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Bad luck or bad timing?

andyBeaker

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Something else that crossed my mind - have you ever been to a new housing development in the last 20 years? The houses are built on top of each other and the roads are so narrow that folk have to park half on the pavement which, incidentally, the government are now trying to outlaw. No parking, no privacy, no peace and quiet. I’ve lived on three such developments for 19 years before moving to where I am now, so I write from experience.

I’m surprised at you, William. You’re on of the few here that consistently writes common sense. If I didn’t know better, I’d say your account had been hacked.
You are bang on about parking. Friends of our have lived in two large new build town house developments in recent years, the garages are literally on the edge of the pavement, no driveway at all, permit required for on street aka on pavement parking. Zero allowance for visitors, whole thing is a shambles.

Many houses these days have more than one car and if I apply to build a single stand alone home I would expect there to be a requirement for at least off street parking for two cars.

The developers want to pack in as many houses as possible to make it as worth their while as possible, the planners are under pressure to hit new housing targets and it adds up to poor quality developments.

The site I mentioned above where I have two rentals is fourteen properties in a private road, each has one off street parking space and there's are four additional bays for residents and visitors. Simply not enough, particularly as we do not allow 'on street' parking in the development which is also a covenant in each property's deeds. Four additional spaces simply were not enough from the beginning.

I am involved in a site where we have obtained outline planning permission for 32 new properties - I have no doubt that whoever buys the site and develops it will cram in forty plus.
 

Squag1

Can't remember....
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Remember Essex Design Guide for housing in 70s or so.

Lovely estates roads reducing into pathless culture de sacs.
Just don't have a car.

First house I had we had garage courts instead of beside the house. Serious social problems at the garages. I was back a while ago to see large gate at the entrance.
No fireplace either!! Useless gas warm air heating.
 

andyBeaker

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Remember Essex Design Guide for housing in 70s or so.

Lovely estates roads reducing into pathless culture de sacs.
Just don't have a car.

First house I had we had garage courts instead of beside the house. Serious social problems at the garages. I was back a while ago to see large gate at the entrance.
No fireplace either!! Useless gas warm air heating.
Warm air heating:eek:

Horrible stuff, my parents had it in an one of their places, soon replaced it with radiators.
 

derek kelly

The Deli lama
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New builds are built with the cheapest of materials, bricks that won’t hold a rawl plug, cement that falls out after a couple of rain storms, uneven plaster, talking to a garage door fitter yesterday & he says that a lot of his work is correcting the quickly erected garage doors on new builds, not enough screws in the tracks, not enough tension in the springs, no oil or grease applied where it should be.
 

Pow-Lo

Make civil the mind, make savage the body.
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You are bang on about parking. Friends of our have lived in two large new build town house developments in recent years, the garages are literally on the edge of the pavement, no driveway at all, permit required for on street aka on pavement parking. Zero allowance for visitors, whole thing is a shambles.

Many houses these days have more than one car and if I apply to build a single stand alone home I would expect there to be a requirement for at least off street parking for two cars.

The developers want to pack in as many houses as possible to make it as worth their while as possible, the planners are under pressure to hit new housing targets and it adds up to poor quality developments.

The site I mentioned above where I have two rentals is fourteen properties in a private road, each has one off street parking space and there's are four additional bays for residents and visitors. Simply not enough, particularly as we do not allow 'on street' parking in the development which is also a covenant in each property's deeds. Four additional spaces simply were not enough from the beginning.

I am involved in a site where we have obtained outline planning permission for 32 new properties - I have no doubt that whoever buys the site and develops it will cram in forty plus.
The idiots that maintain the grounds of the development wrote to all residents a couple of years ago and told us all to stop parking on the pavements. What these fools don’t realise is that if cars didn’t half park on the pavements and all parked on the road, no cars would get through. I pointed this out in a polite correspondence to them; I also added that if cars wouldn’t be able to pass, then neither would the dust wagons. Or an ambulance. Or a fire truck. The silence of the response was deafening. We were quite fortunate in that we had a drive in front of the garage that was about a metre longer than my wagon. We then block paved the crap front ‘garden’ so Mrs P could park there instead of half on the pavement.

As for our property, it really was the house that Jack built. So many problems, it was staggering. Unfortunately, a number of them manifested after the warranty expired and NHBC weren’t interested in. They’re thrown together in record time and on the cheap. Whoever buys ours now will have a decent property because we’ve fixed everything and made a second parking space; we’re one of about three houses on the development that has that practicality.

We had three new builds. Never again.
 

derek kelly

The Deli lama
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Another thing with new builds, “we’ll buy your house for full market value if you buy one of ours” of course you will because you’ve added £40,000 in the valuation of your new build.

