Posts under ‘existing stock’

Spring is here. Time to get over our post-Copenhagen hangovers and kick back into action. Ecobuild starts today and, more significantly we have the introduction of the Pay as You Save policy by the Government. I’ve only seen early new reports on this, such as in the Telegraph, so we’ll have to see the detail. [...]

In a recent post I rather jokingly referred to my chilly house with no central heating. It’s all very well for me making gags about wearing slankets but for some the situation is entirely more sobering and uncomfortable. Holly Billen, an eight-month pregnant 26-year-old who lives in Wiltshire and features in today’s Guardian, is having [...]

So got one virtual event out of the way last week. And all things considered it went pretty well. Invest UK was the first of its type: aimed at an audience which we were unsure would embrace what virtual events offer and focused on a topic area which again was new. The event was very [...]

Off to East London on Sunday for the grand Olympic Park tour, part of the Open House weekend. Reports that the team constructing the 2012 facilities have run out of money are somewhat exaggerated – they must have thrown tens of thousands of quid putting on this major PR blitz. They were due to show [...]

Guest blog by Robert Cohen, technical director at Camco, who is undertaking an ambitious green refurbishment project in east London. Here he reveals some numbers on the performance of the house and the long painful process in achieveing and measuring air tightness
In my first blog in this series (January this year), our project was on [...]

Right. Have got some sarf London roofers round my gaff and again my wife and I are somewhat puzzled on a few issues. As ever you’re never quite sure with the advice/ knee-jerk responses you get from trades. So here’s a couple of questions we’re scratching our heads over (when I say we I mean [...]

My job dictates that I get excited about digital, which I largely do. However it can pay to cast one’s eyes from a screen and be presented with one of those old fashioned things called a magazine (the existence of which partially pays for my salary). Professionally this usually means a five minute scan at [...]

Continuing the series of guest posts on a refurbing a Victorian house in Hackney. Joint client Bronwen Manby takes up the story, highlighting window drama, working with her brother the builder and questioning the point of party wall surveyors
So of course the ‘extreme refurb’ is over budget and behind on timetable, but
not drastically so – [...]

Continuing the series on my personal refurbishment
You wonder why the general consumer can get a tad confused about how to progress with domestic building work. Then you do it yourself and wonder how anyone comes to coherent decision. An example: my wife and I have had the pleasure of nigh-on six or seven plumbers inspect [...]

First in a series seeking free advice for my upcoming refurb project
So, about six weeks have passed since I moved into my Tooting pile, if that expression doesn’t sound somewhat inappropriate. A month and a half of doing the easy, if still sweat inducing, stuff. Pulling up, ripping or steaming off or smashing into smithereens. [...]