Churchfields, Ashbourne

yannakis

First batch of new homeowners are moving in already, and Cairn are planning to build plenty more with ongoing construction for at least a couple of years.

A3 rating is becoming the standard for newbuilds, but build quality looks exceptional in this estate, floor areas are larger than average for the money, and Ashbourne looks like a nice place to live.

We put a deposit down for a C type (4 bed semi) that'll be ready for snagging in Oct. Any potential neighbours? Any suggestions for the area/town?

www.churchfields.ie
www.daft.ie/churchfields

Overlay 1
Overlay 2

Odyssey 2005

Mother lives there. Has lived in ashbourne for about 40 years except for a 3 year spell elsewhere. Loves churchfields. Seems like a well run estate. Handy for the village too..

yannakis

Thank you. Interested to see if any other boardsies are moving to Ashbourne

Elrose12

yannakis wrote: »

First batch of new homeowners are moving in already, and Cairn are planning to build plenty more with ongoing construction for at least a couple of years.

A3 rating is becoming the standard for newbuilds, but build quality looks exceptional in this estate, floor areas are larger than average for the money, and Ashbourne looks like a nice place to live.

We put a deposit down for a C type (4 bed semi) that'll be ready for snagging in Oct. Any potential neighbours? Any suggestions for the area/to

Hey

We put down deposit for 3 bed semi due to go in November. However heard through the grapevine they are 2 months behind 😕 Hoping it's not true

yannakis

Elrose12 wrote: »

Hey

We put down deposit for 3 bed semi due to go in November. However heard through the grapevine they are 2 months behind 😕 Hoping it's not true

Hey future neighbour!

We were originally told snagging is estimated for end of Oct, but roof and windows are already on our property since last week. So we have a feeling that snagging might be earlier than that.

We are in the blue area below. Are you in the orange area or further west?

Elrose12

Howdy

We are in orange phase and have no idea how they are getting on.

Wish it was now 🀣

yannakis

Elrose12 wrote: »

We are in orange phase and have no idea how they are getting on.

Wish it was now 🀣

Yeah, we're the same Can't wait!

We dropped by the showhouse this weekend, and the orange ones are at the stage the blue were in the end of March. So that's putting the orange about 2 months behind the blue, therefore I believe mid-late November should be feasible for you guys!

fitzroi

thinking of buying here but have concerns re water quality, have been advised estate not serviced by the public mains but by a private well in the estate that is serviced at the minute by the developer but to be maintained by management company in the future.

anyone live there give any info on the water quality there, I have seen online ashbourne in general is not great as far as water quality goes, very hard water apparently.

yannakis

@fitzroi would be great to hear from a local. Nevertheless I was looking at a water softener (device) for the mains, and a reverse osmosis filter for drinking/cooking.

Odyssey 2005

My mother lives there and has been using the water with no problems. I lived in the Garden city estate,next to churchfields for 35 years also with no problems

Irish Steve

Ashbourne area water is indeed hard. We've been here 27 years, and initially, we had problems with lime scale, even in the cold tanks, I put a whole house softener in during 2002, and have never regretted it, the difference in usage of things like soap, shampoo, detergent and washing powder is significant, and we no longer have problems with things like taps, kettles, showers and the like scaling up.

If you're thinking of getting one in a new build, it would be worth talking to the developer now, as they may be able to make changes to pipe routings that will make fitting a whole house unit a lot simpler, as it has to have access to the incoming supply, and a drain to allow regular refreshing, the problem being that most houses the incoming main is under the kitchen sink, and that's not a good place to fit the unit, as there's not enough space in that spot, you can reckon to lose about the size of a narrow press, the ideal location is in the utility area, but that only works if the pipework is easy to access.

yannakis

Irish Steve wrote: »

If you're thinking of getting one in a new build, it would be worth talking to the developer now, as they may be able to make changes to pipe routings that will make fitting a whole house unit a lot simpler, as it has to have access to the incoming supply, and a drain to allow regular refreshing, the problem being that most houses the incoming main is under the kitchen sink, and that's not a good place to fit the unit, as there's not enough space in that spot, you can reckon to lose about the size of a narrow press, the ideal location is in the utility area, but that only works if the pipework is easy to access.

Thank you, good to know these details!

Pipes/drains are in at this stage, and the builder will not allow any changes. One of the reasons we're putting the kitchen after closing is to move the sink/dishwasher drain to the island.

The location of the incoming pipe is nicely located under the stairs together with the pressure pump, and accessible through the utility room so I believe there is enough space for the device. Not sure if there is a drain though, but if not, we'll have to take care of it after closing as well.

XelmoX

Hey everyone, my boyfriend and I have bought a 3bed semi also. Hi new neighbours!!

They seem to be flying up from what I've seen! We have walls now and two weeks ago we barely had anything!

Has anyone had any dealings with Nolans kitchens? We went out today to see about making some changes to the kitchen and we found them pretty unhelpful and very very expensive. We were thinking of going back to Cairn and asking if we would be allowed to approach someone else to do the kitchen. Has anyone else had similar experiences?

Elrose12

hey neighbour 😊

Where in Churchfields have you bought ? Oh no don't say that I was planning on changing counter tops and sink 🙈 I hadnt thought about using someone else ? But iv heard before sometimes if you don't go with something you get some sort of vouchers ? Now I'm not sure how true that is but have heard it been done for other new builds.

yannakis

Welcome to the (virtual for the moment) neighbourhood @XelmoX!

