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.
Bit of a hit and miss, good and bad start to the week for us and our Oxley Woods eco house.
On the good side we had the guys around Yesterday to fix the damaged ducting behind our medicine cabinet which has meant the extraction part of our eco hat has never been properly working since July last year. They re-routed the pipe and tied it back at the same time so it wouldn’t be damaged when replacing the cabinet. So glad to get that sorted.
We also had a Nuaire rep come around to re-commission the eco hat after the pipes/ducting had been connected properly. Unfortunately it wasn’t smelling so badly as usual (hardly at all) and he could not find anything (again) causing the whiff. So it looks like our eco hat is now “as good as it gets” in terms of water warming, ventilation and filtration. But it still smells.
On the downside this morning, following some rain yesterday afternoon and then again during the night, we have more signs of water ingress. We called in the site manager as soon as possible, and he had a look around. There is/was a small, additional water stain above our bedroom one at the rear of the house, and more disheartening it was also damp around our full length window on the exposed side elevation.
The site manager is finding it, in his own words “baffling” and is going to talk to John Green from Wood Newton. To be honest, as you might have gathered or expect at this stage, we don’t have much faith in any “final solution”.
What a start to the day today.
A Nuaire rep came around following a smells from our eco hat pretty quickly, couldn’t find anything wrong with the filter, did discover other problems (more on that soon!) and changed the filters, despite saying he couldn’t really see a problem with them.
The smell did seem to go, or at least fade beyond recognition. However, this morning, it’s back with a vengeance. We have a message from Nuaire to call them waiting on the answer phone, but work and family commitments got in the way of making that call, but now the bad smell is back, and bad, we need to phone them ASAP.
I only managed to get a whiff of the eco hat mystery smell after breaking out of our bedroom. The door handle has broken this morning! One side, the inside, turns but doesn’t move the latch so we were locked in our bedroom for some time while I fashioned a hook out of some pipe cleaner we had handy (thank heavens for kids!) and levered things open.
I can’t fathom out the door mechanism, but seeing as our baby’s door is jamming, the bathroom door latch is sticky and the door has moved and knocks, and now this is broken, I think we need George Wimpey and/or Wood Newton over ASAP to sort things out. However, they seem to be doing their best to ignore us and our increasing list of problems lately.
When the school holidays are through and I’ve met a few deadlines they can expect a LOT of hassle from yours truly.
On a positive note for NEW builds, George Wimpey and Wood Newton have decided to try and waterproof the window surrounds on the newer builds. Smart idea that. Not sure where that leaves the unfortunate souls who, unlike us, haven’t had waterproofing retrofitted. Clearly a fault in both design and construction that could lead to serious damp problems for home owners if left unchecked.
The longer we live here, the more we like the neighbourhood and neighbours, the less we like the appalling and “would be comical if not so distressing” pile of problems that just keep mounting up and up and up.
Well, our Eco Hat still smells. But not so much.
Yesterday (Thursday) one of the George Wimpey guys made his way onto our roof in our absence and took apart the filter and “hatch” on the eco hat. It turns out the filter was, in his words, both filthy and clogged. This filter is, I assume, the same one that’s supposed to be replaced every three to five years. We’ve been here seven months.
Anyway, he was very pessimistic about the chances of a clogged vent having much effect, however when we powered up the eco hat again it has to be said it smells much less pungent. There is still a whiff of whatever was filling the house, but it seems to be being drowned out by fresh air, at the very least.
This does beg a few questions, first of all, what is the smell? secondly why was the vent/filter clogged so badly so soon? and finally why, if it was clogged and needed cleaning/replacing, why was the eco hat monitor panel displaying “all OK” (that is to say, no warning lights showing).
We’re supposed to have heard from Nuaire as they also need to replace a filter, add some lagging, AND try and solve our latest issue. No call so far, despite being given our details a couple of days ago, and corrected details (wrong number!) yesterday. Not good, but par for the course.
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.
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