Oxley Woods Living

Life in an Oxley Woods eco house

 
 

Posts Tagged ‘meeting’

 

Plans changing without notice. Again.

June 22, 2009

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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Meeting, what meeting?

June 10, 2009

We called and managed to get through to Nigel, George Wimpey site manager some time around 3pm when Abi (my wife) put her finger on one of the leaks and came away with a wet painted finger. Rain was heavy today, although quite brief, but clearly more than this property can take.

When he arrived we went over things, we’ve found more water coming through, so it’s two places above the kitchen window, one place in the bedroom one/office room, one place in bedroom four to the right and below the window and another in bedroom two at the front of the house, below the window.

Worst of all, it turns out that while Peter from Wood Newton is telling us meetings have been arranged and Nigel and Scott from Wood Newton were coming over this never got through to Nigel or Scott. Pathetic, completely pathetic. Nigel was, unsurprisingly, not happy about the situation, or the fact we’ve been all but dropped since Wood Newton decided to tackle customer care themselves.

Nigel is as unsure as Wes as to where to go from here, although he wants to take ownership of the situation from Wood Newton. Tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain too much, we’re going to have to have parts of the property stripped again to inspect the flash banding which is, as it stands, “the fix” for water ingress. Beyond that there is no plan at the moment.

Nigel says we are right to be concerned about the house being wet inside the structure over the course of an entire year. He said the timber frame itself is treated as it is designed to get wet, dry, and breath. It is also exposed during construction, so needs to be able to take the water. But he said the plasterboard could be affected badly and the insulation, based on recycled paper, could also be badly affected and will need to be tested.

What a horrid waste of our time and energy today was, thanks to what seem to be bare faced lies from Peter from Wood Newton. Disgraceful to treat people in that way.

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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.

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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.

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Big meeting scheduled tomorrow

November 4, 2008

So it seems things are being taken ever more seriously by those involved in the design and construction of our Oxley Woods eco house, and finally the meetings that never happened are due, again, to happen tomorrow.

Confirmed today, just to be sure, tomorrow we can expect to be visited by management and staff from Taylor Wimpey, Wood Newton, and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, due at around 10:30am to discuss the situation with the property.

We’re not sure exactly what discussions will be going on between them, and then between them and us, or even how many of them will want to talk to us, following the previous no show and no wait, but I personally would love to talk to them all about what the state of play is.

I’m not entirely sure what can come of this meeting, as it stands we’ve had one side of the house completely stripped, patched, taped, sealed and refinished externally, with two more due to be worked on. First impressions of this meeting were that it would be Wimpey management making sure they were happy with the solution to the rain penetration put forward (and into action) by Wood Newton. God knows what will happen if they’re not?!

As mentioned in our big post on this before, one of our concerns is that our seriously leaky eco house is, according to the people on site, built to spec. Therefore it would appear to be not a faulty house build, but an inadequate house design and/or build. Which is why I feel getting all the team together is an important thing to do, not only for our sake, but for current and future residents elsewhere on the Oxley Woods development.

I’m concerned slightly by the fact that when researching the Tyvek tape that appears to be the only thing between us and rain water running into the home is tape that appears to only have a ten year guaranteed. What then?!

As an aside, Nuaire are also due to check out our temperamental eco hat. The dry liner person didn’t appear to day either, maybe he’ll be around tomorrow too? Could be a busy day in terms of the future of our home.

Anyway, fingers crossed for tomorrow, I think we have to ask some serious questions, should the opportunity arise, so we know exactly where we stand with our sub-standard house, and where we go from here.

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