Oxley Woods Living

Life in an Oxley Woods eco house

 
 

Posts Tagged ‘faults’

 

Live and let dye at Oxley Park

June 25, 2009

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.

The truth is out there…

November 10, 2008

Although I’m not entirely sure where “there” is, but it’s nice to know we’re not alone in our situation, or at least some of it.

What the events of last week say about modern culture in the UK I have no idea, but I had a knock at the door from someone who lives just down the road, who had been online and happened to stumble across this blog.  Bringing a message of solidarity and understanding no less.  Who says neighbours don’t talk to each other anymore.  They just need to find each other online first?!

Anyway, it turns out that we’re not alone, but contrary to the information we were given at the supposedly open and honest meeting earlier in the week, it would seem to be that it’s far from just us and one other who’ve experienced the effects of rain water on the inside of their Oxley Woods eco house.  Either the management are extremely forgetful, or less honest than it at first appeared.

Anyway, I had good long chat with our neighbour, comparing notes and problems, and it WAS nice to learn that we’re not alone in suffering at the hands of Wimpey and Wood Newton.  Things could be taken further on that front, as we now know that it’s not just a couple of us who’ve experienced issues with the building and some of their eco-friendly features, and it would be very interesting to know how widespread the situation is, as Wimpey et al clearly are in no mood to share that with us themselves, and who can blame them?!

As an aside, work was due to start towards the end of the week or start of this week on the front of the property.  Friday I had one of the Wood Newton team bring over a side elevation of our property for us to mark down the damaged Trespa panels on.  Unfortunately, despite having our plot number on it, the plans/elevation do NOT match our property?!  At the same time, we arranged for them to come around at 8:30 this morning to begin work.  They wanted 8:15 am, but that was just too early for us and the kids to be sorted.

About 9am this morning we get a knock, it’s raining, it’s been raining hard a lot lately, and they were waiting for head office to inform them if they could or could not apply the seal/tape/primer in the rain.  We said no problem, just keep us informed.  It’s now 14:30, we’ve not seen or heard anything since.  I guess they’re not coming back.

Meetings that never happen and a house stripped and redressed

November 3, 2008

Due to the problems we have been experiencing since early July with rain water coming into our Oxley Woods eco home, it was decided by someone at Wimpey that a meeting should be held with several important people present. We’re not entirely sure who was supposed to be at these meetings with us, but the list included as many people as a CAD designer from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, one or more directors/managers from Wood Newton, and senior manager(s) from George Wimpey.

The meeting was originally organised for Tuesday the 14th October. We were told that the workmen would be in early to strip the house, and then people would come and discuss possible problems and solutions with us and each other. This was cancelled the day before, and rescheduled for a week later, apparently because some of those due to attend could not make it.

Tuesday 21st October came (and I called the day before to confirm it was still on) and first thing in the morning the all too familiar sound of the cherry picker making it’s way over signalled the start of the panel stripping process.

Unfortunately, the meeting didn’t happen then either. In fact it was apparently never due to happen then, but the following morning. So again we waited for the meeting. We said that one of us would have to take our Son to school and would appreciate it being held after about half past nine, so we could both be there.

So, Wednesday came, and first thing there was a gathering of people outside the house, staring at the property and bringing out some materials to work on the house with. I set off for school and back as soon as possible, only to find that the only member of management who did arrive, John Green from Wood Newton, had left, despite being asked to stay by one of the team on site from George Wimpey, as requested by myself. He had other things to do it seemed.

Nobody from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners or management from George Wimpey attended. So quite why the previous meeting had been postponed we do not know.

John did speak to my wife in my absence and seemed to be confident he had the solution to the leaks , and he assured her the work would be done in a day.

The fix basically involved stripping off all the Trespa panels (already undertaken for the examination of the house) some of the batons around the glazing, and other areas, and applying some sort of sticky breathable waterproof tape made by Tyvek to the house, using some dark, sticky resin applied to the breathable panels on the house.

We were concerned by the amount of tide marks on the side of the house. These, we are told, are perfectly normal and to be expected as the panels are themselves waterproof and are designed to breath, so water should be able to get behind the trespa and then just run down them and off into the French drain below. The horizontal tide marks seemed more of a concern, and it was these areas, as well as around all the glazing, that efforts (and the waterproof tape) would be focused.

All batons were them treated to a bit of mastic for good measure, not that the water should get in behind those anyway, and then the trespa panels re-applied. The work should be invisible behind the panels, and, finally, waterproof.

