Owning your own home

I was recommended Ashton Legal through my work and they were alright

This is also useful to hear.

I'm trying to stay pretty relaxed about the scaffold still being up, since I don't think there's anything that can reasonably be done other than ask the builder at regular intervals. It's my downstairs neighbours who are more concerned, as the scaffold is in their front gardens, which I sympathise with, but I'm trying to get them to take the initiative to contact the builder themselves.

head height

Whose head???!!!!

But in seriousness, when I looked at the regs some time ago when I wanted to dispel the idea at casa stevo, I think the distance from the wall is 3x the diameter of the pipe, but only if the pipe is uninsulated and if the wall is covered with/made from combustible materials. A quick google shows plenty of examples where the stand off is less than half of what they fitted yours at. Doesn't even look like they were trying to get around fascia overhang either.

They erected the scaffolding without even knocking on the door to say they'd arrived

Yeah, the chipper* chap who appeared at my first floor office window one day unannounced livened up my morning.

*likely chemically so

Whose head???!!!!

Haha! A 7ft cousin?!

But yes – this is my main argument. And it's twin wall insulated pipe, so can be 70mm from the wall. We're at about 270mm. Conventional flues don't look like this unless there's an obstruction to navigate around. which there isn't.

Cheers! I've given them a call

People in my road had their loft extension completed just before last Christmas.
Scaffolding was removed ~4 weeks ago.

I think your trouble is going to be exactly what's wrong with it and how you are going to convince the relevant authority of that (particularly given the regulatory body says it is compliant) over what the installer says.

You'll probably need an expert opinion which is going to cost and then consider if it's worth it and the type of job the installer is going to do in the unlikely event that they are forced to do it gratis.

Thanks 👍

That's what I'm worried about. I guess I'm mostly just gutted that we've paid a chunk of money for something we've wanted for ages and it looks nothing like what we (or our neighbours) expected. But hey... first world problems and all that.

Only other option now is to try get the neighbour to enter into some sort of easement agreement and call it quits.

External flues always look shite. Is it this far out to clear an overhang on the roof?

Assume it’s twinwall?

Sorry read above. Installer is a cunt.

Mistake here was paying them in full before resolving any issues I suspect.

Unless you're walking down that alleyway carrying a ladder on a regular basis I'm not sure I see the issue.

I thought wood burning was outlawed in this country or something after the pea soup/smog days?

Current gen of stoves burn really, really hot. Less particulate than before. But yeah not long until they are outlawed I suspect.

Your neighbours are partially at fault for agreeing tbh. They should have said no and the installer should have suggested running it internally. your property forms the boundary and anything attached will encroach on their property and you will never be able to please them.

Wasn't expecting 'pretty', just thought it'd be against the wall. It's twin wall aye, and there's nothing in its way that mean it needs to stick out so far.

Maybe just had those bracket sizes to hand. That's how most stuff gets done isn't it?

This is basically what he admitted. Said there's no way of knowing what pipe lengths they'll need until they're on the job, so fitted what they had. Doesn't strike me as a particularly high standard approach, but I'm learning all sorts...

is that these people?

https://eeleven.co.uk/

our house is definitely not "design conscious" although it does meet the "Victorian" part.

Yes that's him. Hell sell it for you anyhow I think. You might have to make it a blank canvas for him to do so I.e declutter it a lot.

He's a nice bloke and goes the extra mile.

Eta I sold my drum with him 2 year ago. @tbc sold with him more recently so he might have a more up to date view than me and it could all be a shit show now for all I know. I was happy with him and would always recommend him based on my experience

yeah we would definitely de-clutter a lot before going on the market.

at the moment I'm after a view on "is my place worth in the region of xx" because if it isn't, my plan about moving isn't working, and i'll need to re-think.

otoh if it's worth xx+x% then I have a bit more flexibility on what and where I can look at.

Vince gave us an estimated upper price of £50-100k above what anyone else had suggested, and in the end we sold it for a price in that range - nearly £100k more than what another agent had suggested marketing it for.

How much of that was down to Vince I'm not sure, but I found he was always up front, easily contactable, and friendly to deal with, which is about as much as you can ask for really.

Their photography and marketing is excellent as well - this guy takes their pictures:

https://www.neilperryphoto.com/barbican-beyond-the-brutal

He sounds decent, thank you both.

This is basically what he admitted. Said there's no way of knowing what pipe lengths they'll need until they're on the job, so fitted what they had.

Don't really understand this. They came and surveyed it, right? It's not like he's installing it within a chimney flue, presumably he could have estimated it easily enough with a laser measure which any surveyor should have.

Clearly they had more pipe than necessary, couldn’t they have just cut them?