Multi-award winning eco home. That leaks, creaks and more..

PaulM · 3rd November 2008, 16:53

Well, finally decided to take the plunge to join up, and request some feedback and information from you all.

We took possession of a George Wimpey built (well, Wood Newton really build them) "eco home" at Oxley Woods in Milton Keynes this summer. You may be aware of these rather unusual homes as they have received a lot of terrific PR, and have won multiple awards.

They're timber framed (save for the balcony, apparently due to NHBC regulations), and clad with Trespa panels, and feature a number of unique technologies.

At the start of July, after taking ownership but before moving the family in, we discovered water coming in to the home via several locations, and we are still experiences problems.

We've had a great deal of work carried out, including one side of the house being stripped, remedial work carried out (lots of Tyvek tape), and put back together, but even at this stage problems still persist. For example, this weekend we watched water dripping from a window frame onto our kitchen surfaces below.

We have had several other problems too, ranging from small niggly issues to extras not being installed when we moved in, damage to property, workmen repairing then swapping around a door that should have been replaced... the list feels never ending!

Anyway, I'm in the process of cataloguing everything and trying to maintain an up to date blog of our experience, and I'd love to get feedback from members on here as to what we should have, and should be expecting from our new home.

This is our very first owned property, let alone new build, and we don't really know what we should or should not be expecting, but we're certain we're having a very tough time with it all, and a problem shared...

The link is in my signature, oxleywoodsliving.co.uk

Thanks in advance.

Tony · 6th November 2008, 00:37

I guess one of the problems you have is to do with the fact that the new technologies are not tried and tested - well not in the UK - and the people putting your home together probably had little experience and training. Do you know whether you home was one of the first on the site? Have you neighbours got similar problems?

Tony

PaulM · 6th November 2008, 11:59

Thanks for the reply.

Our house was far from the first, it must be somewhere between the 30th to 40th they built.

We don't actually have very many neighbours, we're towards the edge of the development and have empty houses around us, but last night we had a neighbour drop in after spotting the blog and he offered a further interesting insight.

Apparently leaks/water ingress sound pretty common. We also learned that Wimpey/Wood Newton have carried out remedial work on houses without telling the residence they did anything! They also have problems with their eco-hat ventilation/heating systems, and are on the brink of taking legal action regarding those complaints.

They've had a similar experience in terms of the work carried out for water coming in, but it sounds like they don't have the most recent fix that has been applied to our house, they seem to be one behind. And the stripping and work that took place on our home they were told was happening "on an empty property". Family of four here disagrees!

They were also considering the same as us, leaflet dropping the development to see if others have suffered similarly, it's obvious (and not entirely surprising) that we're not getting the full story about what's going around us with the other properties.

Maple Lodge · 6th November 2008, 20:50

I have problems with Persimmon Homes see my website

Persimmon Homes my house of horror nightmare - Maple Lodge

Tony · 6th November 2008, 21:48

It is well worth comparing snagging lists with your neighbours and keep the communication channels open - they will then get caught out if they lie. You sound like you are more aware than most others will be completely oblivious to most faults apart from the really obvious ones.

You could make the blog multiuser and use it as a community noticeboard, although it might be easier to create a facebook group.

Good luck

Tony

Maple Lodge · 7th November 2008, 07:46

I have put your website on my website which hopefully will bring lots of hits to us both

"I have problems with Persimmon Homes see my website

Persimmon Homes my house of horror nightmare - Maple Lodge"

PaulM · 22nd September 2009, 16:21

Well, things are sadly not much better, and in fact we're due to meet with management soon to go over total door and window replacement on our particular property after a summer of disruption.

Even more worrying for us, there are a number of very unhappy residents on this development and now we have our own forum just for residents of this "landmark" development from George Wimpey. But at least it's bringing residents together in a common cause!?

More on our blog, if you're interested: Oxley Woods Living and Tony, if worst comes to worst I may be in touch soon with a press release or two, and perhaps seeking even more advice!