New Development Royal Canal Park D15

Forumsie wrote: »

Hi folks, just a couple of questions for those of you living here for a while if you wouldn't mind?

Mould - we're currently using our box room as a drying room as we don't like drying clothes from wet in the tumble dryer and we dont have a line yet. We have the door and the vents open but not the windows this weekend as it was very cold. Someone said to us that we need to stop drying inside because new houses are so well insulated that we could end up with mould on our walls after just a few months. Has anyone else had problems with mould?


I use the box room myself, but vent on windows is always open when I dry clothes. Haven’t had any mould till date but not to say can’t happen in future.

gmurali wrote: »

Hi All,

I am new to this thread and would like to thank everyone who have contributed to this thread so far. This thread helped us big time in choosing Camden as our new home and we have booked a Heron.

While we have the contracts signed, we were not provided of any point of contact from Ballymore. When i asked Sherry Fitzgerald for any potential alterations (For eg. paint) they said, Ballymore does not promote any alterations to the house and will build it similarly for everyone.

I have not been able to contact Ballymore regarding this. Going by the history of this thread, i can see that a few people have managed to get the house painted in Grey.
I was wondering how they got Ballymore to do this and if there is contact for Bally,ore regarding alterations, i'll be really grateful, if you could PM the contact to me.

Welcome & congratulations! To be honest we moved in earlier this year and were unable to get any alterations to paint from Ballymore. It was just standard white.
I'm glad we haven't had the house painted yet either as there are some large settling cracks in the wall (which we would have to repaint) so we will wait till the summer now once the house is fully settled to finally paint it.
We were also advised that Ballymore will no longer be doing changes for the show homes, so fingers crossed you get a better reply than what they said. I do know alterations can cause delays and I assume that's why they don't entertain the idea anymore. The Grey was done in the first couple of Phases not any recently.
I know on the FB group, everyone is very friendly in offering references of tradesmen who can help to do bits and bobs that need to be done.

n1ckymar1e wrote: »

Welcome & congratulations! To be honest we moved in earlier this year and were unable to get any alterations to paint from Ballymore. It was just standard white.
I'm glad we haven't had the house painted yet either as there are some large settling cracks in the wall (which we would have to repaint) so we will wait till the summer now once the house is fully settled to finally paint it.
We were also advised that Ballymore will no longer be doing changes for the show homes, so fingers crossed you get a better reply than what they said. I do know alterations can cause delays and I assume that's why they don't entertain the idea anymore. The Grey was done in the first couple of Phases not any recently.
I know on the FB group, everyone is very friendly in offering references of tradesmen who can help to do bits and bobs that need to be done.

Many thanks for the info. Would you be able to PM the link to the FB group please?

gmurali wrote: »

Hi All,

I am new to this thread and would like to thank everyone who have contributed to this thread so far. This thread helped us big time in choosing Camden as our new home and we have booked a Heron.

While we have the contracts signed, we were not provided of any point of contact from Ballymore. When i asked Sherry Fitzgerald for any potential alterations (For eg. paint) they said, Ballymore does not promote any alterations to the house and will build it similarly for everyone.

I have not been able to contact Ballymore regarding this. Going by the history of this thread, i can see that a few people have managed to get the house painted in Grey.
I was wondering how they got Ballymore to do this and if there is contact for Bally,ore regarding alterations, i'll be really grateful, if you could PM the contact to me.

We purchased an Ash in the last phase and were told by the foreman that no alterations would be allowed. I had wanted to change the shower heads and make changes to the kitchen. I got onto the kitchen supplier first and then the foreman and both the foreman and the supplier said no changes. We were able to request that the skirting boards on the ground floor and upstairs be tacked on rather than nailed on to allow for the flooring but no success with any other requests.

cronos wrote: »

It's 24 7 security. They will be the one's you will meet. Sometimes you won' be lucky to meet them in the office though, so I generally ring ahead.

Perfect, I'll do that thanks

Thanks Mannion, yes I've been getting the 120 in the mornings but it leaves to early for me in the evenings. But the train is good enough

New Camdeners - unconfirmed reports of Eir being spotted laying the cables so hopefully we will be able to get TV/Broadband sooner than anticipated!

