My buckingham palace - all moved in!!!

Wow Albany you're building with Brian - lovely man!
Blessed - sorry didn't see your posts - wondering about the flue thing now?
We didn't give notice on our rental - they sold it on us (kept happening to us) and we just made it by the thinnest thread.

We've been in our house four months now!! It still feels very new and exciting the best thing we ever did. The waiting and issues we had during the build are all so distant now. We still are waiting on our balcony to be re done but need some drier weather for that to happen.

Over the last few weeks we've put in water tanks, more paths, a lawn, edged garden beds all around the back and side, a sand pit and tanbarked around the trampoline. Hopefully the mud trail through the house will decrease now. We now need some plants!! Also need to divert a downpipe from the top roof down to the lower roof as our water tanks are not getting enough rain. We've decided that once we have a little cash again (not likely this century) we'll put another water tank at the front for the front garden.

To anyone considering building the Buckingham 46 - you must be mad!! This house is huge as it is.

Hey Brit,

We contacted the installers from Bonaire and they advised that as upgraded the heating unit to zoned/5stars, that the Plastic Flue is apparently a normal i.e. not a hazard, however, if one didnt upgrade, they would need to ensure that their flue was steel.

Hi Brit and Blessed.

Do either of you have issues with your heating downstairs. We're finding that we're not getting much airflow at all coming out of our downstairs vents, but upstairs is boiling.

Thanks

Mel

Our downstairs is warmer than our upstairs which I think isn't meant to happen. We leave our bedrooms turned off but the big room on and it feels cold upstairs. I usually have it on 21 degrees and still end up grabbing a blanket. Saying that my other half is never cold and I am cold at work often too. Our first gas bill was pretty high but we had a leak early on so maybe that was why. The one I got this week was $160 for two months. Thats the stove, hot water (meant to be solar) and heating (which has been on most nights).

In our town house we rented in Pascoe Vale before we had to move because it sold the upstairs was putrid the moment you turned the heater on. The kids used to be always yelling at me to turn it off and I'd sit teeth chattering downstairs.

Seems really nice and quiet helpfull over the phone ... Did you ever have any problems with him answering calls, or returning messages ... Im hoping he will be contactable during the build, ive got a friend that has a supervisor that never answers or return calls with another builder

Hey Mel,

We have the opposite problem. Our downstairs is boiling and upstairs is a nice temperature except for the master bedroom which seems colder than all the other rooms upstairs. When we have the heater on in both zones and you stand under the ducts, your can feel the heat coming through steadily. However, with the duct in the master, your feel very little hot air flow.

I was under the impression that the downstairs was super hot because there are more ducts downstairs (10 ducts than upstairs (6 ducts i think). But something is definitely up with the duct in the master so the builder has contacted Bonaire to come and have a look as the Evaporative Cooling needs to be turned on up in the roof as well. The workman came last week but needed dry weather to be able to climb on the roof and turn it on. Apparently when it was installed, they "forgot" to turn it on With it being warm today and our living areas west facing, we left a message for Bonaire

Will let you know how we go.

Our master bedroom is cooler than the rest of upstairs too but we rarely turn the bedrooms on and our bedroom is above the garage so less insulated.

I never had any problems with him returning calls and messages. He's good at email too. He was on site a lot but we live very very close to him so this was probably due to convenience. My only real issue with him is time and I never pressured him enough.

Have you guys got zoned heating? How do you close upstairs vents?

Em

We paid for the upgrade in the belief we were getting zoned heating. That never turned out to be what was represented to us by the girl at NBG. However saying that when the tradesman installed the unit he did somehow put it so we can turn the bedrooms on and off at the controls. The big central room is zoned with the rest of the house. I have closed the vent on the downstairs bedroom. We usually leave the zone for the bedrooms upstairs off.

Same here Mel & Em,

We paid to upgrade to zoned heating with the belief that we could actually turn off 1 zone and have the other on and vice versa as per the advice we received from the colour selection CSR at NBG. However, this isnt the case at all. Zone A covers the entire ground floor and has to be on if you're using heating. However, you can opt to turn off Zone B at any time which covers the upstairs. This means that if you choose to use heating during the night to all bedrooms, you will also have the heater running downstairs. However, this is still preferable than having the upstairs area as Zone A cause with tiles on the ground floor, the heating isnt as stiffling when compared with the carpeted areas upstairs.

Brit your note about being above the garage and having less insulation makes a lot of sense. We just got a call from Bonaire, they'll be coming by today before 5pm. Will let you know what he says.

Also does the noise of the garage door opening disturb anyone else sleep in the Master bedroom? Dh opened the garage this morning at 6.30am and i almost jumped out of bed it isnt too loud...but it was more of an unexpected noise than anything else

I'm usually the one up early and HE hasn't left me any space to park in HIS garage. I've never been woken up by him coming home late at night though. I barely notice the garage door coming up though and until he walks in the door don't know he is home.

Should I mention that HE backed into HIS garage door the other day. It's left an almost invisible dint. He thought I didn't see it and was quite mortified when I pointed out that I did. Very flimsy garage doors and I shouldn't speak too soon as on that slope the next time it will be me.

Oh Fi you crack me up! Having a view sure has its benefits Glad to hear the dent is pretty much invisible but of course all things are visible to one who has superpowers