New Development Royal Canal Park D15

Forumsie wrote: »

Laminate is also an option for the kitchen if you go for the water resistant type like balterio grande. We did all the ground floor and the bedrooms in it. And then a cheaper one for the attic and hot press. We're laminate folk! Laminate for life (or 25 years according to the guarantee apparently). Cost around 7k. And grey carpet (like everyone else!) for the stairs and landings (around 1200 I think). Just to give you an idea of price

Thanks a million... I didn’t even think of the hot press and the attic. We’ll definitely be going for laminate in most of the house. I’m on the fence about what to put in the kitchen.

We went with tiles in the kitchen and are happy with it.
I can tell you where I got my tiles by PM but won't recommend the tiler as the grout was not filled properly and I'm still to finish the grout filling properly myself. I put tiles in the kitchen and boiler room, cost around 1.5k with tiling.

A question guys, do you know who can I contact to put wood casing around the radiators just like in the showroom? I have sofas against them in the living room and they are starting to get marks from radiator edges so I'm leaning towards getting this done. Also remembering the showroom, they looked pretty neat.

Big day for us here! We finally have internet!!!!! Finally caved and got Cablewatch which I should have done months ago. Rang yesterday, they were out today and I'm getting speeds of around 30mb. Compared with 1mb or less on Eir mobile broadband and 2 or 3mb on 4g on our phones (Three and Vodafone)

So my advice to the people moving in soon, don't do what we did and wait 3 months for Eir (and ruin Christmas!!). I was waiting til after 30th December as that was allegedly the day when Eir were supposed to come and lay the cables, allowing us to get fibre internet and/or Vodafone/Sky TV. My contact on the Eir board isn't even responding anymore and ringing them is a complete waste of time. Before we moved in and I was reading other people's long experience of waiting for internet, I thought to myself ah that won't be us, I'll be really on the ball and ringing them every week if I have too. I was very wrong! Ringing just gets you through to the call centre to sign you up. These people have no idea about the infrastructure as that part is outsourced. One of our neighbours said Sky told them that it's likely to be March now as they're still waiting on an update from Eir (who own the rights to the infrastructure.)

I don't even believe it'll be March now, I've heard separately (unconfirmed) that Eir are stopping all infrastructure work now til the National Broadband Plan is sorted and that they want to renegotiate the contracts with others (Sky/Vodafone) who are getting all the business off the Eir cabling so it's not really worth their while to do it. Also the Cablewatch guy said today that there are still no Eir cables on Hamilton Walk and they're finished over a year. I don't know if that's true but someone might confirm.

We are paying Cablewatch around 75 a month for the 120mb internet package (which we're getting 30mb in speed tests but that's 30 times better than what we had so we don't care!). There are also 70 TV channels, not in HD, no pause/rewind/record or any of the modern stuff. Just old school live TV! Again compared to nothing for 3 months it's a big upgrade! We have bled Netflix dry at this point and even that kept buffering as there wasn't enough bandwidth. He said you can buy their box for recording for 30 euro but we'd probably get better boxes from Argos with more storage. Also it's 5 euro extra per tv for multiroom. He couldn't do that today but we'll probably get another one hooked up providing we don't need to drill through walls or anything like that.

We put the modem in the box room on the first floor and the signal is least good in the master bedroom on second floor and perfect in the sitting room and kitchen.

One slight issue is that the boxes outside the front door were put in wrong by Ballymore and we have exposed cables and it looks a bit messy. This is a case for everyone on our street, not just our house. And there are holes which I think a mice could get into if they so desired (I think someone mentioned that in a previous post) so I'll be looking to get those filled. But not sure when because if we switch to Sky in a few months (I may be optimistic here!) I assume it'll need to be filled again after that job.

Now, let's see if I'll be able to get out of the Eir mobile contract that's costing us €53 a month for speeds of <1mb. I signed on for a year but it is not fit for purpose. I'm tempted to just cancel the direct debit but I'm afraid I'll end up on some bad credit list or something

Would anyone who has moved into an Ash during the most recent phase have the measurements of the small back sitting room?

