Grade II New Build With Basement

Finally, the underfloor heating is installed, but no sign of the Vaillant boiler, as yet. Manifolds are installed on each floor with a mass of plastic tubing attached, separated into zones, which are individually controllable. 

The tubing is laid on top of insulation, before being pressure tested for 3 days and then covered in a thick layer of concrete. The living-room was the last floor to have screed put down, now we just pray that it will be sufficiently dry by the time the wood floor is due for installation, in just a few weeks.

Most of the windows and external doors are fitted, although not all the glass, so we are still neither secure nor dry, when it rains.  The oak window frames have been coated in linseed oil, and look lovely in the summer sunshine, whilst the “orange” stain which seemed to initially weep out of them in the rain, is gradually burning off the artificial stone cills, which is a relief.  However, the front oak door has arrived and been fitted, peppered with filler holes right across the front, which is completely out of synch with the typically high quality of the building work to date, and is now on our "follow-up" list.

Internal oak doors are now being fitted – made by Mendes and supplied by Everything Wood in Oxford, which we were recommended by a friend and prove to be good value and quality. Slightly thinner than standard, at 25mm, they still look the part and perform exactly the same function.

The Harvey Jones kitchen and Aga surveyors came out last week. They are generally happy, but point out that the water and range cooker gas pipes need to be moved, by the time they come to fit at the end of the month. Meanwhile the gas has finally been connected to the house, but we still await the meter, which is the responsibility of a different department! And finally, on the services front, despite frequent telephone calls from our builders, Thames Water has yet to give a date for connecting us – our order is “in the system”... as it has been for several months.

So, friends keep asking, where are we on the schedule? Whilst a written schedule is a very rare commodity from our builders, they keep saying they will be finished by the revised due date of 25 September, and yet the list of what still needs to be done is huge, and we are determined quality will not be sacrificed. This weekend, there were workers on site for the first time during the build. Two of the guys were plastering, so maybe it’s not only our nerves getting a little frayed!