In a recent incident, workers cut through a water main and flooded the road and residents say they’ve not received so much as an apology.

One woman seeking legal advice, who didn’t want to be named, said: “They don’t seem to give a damn. It was like a river in Gaston Way and the water flowed all the way round to Catlin Crescent – you needed wellies to walk through it.“

Heating problems are common in many new build homes. Read this on the Montgomerie Park Residents’ Association Site and find the results of their poll:

“Anyone on the Persimmon estate (or any of the others) have an issue with the heating of their property? I have been having a bit of a debate with builder over undersized radiators.

They have sent me some literature from company who carried out the U-value calculations for property size and construction which basically tell you the radiators installed offer the correct output.”

Being from a technical background I’m aware of the whole energy conservation issue and why heating installations cannot now be routinely over sized. In saying that, am I not entitled to expect a comfortable level of heat in my home without the boiler having to run for the best part of the day with roomstat turned right up? Even at that I feel the house isn’t as warm as it could be.

When Lisa Peplow and her family moved into a brand new home she rightly assumed everything had been fitted to the highest standards.

But at the weekend the mother-of-two discovered the boiler installed by Persimmon Homes before she moved in, could have leaked potentially fatal carbon monoxide fumes.

“As soon as we collected the keys we noticed problems with the decor throughout the building. The dry lining was visible on every wall and ceiling. We also found that the kitchen had not been built to the specification we had been given, there was one kitchen unit less. As if that wasn’t enough, the front and back doors leaked, the glass on the patio door was badly scratched, electric sockets were dangerously within 300mm of the kitchen sink and every time we turned the extractor fan on it interfered with the television reception,” said Helen, a Bristol midwife.

As Ian and Margaret were out delivering Christmas presents on the Saturday before Christmas they received a phone call from their son Mark asking them to return home quickly because the Fire Brigade were there.

Persimmon Homes Flooding Article

A building company working near Bridgwater has quashed rumours suggesting plots on its new homes site are sinking into the ground.

Persimmon Homes South West, constructing houses on the new Stockmoor Grange development on Taunton Road, responded after claims were made to the Mercury that plots on the site were sinking and work was being halted as a result.

But Persimmon Homes South West denied the claim and told the Mercury the site is currently being surcharged to remove water.

Steve Soulsby, the owner of a Persimmon house of horrors, was so shocked by the experience of buying a new build that he has set up a website to share his experiences with prospective buyers.

Steve says that the houses have been thrown together as quick as possible without regard to quality, the focus is on getting the next house built so that they bring in the money on the sale. There is a complete disregard for customer satisfaction and no interest in generating repeat business.

He goes on to say that Persimmon (Archive) are interested in one thing only, money!

From archive:

My personal experience of Persimmon is the same as so many people on this new estate. The houses have been thrown together as quick as possible without regard to quality, the focus is on getting the next house built so that they bring in the money on the sale. There is a complete disregard for customer satisfaction and no interest in generating repeat business. Persimmon are interested in one thing only, money!
As with most others on this site I have a large snagging list which is months old and growing faster than it is worked on. These snags are more to do with build quality than build materials. For example, all of my concrete floor downstairs looks like it was laid by a two year old with a rolling pin.
The main problem however is that despite having two en-suites and a family bathroom and being told by Persimmon that I have a mains pressure hot water system, if I run a cold tap whilst the shower is running I will scald someone. This is especially worrying as I have two small children. Complaints have been ignored over and over again. These properties are all 3 to 5 bedroomed detached family homes.

hplrtie.jpg
These ties hold down the garage roof, but this one has no screws!

I am constantly told by Persimmon that I am the only one with a problem with the water pressure. The strange thing is that everyone else who complains about this is also told they are the only one!
Persimmon sent an “expert” from the company who installed all of the heating and water system in these houses to look at the problem. The company is Avonside Heating and Plumbing. He informed me that they were the biggest installer of heating in the UK and only work on new build properties. So consequently one of their biggest customers is Persimmon. His report said there was no problem, but it confirmed my incoming pressure is 2bar – in my experience you should have 4-6bar. He never checked the shower problem and only confirmed the water pressure because I had a pressure guage set up already. He sat in my living room drinking coffee and complaining about Persimmon being “too big for there boots” and that they think they are “untouchable”.

It is worth pointing out that the manufacturers of my hot water system clearly state that “the hot water flow rate of the boilermate A-class is directly related to the adequacy of the cold water supply to the dwelling. This must be capable for providing for those services, which could be required to be supplied simultaneously…….”

