Not a good week

The newly fitted out utility room

Don't you just love the officious nature of some people? As we had completed all the plumbing we asked Anglian Water to come along and connect a meter so we could have full mains pressure. Having telephoned on Tuesday I was told an inspector would call on Wednesday between 12.00 and 17.00. At 12.20 the man duly arrived - so far so good. By 12.30 we had failed the inspection because we were able to put the bathroom shower hose in the toilet. Perhaps I'm unusual but I've never wanted to put the shower down the toilet. In fact I so haven't wanted to do it that the thought of so doing had never crossed my mind. We were found equally guilty of being able to put the shower hose in the bath - heavens - its curtains for us! Muttering darkly about the problems of contaminated water being sucked back into the mains, our inspector said we would have to fix the shower hose by means of a permanent clip, ideally screwed to the wall. Tempted as I was to tell him what to do with his clip I asked why this sort of requirement was not better publicised. "You and your plumber should know" I was told. Quite how we would ever know when even knowing of the problem didn't help to find guidance of any sort on Anglian water's web site. Eventually I found an obscure document on the Water Regulations Advisory Scheme web site with rather poor photos and crude diagrams of showers in toilets, coupled with the dire consequences of breaching this little-known regulations.

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Not content with failing us for our mains supply, he turned his attention to the rainwater harvesting and why the pipes carrying the rainwater weren't a different colour to the main water supply pipe. I acted dumb. "Did we know about this rainwater harvesting of yours" he demanded. "Pretty certain it was an answer to a question on one of the many forms I filled out for Anglian Water" says I. "Well its not in my notes" said the inspector. "If it had been, one of our specialists would have been here instead of me. Hmmmmmmm" You could see him relishing all the potential problems this might throw up. With a scan of his laptop and some furious typing he was gone.
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On returning home I found a suitable clip that would retain the shower hose and ordered it immediately. Subsequent research has suggested that the pipes carrying harvested rainwater should be black with green stripes and carry the words "Reclaimed water" at frequent intervals down the pipe. This gives us a problem as the pipe carrying the harvested water from the garage to the house is blue - the same as the mains supply. Oh dear, I can foresee the need for more digging and screed removal/relaying. In addition we have to apply adhesive labels to every pipe in the house carrying reclaimed water. This means that we have to undo some of the bathroom fitting-out to get to them. Once again I searched the Anglian Water web site for guidance on rainwater harvesting systems and could find none. A Google search eventually produced an Anglian Water newsletter to Anglian approved plumbers (only 2 in the whole of Bedfordshire) that spelt out the requirements for fitting rainwater harvesting. Quite why the application form for water supply to a new build does not firstly, have a question asking if you have or intend to have rainwater harvesting, and secondly giving all the requirements if you do, is a mystery. Possibly the water companies don't want to lose income if people move to reclaimed water.
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Still rather bemused by the Anglian Water scenario we had a visit on Friday from the sprinkler people - to commission the sprinkler system. More bad news - the connection from the harvested water supply is inadequate as the pipe used is 12mm not the 32 mm they required. Worse still was the fact that despite the sprinkler system supposedly being designed and commissioned to work with the rainwater harvesting system, there was totally inadequate pressure and flow directly from the water tank. A call to the supplier of the rainwater harvesting system produced more bad news. Neither the pump in the rainwater tank, nor the pressure switch that activates the water supply could deliver the flow rate required. Furthermore, a quick calculation suggested that the bore of the pipe from the tank would simply be incapable of delivering the required flow rate. Talk of twin pumps and dual pressure switches made me even more depressed. The supplier of the rainwater harvesting system has gone away to do some more accurate calculations, but is not optimistic that anything can be done with the set up we have. Sounds like more money on what has rapidly become the biggest white elephant in the build. The trouble is that without the sprinkler system we can't get the house signed off by building control so we're somewhere between a rock and a hard place on this one. What really irritates is that our building surveyor was supposed to have obtained approval from both the rainwater harvesting supplier and the sprinkler people that the systems could inter-operate and would meet the needs of the Building Inspector. I recall conversations regarding the rainwater system pump capacity and it appears that the unit we have has a capability of only 60% of that which I was told we would have. As we no longer use the building surveyor (are you surprised?) then its back to the drawing board.
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On a slightly more positive note. we do have the utility room fully kitted out with cupboards and worktops thanks to Jon's efforts over last weekend. Unfortunately I've had to take two of the cupboards out again in order to survey the area where the mains and harvested water arrive in the floor.
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Andy the electrician hadn't materialised by Thursday (as expected), but on Friday when I arrived at Wee House, I found a Steve on site busy tugging at lighting cable in the porch. He had been sub-contracted by Andy to finish off the work and spent all day doing to jobs Andy hadn't got round to - mainly the most awkward. Anyway, by 16.00 on Friday all the electrics appeared to be complete. I had to modify that slightly as at 16.30 I noticed that he had missed one non-working light in the shower room. Andy will have to attend to that.
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Jan and I spent Friday at Brookvale, Jan in the garden (more wheelbarrows full of bricks and clay) and me in the house, initially painting the walls in the utility room, then attending to the various trades that arrived (electrician, sprinkler man, plumber). By the end of a depressing day I hadn't painted all that I had planned, although the utility room walls are now finished, but had managed to acquire several rather large problems already described.
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On arriving home from Brookvale we found a mountain of post, including a letter from Central Beds Building Control accepting out building notice for the Velux windows. That was timely as Pete Brooks our excellent chippy had arranged to visit Friday evening to check out the work required to fit the windows. My concerns that he might not be able to start for a while were immediately quashed when he said he expected to do the work week commencing 10th June. As we're on holiday in Devon that week (Hi Jenny & David - really looking forward to seeing you) we should come back to a nearly finished job. The reason it will be "nearly finished" is because I have to arrange for Building Control to inspect the window and its frame before the making good can be done.
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We put our house on the market on Friday and have had one viewing already (negative -our house is too dark apparently), and we have three more viewings on Sunday. That should help fill up all the spare time we have at the moment and keep Jan on her toes keeping me from making the house a mess before viewings.
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Rather depressed of Clifton