We were also assured that while the house was leaking, apparently far worse than any other house on site (although we get the impression we’re not alone in experiencing some rain water coming through), it WAS built to spec. This raised the concern that the house isn’t faulty by construction, but by design. Which would mean in turn that every other house on the Oxley Woods development has the potential to suffer the same problems. The reason, we’re told, we’ve had so much suffering is our relatively exposed positioning compared to other properties. This could be a blessing in disguise, as getting wet, and (we hope) getting fixed could be better than getting damp, and never even realising it.

The work that John from Wood Newton had assured would be carried out in a single day did, not surprisingly given the scale of the task, take the workers through until Saturday afternoon before they had the side of the house back together. The front and back of the house will also need to be checked and taped where deemed necessary.

The work was noisy, and very disruptive, we had a hell of a week. Our eight month old daughter suffered through disrupted sleep and we all suffered as a result. Having the workmen come in an extra day on Saturday to put the house together was a surprise (we found out Friday evening they’d be in), and it was good to see them working to get it done, but it caused further disruption and upset.

When all was completed, we were not happy with some of the panel fit, and some panels have been damaged in the process with small chips and scratches. But it does look much neater, and feels like a more complete solution than taping and covering a few patches as before.

The photographs below show various stages of the work, we have literally hundreds more, all on my Flickr page if you’re really that interested to see.

We have more water in yet another location

November 1, 2008

When term “leako home” came to mind after first discovering that our house wasn’t rain proof back in July, I would never have imagined that come November we’d still be waiting for repairs to be completed on some of those initial leaks and the damage they caused, let alone be discovering ever more locations where water is coming into our home, but sadly, it seems we just have.

In our Son’s bedroom he is fortunate to have a fantastic corner window that currently offers great views out into the distance over Oxley Park and Milton Keynes.  Unfortunately, it appears this window is faulty, and lets in rain water.  Not good, not good at all.

We had another paranoid, nervous scout around the house following some quite heavy rain and witnessing our leak above the kitchen window first hand tonight, and, as has all too often proved to be the case, this lead to us discovering yet more water coming into the home from outside. 

This appears to be different from other leaks, most of the other leaks have appeared on the walls and ceilings first, while some have been diagnosed as problems with the windows themselves, and others have had to have several attempts and a complete strip down and resealing of one entire side of the house (so far), this one seems to be coming through the window itself, and running down the seam between the two pieces of glass.

We wiped the water away after first discovering this and taking the following photos, but very soon the area was just as wet again. We were hopeful it was condensation, but the speed with which the wetness returned seems to rule this out.  We cant see or feel any particular dampness on the wall above the window, which is usually the case, and these windows do not touch the ceiling, as the top floor has taller, sloped ceilings.  It really does seem this is coming through the window itself, which is nothing if not an unwelcome change from the usual modes of entry.

I’m writing this not long after finding this latest leak, and I have to say that not for the first time I feel absolutely terrible, fed up, distressed and quite drained by this whole affair.  Horrible wet evening, again.  I’m so tired of this every time we get bad weather, even if we don’t find a new leak, or one coming back, the stress it causes to just see rain outside is exhausting.

Further, serious leaking in the kitchen

November 1, 2008

We already posted about the rain water making its way into the kitchen above the window.  While we had seen the marks to show this, we hadn’t actually witnessed this water “in action”, not until today.

We’ve had a hell of a lot of disruption lately, including five consecutive days of work on one side of the house to attempt to remedy the apparently more serious problems of water ingress on that side of the home, which included a Saturday, and caused a lot of grief for our baby girl (and consequently, us!).

Anyway, more on that later, but this is about as much of a “live update” as I’ve managed to post on this blog so far.  Today it’s been raining since mid morning, and this evening it has been raining pretty hard, and not in the most common direction across the house, so I decided to check the kitchen window.

Yes water is coming in via the ceiling above the kitchen window, there is a large wet patch on the ceiling, and the water is literally dripping from the window frame.  This water was dripping down, on the glass, the kitchen surface, and irritatingly onto some Halloween sweets we’d bought for our Son and placed in the window the night before.

Not happy, but we knew this leak was here already, but now we’ve seen it for ourselves, we appreciate how serious it is.  Apparently someone from the George Wimpey management team is due to visit us on Wednesday (it’s currently Saturday night) to check the previous repairs and decide if that’s the correct way forward (or something along these lines, I have no idea what they’re really up to half the time), they may have to put that, and the repairs forward, at this rate.