The measurements we took in the showhouse and the rough measurements we took during the snag are completely different, so I'm trying to figure out if the sofa we were planning on getting will actually fit

Forumsie wrote: »

Can anyone recommend a good cleaning product for the minerva countertops in the kitchen? It's like the counters are porous and instantly absorb any drops of tea and I find myself having to scrub with bleach. I'm not keen on using a product that harsh everytime there is a spill on the counter. Thanks

Lemon juice & vinegar work. For particularly stuborn stains milton does the job most of the time, but be sure to rinse it thoroughly as milton bleaches clothes.

Dont scour with a scouring pad/cloth or Cif, dont use heaps of elbow grease, it just puts tiny grooves & scratches in the minerva that make removing stains even more difficult.

Hi,

One of the guys here recommended pink cleaning spray from lidl. I can confirm it works really well.

We fit a superking into the en suite bedroom. However, the base came as two boxes. The mattress had to be bent very slightly up the stairs, but I don't think a single rigid box would fit through.

There is enough space for the bed. From the window, we have a night desk, the bed, and a baby cot bed (width 70cm), with enough walking space on both sides of the bed and the cot bed (a little tight around the cot bed, but doable). Along the wall by the foot of the bed we still have a chest of drawers.

Hey guys, thanks for all the information shared here, it's been extremely valuable to us during the process of getting our house. Now we are finally on the home stretch of it but it happens that our snagger is quite busy at the moment. Does anyone have someone to recommend us for our 2nd snagging?

Thanks!

Bothebear wrote: »

hi insdami, did you buy from the most recent phase (ones that went on sale in September)? We bought an ash in Rathborne Walk and are waiting to be called for snagging. We were told end of January subject to having power.

No, we bought ours in February 2018 and our first snagging was done the first week of December. So roughly it was 10-ish months for us.

Just a heads up, try to be very exhaustive on your first snagging list.

engineer0 wrote: »

Hi All,
Anybody managed to get virgin media broadband in their homes in Camden ? Looking back in the pages, I see quite a bit of struggle with getting broadband, hopefully things look slightly better now ? 
Thank you

I'll spsre everyone another long broadband rant/saga! Bottom line, you only have one option for the foreseeable future - Cablewatch. And virgin media won't be here for an even longer time - like 10 years or something. Something to do with the rights being with Eir. Who don't want to use them.

Pokas wrote: »

Hi Bothebear, can I ask who gave you that date? We also bought an Ash in September (hi neighbour!) and was told the first quarter. To be honest I was not expecting it to be ready in January. Thank you

Hi Pokas. We were told by Jason, the site manger.

Thinking of buying in the next phase but the surrounding area is soo littered, like the whole length of river road pretty much, is it always like that? Is it a norm?

Twocantim wrote: »

Has noone still made any progress with Eir on Camden Ave? Find it hard to believe Eir havent set up broadband lines yet months after people first raised this and only provider is overpriced cablewatch?!

Ha if you wait 3 months for Eir to come and 150 quid to get out of their mobile broadband contract that reached speeds of 0.5mbps you'll happily pay cablewatch whatever they want!

That being said, the new houses do need to try or I fear they will forget about our plight. Just manage your expectations

Twocantim wrote: »

Has noone still made any progress with Eir on Camden Ave? Find it hard to believe Eir havent set up broadband lines yet months after people first raised this and only provider is overpriced cablewatch?!

Alot of people seem to have issues getting good broadband with Eir - they seem to have a limited capacity in the area with all the houses. We're on Royal Canal Avenue and luckily managed to get a good fibre connection with Vodafone (Eir's infrastructure) but I know many of my neighbours had problems.

So with Eir, its hard to know what way they operate.

engineer0 wrote: »

Hi All,

FYI, For those who are interested in further collaboration/discussion on Camden, there is now a facebook group named "Camden at Royal Canal Park Residents".

Hi Engineer0 - can you share a link to the group? Haven't been able to find it. Cheers