Leaking | Oxley Woods Living | Oxley Park

Posts Tagged ‘leaking’

Another day of panels off, water on, fingers crossed

June 18, 2009

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.

Tags: continuous improvement, eco hat, eco home, eco house, eco houses, george wimpey, leaking, leaks, milton keynes, oxley park, oxley woods, water, water ingress, wood newton
Posted in Problems | Comments Off

Meanwhile in deepest darkest Oxley Park

June 10, 2009

Now we’re an hour and a quarter overdue for our meeting.

I took a visit to the site office, where I find the Wood Newton rep (Peter, I believe) sat down reading paperwork, no sign of Scott who was due to be with him, and Nigel Mitchell on the phone, which explains why we couldn’t get through.

Apparently Peter (as we’ll call him, as I don’t know his name) was stuck on the M1. In this day and age, it would, of course, be impossible to contact anyone to let them know out of courtesy you’re going to be an hour late to a pretty serious meeting.

But then, he’s not coming anyway, Scott and Nigel are. So we’ve been waiting over an hour for someone stuck in traffic who couldn’t get in touch and isn’t coming to the meeting anyway. Nice.

Tags: customer care, eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, george wimpey, leaking, leaks, meeting, milton keynes, oxley park, oxley woods, pathetic, Problems, taylor wimpey, water ingress, wood newton
Posted in Problems | Comments Off

Nine thirty meeting going as expected…

June 10, 2009

Yesterday around five we had a visit from Wood Newton saying they wanted to call in tomorrow morning (now) at 9:30 to look at the leaks and so on.

As is par for the course, it’s 10am and we’ve seen or heard nothing, despite seeing one of the Wood Newton managers go by the house just after 9:30.

We’ve got a lot of contacts to make anyway so I’m not sitting on my hands, but it’s bad, if expected form.

Tags: damage, damp, eco friendly homes, eco friendly houses, eco home, eco homes, eco house, eco houses, george wimpey, leaking, leako home, leaks, milton keynes, oxley park, oxley woods, oxley woods living, water, water ingress, wood newton
Posted in Problems | Comments Off

We’re still leaking

June 9, 2009

Horrible, horrible discovery this past Sunday morning. Our eco house is still leaking, considerably so.

8th July 2008 is the first time we witnessed rain water coming through our internal walls and ceilings. Almost a year later and our George Wimpey eco house, constructed using materials such as wood and recycled paper, is still being soaked through.

Sunday morning we found water coming through in one of the upstairs bedrooms, cracking and bubbling the paint work, and above our kitchen window, again, in more than one location. One point the water is coming through in the kitchen is the section we previously had our balcony removed to “fix”.

So very distressed and upset about the whole situation.

We’ve been in touch with George Wimpey customer services concerning the leaks, ongoing snagging issues and the window which cracked over the weekend. Following a visit this morning from a despondent and rather non-committal George Wimpey site manager we’re expecting at least one manager from Wood Newton to pay a visit Wednesday morning.

We can’t think of anything they could say or do to put things right, but they should at least witness the water stains, damage to paint and so on first hand. Even if they’re willing to try and fix this seemingly inherent problem they certainly don’t seem able, and we’re so very, very unhappy about it all.

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

Glad we couldn’t afford carpets…

November 4, 2008

Or this could have been even more stressful!

As you can see if you look over our snagging lists, and read our other problems with rain water entering our Oxley Woods eco home, we’ve had quite a number of issues. This in itself has been extremely disappointing and stressful. Some of the workmen, who to their credit do often go out of their way to try and help and for the most part and are very approachable, have said our house is by far the worst on site for faults and snagging. But beyond the initial problems, it’s often the quality and care of the workmanship that’s lead to further stress and created new problems.

The most dramatic of these has probably been the bodged and bodged again window work to stop them leaking, but there are other instances too, this is just a snapshot of some of them, although there are more we could mention.

We’ve had problems with radiators. Several of them had dented front panels when we moved in, some still do, but with the hassle we’ve had getting them changed we’re feeling inclined to l leave them that way, if you’re not looking for the dents you wont notice them, and we don’t feel we can face further stress in getting them changed!

One problem has been new radiators have arrived with dented or cracked casings, some of which were installed, and then, of course, had to be replaced again (after waiting for the replacements to come in, again), the other has been problems with actually installing the replacements.

The reason I titled this post “glad we couldn’t afford carpets” is pretty obvious, because while it’s difficult saving up and making decisions on flooring for the house, the leaks and mess we’ve encountered due to problems could have been so much worse if had actually laid carpet at the time.

The photos below, probably not in order, show the mess left and materials used in one of several attempts to reach a compromise between landing doors that don’t let in wind or howl, and can actually be opened and closed without requiring excessive force.

Leak onto our first floor living room floor following the first radiator replacements.

Water on our ground floor living room floor because a part (rubber stopper/bung) was missing from our sliding door.

Huge water marks after our top floor landing floor was left literally soaking (and a cardboard toy chest drenched) after problems with the radiator during work (valve accidentally left open and unattended apparently).

Smaller water marks in our hallway after valve not shut off properly following draining to allow for radiator work to be carried out.

So you see, it’s not just the rain water coming in that’s lead to me calling this place a leako home rather than eco home!

To their credit once again, the site manager has offered to replace anything damaged by workmen, we had a trampled play mat replaced already, and got some shelving into the bargain, which was a nice gesture.