We want an island in our kitchen and discussed it with them since day 1. Between some misinformation from the selling agent and some nonsense from Nolans, turns out we will have to make adjustments to the pipes and Cairn won't allow that before closing! So we decided to not install a kitchen until then, and Cairn will give us credit for Nolans, and KKS (appliances).

This gives us extra time to look around and up to this point we have only looked at IKEA. We're getting a whole new kitchen with the money Nolan's wanted just for the upgrades! If we install it ourselves, savings will be even greater. I am personally sold with the 25 years warranty (pdf) (Nolans give only 1 year!).

Elrose12

Loving the virtual 😂

Are you serious with the costs? If you don't mind me asking are the astronomical ?Only 1 year guarantee that's shocking , sure then they could be throwing any aul kitchen in the more I'm hearing the less I am liking this crowd 😞

yannakis

Not sure if I'd call it astronomical, but it felt plenty for just the upgrades. Our initial IKEA model is actually bigger and in our humble opinion also better

XelmoX

Yeah we wanted to change the doors and the countertop and just doing that was over 1k which in my opinion is crazy money. It put the actual changes we wanted to make out of budget. They quoted €280 for putting two bins under the sink.

So Yannakis, did you get in touch with Cairn and they agreed to give you a cheque to the value of the kitchen or how did that work?

The IKEA kitchens are very reliable my sister has one and she saved a load of money on it and it's really nice. The 25 year guarantee is amazing also.

yannakis

Oh god, 1k!?

Cairn won't give us a cheque as such but have confirmed our allowance/credit with both Nolans and KKS so we will have to deal directly with the shops now. We are most probably going to use KKS, so that's fine. But also hope to pass our Nolans credit on to a friend or something (not exactly sure how that would work out).

XelmoX

So you have no choice but to go with Nolan's then really? It seems a shame they wont give you a cheque to the value of the kitchen.

Not to worry. We will just have to go with them then, we will probably end up ripping the whole kitchen out after a year and starting again. A bit of a waste of money and energy but what else can we do?

yannakis

That kind of waste of energy is what we definitely want to avoid! So (worse case) we'd rather "waste" only Nolan's credit instead of time+energy at another point in time.

If you are getting the upgrades from Nolan, we can PM for more details.

Mk30

Hi all. I have also purchased in churchfields in the orange phase in the photo posted a while back! Has anyone been out to the site lately because I was there yesterday and the colour of the brick looks different to the brick used on all the other houses. I have confirmed with the foreman that the brick being used is different and apparently this was a management decision (as in Cairn homes). Has anybody else noticed this?

XelmoX

Thanks a million Yannakis but I don't think we will be doing to upgrades with Nolan's, to be honest the saleswoman's attitude made me not want to give them any of my money.

Hey MK30, I was up last week and hadn't noticed any difference in the colour of the brick being used, but I was just looking for the progress being made on them. Is it a big difference?

Mk30

Hi Xelmo.

Well tbh I feel the ones in rows 23 to 34 in the orange section are alot darker than the others in front and the show houses etc! Im not sure what part you are in but the ones with West facing gardens which is where we are and the ones to the back of us certainly look lile it's a different red colour!

yannakis

No worries @XelmoX, we had a similar feeling from the sales people in Nolans..

Mk30 wrote: »

Hi all. I have also purchased in churchfields in the orange phase in the photo posted a while back! Has anyone been out to the site lately because I was there yesterday and the colour of the brick looks different to the brick used on all the other houses. I have confirmed with the foreman that the brick being used is different and apparently this was a management decision (as in Cairn homes). Has anybody else noticed this?

Welcome to the hood @Mk30 :pac:

I noticed the bricks last Saturday, but I'd say it's only a small difference. Not sure if it will stand out more once the houses are complete though.

Mk30

Thanks @yannakis.

Yeah that's what we are worried about because we really like the bright red brick. The estate agent has emailed me to say she will find out for us with Cairn homes.

XelmoX

We are in the orange section as well. I'd be interested to hear about what Cairn reply to you with. Can you post it up here when you find out please?

Mk30

XelmoX wrote: »

We are in the orange section as well. I'd be interested to hear about what Cairn reply to you with. Can you post it up here when you find out please?

Yeah no problem i will

yannakis

Mk30 wrote: »

Yeah that's what we are worried about because we really like the bright red brick. The estate agent has emailed me to say she will find out for us with Cairn homes.

From experience, information from the sales agent has zero value. Even if it's in writing. Sales agents told us we have to speak with Nolans for the kitchen island, and we verified it with every one we bumped on. We were happy until nolans told us it was too late for the island, and we should have coordinated with the builder directly first!

Speak with Cairn directly, they'll give you a contact number/email from one of their sales people, and they will provide 100% accurate answers.

Mk30

yannakis wrote: »

From experience, information from the sales agent has zero value. Even if it's in writing. Sales agents told us we have to speak with Nolans for the kitchen island, and we verified it with every one we bumped on. We were happy until nolans told us it was too late for the island, and we should have coordinated with the builder directly first!

Speak with Cairn directly, they'll give you a contact number/email from one of their sales people, and they will provide 100% accurate answers.

Spoke with Cairn. They haven't got back to me.

Went out to site again this afternoon. Spoke with project manager. So yes the brick in orange section (except north facing) have a different brick colour. It's a darker red (same ones in Parkside near clarehall) if anybody wants to see what they look like.

The project manager said that there will be diff bricks used throughout the different phases. Next phase will have yellow brick.

XelmoX

That's mad I didn't think they could change something so obvious!

I hope you are not disappointed by the change in the bricks! Yellow brick sounds cool though.