged the issue.

The initial response is to call a plumber to come tomorrow morning. Trouble is, a plumber wont be able to do anything to the eco hat. He’ll basically check, well, the plumbing. I questioned this twice, and pointed out the fact the smell is clearly emanating from the eco hat vent, which is blown in from the eco hat, after being sucked in from the roof. The Wood Newton guy again seemingly acknowledged this. I also then, on two occasions, questioned if this was, as we were lead to be believed, a “sealed system”, to which the reply was “yes”. So I asked how could a smell from the plumbing, in the completely smell free bathroom, be making its way into a sealed system and blowing only from the eco hat fresh air vent. No reply. Apart from “I’ll get a plumber to look at it first”.

So, tomorrow we have a plumber scheduled to come and have a look and sniff around. I can’t see this coming to much, because even if there is a plumbing issue, then the smell shouldn’t be coming through the sealed eco hat ventilation system, which would mean its faulty too. My money is firmly on a problem in the eco hat somewhere, but I’ll happily be disproved if it leads to a speedy resolution though. Can’t see it happening mind you.

Tags: eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco hat, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, george wimpey, milton keynes, nuaire, oxley park, oxley woods
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Our ecohat stinks!

May 5, 2009

And by that, I mean quite literally stinks!

Yesterday and today are the first time for a while we’ve felt cold enough to have the windows and doors all closed up for any considerable length of time, the result of which has been rather unpleasant.

A short while ago we left the house empty for a day, came back, and there was a strange, unpleasant smell about the place. I gave the cat a grilling and she denied any wrongdoing, and after leaving doors and windows open it seemed to pass. The smell was only really obvious in the halls and landings, the other rooms were all closed off, which made me think it was either something unpleasant the cat had left somewhere, or that some smells had made their way in from outside, perhaps something to do with building work, and become “trapped” in the house.

Anyway, this morning we awoke to a horrible, horrible smell through the house, again most obvious in the halls and landings. After much sniffing and wondering around the house like a badly trained tracker dog, it turns out the foul smell is being vented into the house care of our less than impressive Nuiare ecohat. The vent is on the upper landing, and blows in the direction of the stair well, which would explain why we’ve smelt this in the halls and landings, especially when doors are closed.

Checking the warranty to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, the only serviceable part, the filter, should only need replacing after “three to five years” and a red light should flash to tell us when this is due. Well, we’ve been here since July 2008 (just over seven months) and the little red light isn’t flashing.

We put in a call and left a message with the George Wimpey site managers this morning and pulled the plug on our ecohat completely. So far nothing has come back from Wimpey, so I may have to try again soon. May have to call Nuiare direct, as the builders seem to either have completely forgotten about us and our outstanding issues, many they themselves caused, or they’re avoiding us. Either way, we’re not best pleased.

Tags: eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco hat, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, ecohat, george wimpey, milton keynes, nuiare, oxley park, oxley woods, Problems, smell, sunwarm, ventilation
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A rude awakening

April 6, 2009

Last weekend, for the first time ever, we were a little unnerved about living so close to Oakhill Prison.

About 3am or so my wife and I were rudely awakened by a huge noise outside the house, we had no idea what was going on, but it was like the builders were driving by in their heavy equipment or something. Next thing, we had an extremely bright light shining on us through the high level window in our bedroom which provides a lovely view of the sky at night!

Turns out it was a helicopter going over and around the entire area, several times, searching for someone or something that, we can only guess, was trying to break into or out of the prison?!

Amazingly the kids slept through it all, and I never felt the desire to call the prison or local police to see if they could shed some light on the subject (beyond that they shone through our bedroom windows already), but it was weird, lying there watching the search light go back and forth and the helicopter hovering above!

It could be nothing to do with the prison, we had similar experiences when living elsewhere in Milton Keynes (it IS a lovely place, honest!), but your imagination can run wild at that time in the morning!

Tags: eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, milton keynes, oakhill prison, oxley park, oxley woods
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If stripping down house doesn’t work… Off with the balcony!

March 11, 2009

Before, during, and after far too much time and disruption was spent while the guys from Wood Newton and George Wimpey stripped off almost every Trespa panel from the house (scuffing and chipping several in the process) and put them back up again after putting their new wonder flash band material around the windows and on some joins, we had raised the concern that water was coming in at locations on our wrapping window in the kitchen that were concealed by our balcony… You can see where this is going already can’t you.

Well, after the joy of watching our house being pulled apart and reconstructed (again, not to “as new’ condition as assured) it didn’t take long for the rain to return. As has been the case since we moved here, rain means worry, and worry means inspection time, and inspection time leads to…. Discovering more water marks, of course! This means that in December, the house is still not water tight, despite extensive repairs and assurances.

The water was coming through and again penetrating and marking the ceiling area above the small part of our kitchen window which is under the balcony. This lead the the almost inevitable, we had to have the first floor balcony taken apart, literally, while the problem areas were flash banded and repaired.

This lead to more disruption, and it was pretty shocking to see the state of the materials hidden behind the trespa, already looking too damp, mouldy, and in a generally very poor state. Fortunately, the house wasn’t looking as bad as the throw away and replace balcony sections, but it wasn’t nice to see at all. Apparently this wasn’t anything to worry about. But you do, don’t you?

The work was no small task and took several days to complete, during which time the balcony was off limits. The Trespa panels were removed, the fibreboard panels behind those were then removed, some foam filler taken off, several slats removed from the floor, so all that remained on the first floor was the small steel shell. Parts had to be cut out, because they’re not made to be taken apart this way, then put back together by the carpenters. BIG job. This is NOT the kind of stress you need during the build up to Christmas, with two kids about the place too!

Anyway, this may or may not have solved the problem, the stains have been stain blocked and painted over (badly, but that’s a whole other post!) but it appears that recently, over two months after the repair, we may have new water marks above that window. Again. The following show some of the work on the balcony, I had intended to post some photos of the work being undertaken on the front and back of the house, but it’s much of a muchness to the photos of the side being stripped down. Messy, and noisy, especially with a baby at home!

The repairs are, as of March 11th, not finished. The gaps were not good, so were filled, badly, and have been left in a state. Considering the strong design ethos behind these house, and how important it was to us (shallow as that may seem to some) in our buying decision, we’re gutted at the state our house has been in for so much of the time we’ve lived here so far.

Tags: balcony, eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, george wimpey, leaks, milton keynes, oxley park, oxley woods, Problems, repairs, taylor wimpey, water, water ingress, wood newton
Posted in Architecture, Problems | Comments Off

The person under the stairs…

March 10, 2009

OK, not as scary as “The People Under the Stairs” was supposed to be, but it’s still pretty horrifying watching your “new” home being taken apart room by room, bit by bit. Following on from our “flexible housing” issue with stairs dropping and cracking, we had some work done in the middle of November 2008 to sort out the issue.

To do this, a large “service hatch” was cut in the wall between the stairs and the cupboard below, and the stairs were reinforced and “fixed” from below with whole new sections put in place to take the strain and keep things where they should be.

The “blocks” (I’m not a carpenter, does it show) that had been put in the corners and nailed through to keep the stairs true and in place just seemed insufficient for the task at hand, and it is a concern that the rest of the stairs still look like this from underneath. But so far the repairs are holding out, and so are the stairs.

The skimmer came around quite soon after and sorted the repair, I painted it myself, as it seemed quicker and easier. I still have to repair the cosmetic damage caused to the paint on the stairs where they dropped away at the back from the riser. Really frustrating, and inconvenient.

In the photos, the areas/wood sections with glue on them are all part of the apparently quite significant reinforcement/repair work that was carried out.