I remember an old colleague bought a new build near Pinderfields hospital, he was putting up a mirror or something, he drilled a hole in the wall & suddenly found himself looking at the road beyond, he went outside & found he’d lost a couple of bricks.
 

andyBeaker

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The idiots that maintain the grounds of the development wrote to all residents a couple of years ago and told us all to stop parking on the pavements. What these fools don’t realise is that if cars didn’t half park on the pavements and all parked on the road, no cars would get through. I pointed this out in a polite correspondence to them; I also added that if cars wouldn’t be able to pass, then neither would the dust wagons. Or an ambulance. Or a fire truck. The silence of the response was deafening. We were quite fortunate in that we had a drive in front of the garage that was about a metre longer than my wagon. We then block paved the crap front ‘garden’ so Mrs P could park there instead of half on the pavement.

As for our property, it really was the house that Jack built. So many problems, it was staggering. Unfortunately, a number of them manifested after the warranty expired and NHBC weren’t interested in. They’re thrown together in record time and on the cheap. Whoever buys ours now will have a decent property because we’ve fixed everything and made a second parking space; we’re one of about three houses on the development that has that practicality.

We had three new builds. Never again.
Yup, agree about NHBC - all fourteen properties on our rental development had a common design fault that caused rain water to leak in around the front door. Having tried and initially failed to get the developer to resolve (they blamed the contractor) we made fourteen claims to nhbc. What a joke and a complete waste of time. If anyone thinks an NHBC certificate gives a bulletproof ten year warranty they are in for a shock. The most ridiculous element is that the enhanced protection in year one starts from when the property is finished, not when it is first occupied.

As it happens when I finally managed to get hold of the top man at the developers who lives in Ireland it all got resolved quite quickly. As ever if you get to the top of an organisation with A complaint you tend to get action. they tend to care about their reputation and usually do the right thing.
 

Pow-Lo

Make civil the mind, make savage the body.
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Yup, agree about NHBC - all fourteen properties on our rental development had a common design fault that caused rain water to leak in around the front door. Having tried and initially failed to get the developer to resolve (they blamed the contractor) we made fourteen claims to nhbc. What a joke and a complete waste of time. If anyone thinks an NHBC certificate gives a bulletproof ten year warranty they are in for a shock. The most ridiculous element is that the enhanced protection in year one starts from when the property is finished, not when it is first occupied.

As it happens when I finally managed to get hold of the top man at the developers who lives in Ireland it all got resolved quite quickly. As ever if you get to the top of an organisation with A complaint you tend to get action. they tend to care about their reputation and usually do the right thing.
On moving in day in the last place, the engineer was there to install Sky and TV antenna kept getting electric shocks. Twat who’d done the cabling had put a screw in through the wire. I had a horrid feeling after that that there were more problems to come, oh yes, oh yes indeedy. We had to move out for a week, along with most furniture, while the Karndean floors were re-laid in the lounge, dining room and all four bedrooms; boiler shit itself and flooded top floor and middle floor (Mrs P got the water off in time to stop it getting any worse); shower tray drains in both en suites let go mildly flooding the downstairs; kitchen electrics blew; toilet filling pipe in master en suite parted and flooded the bathroom (I was in Singapore and Mrs P was on her way home from Heathrow, just back off a trip. If she’d come home an hour later, the effects would have been devastating. She could have been away for up to nine days!); ridge tiles came down off the roof during a storm and clobbered my Merc; boiler let go a second time leaving us without heating and water for a five days; boiler flue in loft was too short and carbon monoxide was seeping in to the top floor (only minuscule amounts) and this was discovered by our heating engineer when he replaced the boiler. There’s more but I’m bored of typing.
 

andyBeaker

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On moving in day in the last place, the engineer was there to install Sky and TV antenna kept getting electric shocks. Twat who’d done the cabling had put a screw in through the wire. I had a horrid feeling after that that there were more problems to come, oh yes, oh yes indeedy. We had to move out for a week, along with most furniture, while the Karndean floors were re-laid in the lounge, dining room and all four bedrooms; boiler shit itself and flooded top floor and middle floor (Mrs P got the water off in time to stop it getting any worse); shower tray drains in both en suites let go mildly flooding the downstairs; kitchen electrics blew; toilet filling pipe in master en suite parted and flooded the bathroom (I was in Singapore and Mrs P was on her way home from Heathrow, just back off a trip. If she’d come home an hour later, the effects would have been devastating. She could have been away for up to nine days!); ridge tiles came down off the roof during a storm and clobbered my Merc; boiler let go a second time leaving us without heating and water for a five days; boiler flue in loft was too short and carbon monoxide was seeping in to the top floor (only minuscule amounts) and this was discovered by our heating engineer when he replaced the boiler. There’s more but I’m bored of typing.
If it makes you feel better one of the faults we picked up in the development of fourteen properties was five extractor fans being installed the wrong way round....

