Thinking Of Buying A Conservatory
These are the basic steps you should ideally take
Do you have a preferred design and what would be the principal function of this extension
to your home?
Terminology
Construction materials
Planning Permission
Building Regulations
Baseworks and foundations.
This is of course a major element of your project and your chosen supplier should offer the complete package including this. You should not sign any order papers until full assessment by an appropriate professional person has been made in relation to the depth which foundations should be prepared, issues regarding drainage below and in particular any shared foul water pipes, proximity to boiler vents or similar and all other issues including electrics, plumbing, brick matching, access for materials and appropriate lead flashing. Your quotation should bare reference to all of these considerations well before you are invited to sign any order form from which traditionally you may find it very hard to extract yourself.
Heating, Electrics, Plumbing
All of these and similar trades maybe organised by yourselves but ideally through the chosen supplier. The specialised tradesman should have visited your home to make their full assessment, so that complete details are within your quotation, unless you wish to be responsible for other trades.
Choosing the best supplier
Many people would consider this to be the hardest element of your initial research. Whereas it should be one of the easiest and there are very simple rules to apply. The first and most important is, who is the owner or director of the company. Research will most certainly show a staggeringly high percentage of glazing and building companies are run by people who have had several previous businesses, many of which they have run for just a few years before going into liquidation or closing down. If you do not have access by use of your computer programmes to research this, it is essential to pay a small fee and employ an appropriate person on your behalf. The next and equally important question would be what genuine references they can offer. If you cannot be given a substantial list of past customers, whose projects are at least 10 years old, then what validity will your 10 year guarantee have and at the same time, you should ask how long the company has truly been active. Is the system being offered to you, one which the company has supplied and constructed over an extended period of time. Many companies change their manufacturing suppliers several times, which means that the system offered to you has no substantial track record with regard to its potential long term performance. It also will mean that the designs previously constructed by them, no longer have a supporting manufacturer’s guarantee
I would suggest that the most important question of all, which would embrace the security you are looking for, is a substantial list of past customer’s projects, which were constructed for over 10 years ago.