Pokas wrote: »

Hi DaffDaff,
Who did you contact? I would also like to request the skirting boards to be tacked instead.
Thanks

We asked the foreman for the skirting to be tacked too. The downstairs ones were done but not the other two floors. Our carpenter pulled them off and put them back on after the floor was laid but they didn't look great, even the ones that were only tacked downstairs. We ended up getting our decorator to fill in the gaps between each boardn sand them and paint them

engineer0 wrote: »

Hello,
We found it difficult to get a home insurance for Camden, given the address is not in the list, no alarms installed etc.
Can you share your experience with home insurance ? The only quote i was given was from Zurich Homestar and it looks rather expensive (440 euros /year).
Also when do you get the insurance ? When you get a snagging date ? Or when you're about to close ? 
Thank you for the input

Ah insurance, so many hazards....!

I found it difficult too - we had no Eircode when I started ringing around so Zurich were pretty much the only one who would quote us. Same price for us and they won't give us flood cover as we're in a flood zone apparently. Now canals don't flood and I hope the tolka river is never going to rise about 20 feet and Ashtown as a whole is considered low risk for flooding but it was a case of computer says no! I will appeal that next year when we're renewing as I'd like some cover for in case pipes burst in our house or on the street or something but at the time I just needed to get insurance in place to close the sale. Oh actually FBD quoted me too - took about 3 days to get a quote and then it came back at a ridiculous cost of around 900 euro.

In terms of timing, Zurich told us they couldn't give us cover until the day we were closing. And we couldn't pay in advance and get the documents which need to be sent onto the bank and be updated in their system to get the money released. Our solicitor told us this was rubbish and to tell them the closing date was a Friday when we were closing the following wednesday. Therefore we had time to get the documents and AIB to update their systems. Not that I'm condoning misleading an insurance company but you're actually over insuring yourself slightly. Also you have to tell the insurance company that you're moving in immediately after closing otherwise they'll only give you partial insurance as the building is unoccupied. We only got our alarm after we moved in so we couldn't get a discount for that but maybe next year it'll be slightly cheaper.

Also - make sure the rebuild amount you give the insurance company exactly matches the rebuild figure on the valuation that the bank does. If it doesn't there is a problem. So get your valuation done during snagging and then go back to your insurance company to get it settled.

Speaking of insurance - I had to change the address on my car insurance. €50 euro extra for being a northsider!!! I like to think it's not really that but more the fact that my car is now in the driveway rather than a locked garage.

Finally, mortgage protection insurance is what nearly got us. Everyone told us to get it in place early. So we did, got it organised in April and our snagging didn't start til end of July. However, mortgage protection insurance is reducing balance, so when we went to draw down the money we realised that the the balance of the insurance had dipped slightly below the mortgage amount. We offered to pay the difference. But the bank wouldn't accept that, said we'd have to reapply and it would have to go to the underwriters again etc. We didn't have time for that. Long story short, we got letters from insurance company and various assurances and they let us away with it. But if you're setting up mortgage protection insurance early make sure the reducing balance at your expected time of closing will cover the mortgage amount

Best of luck!

engineer0 wrote: »

Hello,
We found it difficult to get a home insurance for Camden, given the address is not in the list, no alarms installed etc.
Can you share your experience with home insurance ? The only quote i was given was from Zurich Homestar and it looks rather expensive (440 euros /year).
Also when do you get the insurance ? When you get a snagging date ? Or when you're about to close ? 
Thank you for the input

Check out Axa. I got them for 160€ Buildings and contents. I said there was an alarm installed as I intended to get one in. No issues with address or eir codes

If anybody living in RCP is on the Three mobile network I’d be interested to hear what coverage is like. Thinking of changing from Vodafone.

cronos wrote: »

Did some searching for you. Page 82 section 12.3.9 seems to discuss it. Although I didn't get much from reading it to be honest. I suspect you just interrupted it and that next time it's saying you shouldn't. Have not had the problem myself.

https://www.daikin.ie/content/dam/document-library/Installer-reference-guide/heat/ERHQ-BA,ERLQ-CA,EHVH-X11+16S18CB,11+16S26CB_4PEN384975-1B_Installer%20Reference%20Guide_English.pdf

Thanks Cronos, I've looked at a load of daikin manuals online and while a few have identified the problem, none tell me how to fix it. At least your one says that error messages should be fixed by a licenced installer so I know that I'm not missing anything obvious. The only thing I can think of that caused this is that something caused the switch to trip over night and it stopped the unit outside from working probably in the middle of a disinfection cycle.

