Owning your own home

Try Bark.com - they have pretty good coverage for window fitters and decent customer service

Worth considering the cost of running a heated PIV Vs unheated. I think at least a few orders of magnitude higher. 1.6W to 15.3W plus the 400w heater element Vs 1.6W to 15.3W.

Good point.

I've suddenly become really prang about the health risks to us from the seasonal mould so looking into options.

Just watch Fantastic Fungi (pronounced "funj-ee") and be reminded that you're all part of the mycelium macroverse and glory in your connectivity.

Yeah, but we're all ill. I'm asthmatic but normally don't suffer, however have started to.

Obviously it's more likely my cold and blocked nose, but it's still got me worried.

For the record, I am not a health professional and that was not a serious recommendation.

i'm looking at MVHR (mechanical ventilation with heat recovery system) which we'll get professionally designed and do a mix of DIY and professional installation

want to get that sorted before doing any meaningful insulation

a few years ago we found mould in our old flat and that year was the sickest year i'd ever had - about 6 or 7 colds, even in the summer. Bad stuff.

finally got curtains for the front room - that's the final room of the pisshaus nearly done now.

I spent a couple of months living in a flat with some fairly extreme mould, which manifested in me developing hives on my skin when exposed to the cold. Given that this was in the alps in winter, it was not ideal. Symptoms stopped as soon as I moved out.

My parents had some building work done, and they're been trying to get the builders back to finish a load of stuff off for the past 3/4 months.

Last week the builders emailed my mother saying "we finished in August so you have three months from then to tell us all the snagging".

That they'd finished came as a total surprise to my parents - no building control sign-off and a load of jobs outstanding meant that they thought a finishing date was sometime in the future.

Is there an agreed final element to building works? I'd have thought that getting building control to sign it off would be the logical thing, but maybe your builder can just unilaterally declare that they have finished with zero consultation?

There should be a written statement of work or quote somewhere detailing who is responsible for what and outlining what will be done.

If there isn’t then there’s a problem.

Have they been paid in full?

i'm looking at MVHR

want to get that sorted before doing any meaningful insulation

What's your logic? Avoid disruption to new finishes?

I'm looking at the other way around, fabric first. (Thinking it might be some time between them, and MVHR doesn't work in a leaky house from an energy/comfort point of view.)

Echoing @Pifko (didn’t read his respond).

There is. Problem is that the builder is ignoring that and saying "we finished in August".

My suspicion is that we're going to have to invoke the arbitration in the contract.

No, but they want to be paid now, and of course my parents are worried that that will mean zero snagging gets done.

Do your parents have a record of attempting to contact them in the months to August?

Then they need to finish the work. Pretty simple conversation you’d hope. If they won’t finish the work the least they can do is explain why.

If there is snagging to be done, a paper trail requesting this to happen and a remainder of the total sum outstanding then there is very little the builder can argue about. Either they do they work to an agreed finish or get stuffed

Tell them no more money unless job is finished, money on completion not on there completion as it sounds like they are fuckin at it.

If your parents have a paper trail ie emails, texts there is nothing they can do unless they want to try and intimidate them.

Why are these folk so shite and cant just do a job to the standard and finish it. I want to do a job, finish it and get to fuck, none of this getting chased and all that. Clowns.

mostly because my partner's allergies are driving her nuts and MVHR (with the right filters) is supposed to great for that

but also because I'm worried if we do our insulation first then it will lead to a damper house

I don't really expect the HR part to do much for a few years until we get the house more airtight

We need some curtains. No idea how to choose. Still have the old ones from our old gaff in the shed :(

We’ve called a local curtain/blind company to come and recommend something, as we have no idea what would work in our room with a bifold door and and odd shaped side window.

The ones that are recessed into the ceiling, with a nice wave to them always look good with a large glazed opening - like this