Also ensuite shower doors couldn't open all the way as they hit the radiators...no reason for it, we got the radiators moved about three inches in all properties by the builder.

27 out of 27 Manhole frames and covers not secured to drainage system.

Electricity for street lighting not connected.

Best of all was being appointed director of the management company and then finding out it was in the process of being struck off with £6000 of fines outstanding for non filing of many returns and other irregularities.
 

ogr1

I can still see ya.....
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Another thing with new builds, “we’ll buy your house for full market value if you buy one of ours” of course you will because you’ve added £40,000 in the valuation of your new build.

I remember an old colleague bought a new build near Pinderfields hospital, he was putting up a mirror or something, he drilled a hole in the wall & suddenly found himself looking at the road beyond, he went outside & found he’d lost a couple of bricks.

Feck me! How big was the drill bit?
 

Squag1

Can't remember....
Club Sponsor
On moving in day in the last place, the engineer was there to install Sky and TV antenna kept getting electric shocks. Twat who’d done the cabling had put a screw in through the wire. I had a horrid feeling after that that there were more problems to come, oh yes, oh yes indeedy. We had to move out for a week, along with most furniture, while the Karndean floors were re-laid in the lounge, dining room and all four bedrooms; boiler shit itself and flooded top floor and middle floor (Mrs P got the water off in time to stop it getting any worse); shower tray drains in both en suites let go mildly flooding the downstairs; kitchen electrics blew; toilet filling pipe in master en suite parted and flooded the bathroom (I was in Singapore and Mrs P was on her way home from Heathrow, just back off a trip. If she’d come home an hour later, the effects would have been devastating. She could have been away for up to nine days!); ridge tiles came down off the roof during a storm and clobbered my Merc; boiler let go a second time leaving us without heating and water for a five days; boiler flue in loft was too short and carbon monoxide was seeping in to the top floor (only minuscule amounts) and this was discovered by our heating engineer when he replaced the boiler. There’s more but I’m bored of typing.
That was a DIY kit
 

Squag1

Can't remember....
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Another thing with new builds, “we’ll buy your house for full market value if you buy one of ours” of course you will because you’ve added £40,000 in the valuation of your new build.

I remember an old colleague bought a new build near Pinderfields hospital, he was putting up a mirror or something, he drilled a hole in the wall & suddenly found himself looking at the road beyond, he went outside & found he’d lost a couple of bricks.
Was it not a cavity wall. How could that happen :eek::eek::eek:
 

derek kelly

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Was it not a cavity wall. How could that happen :eek::eek::eek:
Can’t recall exact details it was late eighties early nineties, I remember laughing when he was telling us about it, the house was on Pinders Heath, which was a brand new estate.
 

Pow-Lo

Make civil the mind, make savage the body.
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If it makes you feel better one of the faults we picked up in the development of fourteen properties was five extractor fans being installed the wrong way round....

Also ensuite shower doors couldn't open all the way as they hit the radiators...no reason for it, we got the radiators moved about three inches in all properties by the builder.

27 out of 27 Manhole frames and covers not secured to drainage system.

Electricity for street lighting not connected.

Best of all was being appointed director of the management company and then finding out it was in the process of being struck off with £6000 of fines outstanding for non filing of many returns and other irregularities.
I originally thought it was the builders employing cheap labour from Eastern Europe. Is that the case in your experience or are they just employing idiots of all nationalities?
 

andyBeaker

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I originally thought it was the builders employing cheap labour from Eastern Europe. Is that the case in your experience or are they just employing idiots of all nationalities?
I think the issue is that a lot of the work is sub contracted. In and out in five minutes.

I am quite friendly with the site manager who was in charge of the fourteen house estate build -some of the stories he has told me are scary. Wouldn't do his job!!
 

Oldandbald

Been there, and had one
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It absolutely is that. When the sub contractors were paid a daily rate they had time to do a half decent job. Now they are getting 3 quid off the developer to hang 14 internal doors they don't care if they will actually shut. Why would they?
 

JayTee

Si vis pacem para bellum
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We have new estates springing up down here exactly how Pow-Low describes, bloody rabbit warrens with only one way in and out, the kids have no real space to play and as for car parking forget it. Now they’re making the plot smaller than ever and just adding another storey, and don’t get me started on property prices, feckin rip off.
 
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