I'll try and get Joule's details from Ballymore on Monday morning. I feel like I've been back to all the installers since we moved in for one thing or another! Hopefully it'll all quieten down then!

Twocantim wrote: »

Hi all, new to this site and RCP! Thanks very much to all for posts to date. Quick question, does anyone know why there have been delays in the Camden houses? Looks like there hasn't been any movement in the last 2/3 weeks? We have been waiting to be called for snag for a while now!

Also if anyone has had a good tiler would appreciate a PM!

Hi there, I'm in Ash and we were told the delay is caused by ESB. Our house is fully ready but it is awaiting connection to power by ESB. Unfortunately the builder have no influence on them whatsoever - they come when they come... I was told one of our Heron neighbors was delayed for 1 month because of the ESB. We have been ol "ny day now" for the lst 2 weeks! Imagine he stress...

BTW I would very much appreciate tiler's contract as well please.

Forumsie wrote: »

cronos wrote: »

Did some searching for you. Page 82 section 12.3.9 seems to discuss it. Although I didn't get much from reading it to be honest. I suspect you just interrupted it and that next time it's saying you shouldn't. Have not had the problem myself.

https://www.daikin.ie/content/dam/document-library/Installer-reference-guide/heat/ERHQ-BA,ERLQ-CA,EHVH-X11+16S18CB,11+16S26CB_4PEN384975-1B_Installer%20Reference%20Guide_English.pdf

Hi guys, so someone from ballymore came today to fix our error message on the unit in the utility room. It was working but the disinfection of the tank wasn't according to the error message. Now we have a new error message about water flow and now we have no heating and no hot water! I'm so over these teething problems, they seem never ending.

I'll get back into ballymore tomorrow but my question is are these units prone to problems? Or are we just unlucky? We're only in 3 weeks and this is the 3rd problem. What's really annoying is that it is so complicated it doesnt seem possible to do a manual reset ourselves. I'm concerned that everytime something goes wrong I'll have to get professional help and wait god knows how long for it.

Sorry for the rant - like I said my real question is do other people encounter problems often? Thanks

Hi there,

Hopefully this will put your mind at ease. We’ve lived in our Ash for over two years and we’ve been without hot water on one occasion. We had a fault in the first month of moving in and never since.

Hope you get sorted soon and can start enjoying your new home.

cronos wrote: »

Personally I haven't had any issues with it since I moved in. I have left it almost untouched though, also had a checkup after the first year that really just ended with them saying it was fine but bleeding the rads a good bit.

Thanks Cronos,
So we've just had the plumber in to reset the system. Turns out that like many things, the problem was of our own making!
So we got the plumber to take off the towel rail in the downstairs bathroom a couple of weeks ago to facilitate some decorating. Later we got a guy in to install a water softener in the kitchen. Nice guy, offered to put our towel rail back up and we said great, thanks, saves us getting the plumber back. So anyway when he topped up the towel rail, he didnt adjust the air to water system so it was essentially missing water and that explained our water flow error. Moral of the story - never take off a radiator/towel rail unless you have someone lined up to reset/repressurise your air to water system after

I originally took today off work to get the phone line connected. This is the second day off I've taken for this. The first time was when we first moved in. Kn networks said no cables in the road. This time we were assured it was all set up on the road and our address was on the Eir website saying we can get broadband. Sure enough Kn networks came back and said it's the same story, no cables in the road. I said no no this time it's different. They said they opened the cabinet and nothing is there. They said its hugely frustrating for them too. Sometimes they are out in a new estate 4 times in a month and there are no cables. All they can do is take a photo and log it. They did say that they thought there were virgin media cables in there but I thought there was no virgin media in this estate?

Anyway, getting my heating sorted today is some consolation. No point in ringing Eir, the sales people know nothing. So I'll try and message the Eir guy on another board who originally told me the cabling was scheduled for 30th December and see is there any update. Meanwhile Christmas is cancelled!

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone gets the 120 bus that goes to Ballsbridge in the morning and how do you find it / how long does it generally take?

I'm trying to decide on the best option for my commute but from what I've seen on twitter, the 120 seems to have reliability issues so maybe it's best to avoid!?

Thanks in advance

Thanks Formusie, that's really helpful!

I think the 7:40 bus is a bit early for me! Was more thinking the 8:00 service but I assume traffic would be heavier then so it may not get me in on time. I've heard the same about crowding on the trains and capacity will definitely be an issue with all the development in the area.

I'm happy to experiment with the different options but my taxsaver ticket is due for renewal before I'll have moved in so I'm trying to figure it out in advance!

Forumsie wrote: »

I was looking at that ticket too and I think it's only 200 euro more to get bus and train. But I drive maybe one day a week too so when I did the sums it looked the tax saver ticket would cost around the same as my leap card. I've set that to automatically top up for convenience. Maybe if you're travelling further and everyday it's better value

Thanks again. I will probably leave the ticket for now and I can get one in future if I think it's worthwhile. Not much point in committing myself at this stage, especially if there isn't much to be saved.

And like you, I could end up getting a different service home than in to work so will be good to keep my options open!

jetbluue wrote: »

Hi
In the utility there’s a grey box and all the Ethernet cables for the rooms are there already. Just needs connecting.

Hi,


I have a switch directly in the utility room already and all rooms are wired up, except for the storage room on the second floor Which is where I want to put some gear, as it's the only place where some fan noise doesn't bother anybody. So I would need to run cat6 from the storage room all the way down to the utility room. Alternatively I would run the cable just down one floor, from the storage room to the small bedroom on the first floor, where there is another switch.

ek wrote: »

Anyone experienced mice in the attic? Terrified of them but they’re definitely up there. We had one get into the house this exact time last year too. Trying to find the point of entry.

Are you in an Ash or a Heron? I'm afraid I have no advice on points of entry as we're newly here but had hoped it wouldn't be an issue as the houses are so well sealed.

Around 10 years ago we had this problem in my mother's house which is a dormer style semi d. We were horrified, we could hear them crawling/scratching above us and through the walls. The saying "as quiet as a mouse" is a complete misnomer, they're so loud. Anyway, we just bit the bullet and called a pest control company as we didnt want to deal with it ourselves. They guy came out and determined the point of entry was a tiny gap in the facia at the front of the house. And the mice were able to run vertically up the wall. Apparently their bones are flexible so they can squeeze through a gap the size of a coin or something ridiculous like that. The pest control guy put down poison that makes them thirsty so they go outside to find water and die outside which is good as you don't have to deal with the remains. (Sorry if this offends anyone, while we would prefer dealing with it in a more humane way we just wanted them gone). It was this time of year too - driven by the temperature drop outside.

We also had an occasion when a rat came in our front door. Now Im forever on at my other half to close the door if even just stepping out for a minute to throw something in the bin!

Anyway, my mother sealed the tiny gap and they never came back even though I'm sure there are other gaps in the house. So my advice is get a pest control company, worth every penny! Good luck, I sympathise

ek wrote: »

Thanks a million. We have pest control booked in for tomorrow. Last year it was one and the trap did the trick but I’m not sure this time and certainly won’t be investigating it myself! We’re in an Ash. I think it could be around the en-suite extractor fan.

I'm glad you're getting pest control, they'll provide alot of comfort and reassurance that the problem is being dealt with correctly. I'm all for pest control. Last year I noticed a few very small ants in my kitchen of my fifth floor apartment. I started spraying vinegar all over the place thinking it was better to try a non toxic approach. The numbers increases regardless and when the pest control guy came he said I was lucky I didnt try ant poison as with these ants it would just move and multiply the problem all over the wall cavities of the building. He set up bait all over my apartment and the only solution for this particular breed was for them to eat this bait which would make them infertile so they couldn't reproduce and would die off naturally in 8 - 10 weeks! I felt like the place was crawling but I just had to wait it out. Don't worry, it won't take that long to get rid of the mice!

Hopefully this is a once off. The same year my mother had the mice and the rat, she also had a bird fly down the chimney and a wasps nest in the boiler house! A run of bad luck but nothing since thankfully.

Keep us posted if pest control give any tips!

RandomAccess wrote: »

Forumsie wrote: »

..

Keep us posted if pest control give any tips!

Yes it would be worthwhile knowing the entry point. We've not had any issues like this so far.

Pest control reckon they got in through the cable boxes outside the front door. Apparently very common and makes sense as the lids always blow off. Otherwise he found no other entry points as the house was so well built. Coming back again next week. Three caught in traps so far.