I have now forwarded this site to WATCHDOG, and NHBC. If you have a similar problem or you can help me either with the problems or in promoting this site then please get in touch. Just click on this link below, thanks:

Persimmon Homes (Archive) make their yearly appearance on BBC Watchdog.

Totley Hall Drive sounds charming and looks immaculate. But beneath the surface, things aren’t quite as perfect as they seem. The estate in Sheffield was built in 2000 by Westbury Homes, a company that’s now part of Persimmon Homes – the UK’s biggest house builder.

Paul Goddard and his wife moved to the estate in April 2002. Ever since then, blue water has been coming out of their taps. The discolouration is due to copper contamination. Tests have shown there’s three times more copper in their water than the legal limit.

From archive:

Contaminated water is something Persimmon has heard of before. Three years ago we investigated one of its estates that had exactly the same problem.

So why is it happening again at Totley Hall Drive? And it’s not just at the Goddard’s.

The Bosworth family has also been affected. After checking all their taps, they realised they too have a problem with blue water. Yorkshire Water tested the water in various rooms and found the highest level was four times the legal amount of copper.

It was a similar story with the Smith family, whose blue water problem was so severe it was blocking up their shower.

With concerns growing, in 2005 the residents clubbed together and hired an independent expert to investigate. His report concluded that the source of the contamination was the copper pipes inside the houses that had not been correctly installed.

But Persimmon’s own expert reached a different conclusion. He said the problem wasn’t the poor workmanship, it was all down to the mains water, and because residents weren’t using enough of it.

The local water company, Yorkshire Water, has tested the supply going into the houses and found nothing wrong with it. Again it said the problem is with the pipes. And an investigation by the Drinking Water Inspectorate reached the same conclusion.

After all these reports, back at Totley Hall Drive, the water is still blue.

Persimmon has advised residents not to drink from any tap other than the one in the kitchen, and only after letting a litre of water run through. To solve the problem it said the copper pipes would need to be chemically treated, or completely replaced. But, it says, residents will have to foot the bill, which could be as much as £10,000.

What has particularly annoyed residents is that there’s a precedent for the re-plumbing work being carried out and paid for by the original builders. Westbury Homes re-plumbed one house on the estate in 2005. But it, along with Persimmon, has refused to do any more.

Everybody agrees the water in these houses is contaminated. Until it’s fixed, the families who live here can’t properly use what most of us take for granted.

It got off to a bad start when they held back the keys for 4 hours after receiving our funds at 1 o’clock. We didn’t receive keys till 5.30 having booked a van and given notice on our rented property at the time and booked holiday from work.

On moving in we had no water or heating for 3 days due to the boiler not being wired up – HOW DID IT PASS THE INSPECTION? Well, that wasn’t the end of it by far. We continued to find faulty radiators with loose brackets fitted and a large chunk missing out of the kitchen worktop, an extractor fan blowing out cavity wall insulation. The oven burning the sides of the cupboards and drawers. I had an electrician in to put new light fittings on the first floor. He turned off the electrics for that floor and thankfully checked it by flicking the landing switch to find that the electrics were wired up to the smoke detectors and it all had to be rewired again – HOW DID IT PASS THE INSPECTION?

Nails popping through ceilings, walls and skylights. Paintwork diabolical – too much paint in some cases none in others. I could see the metal corners on walls, no plaster, every door had a fault – didn’t close, large 3inch gaps underneath – I could get my whole hand under door in some cases. There was paint on inset lights in bathrooms and kitchens and paint on door handles. The property was filthy, I cleaned for 2 days. There were light fittings hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom the holes were too big for lights. The grouting for the tiles looked like my 3-year-old grandchild had done it. The pedestals were the wrong size for basins so they filled the gap with filler 3 inches thick. We had yellow sap running down doors and frames. The stainless steel hob was scratched badly. We had paid £145.00 for a mat by the front door to wipe our feet on to be placed level with the laminate floor as we have 2 dogs it should have been 1 metre square – it measured 17 inches we had to fight to get our money back as it wasn’t wide enough to wipe one foot on.

The carpets we had ordered were £1900 silver graded, they put down the bronze carpet £1500. It took 8 months to fight to prove they were not the carpets we had paid for.

The shower leaked and still does after 4 visits the feet were not touching the floor and the water was coming through the door. The front door weather strip is still broken hand is letting in water and the windows have been replaced in the patio doors four times and they are still faulty – the seal is broken and they steam up inside. We are still awaiting for the 5th attempt to get it right.

We had to have drains put in the back garden which kept flooding the kitchen. The light switches were upside down in the en-suite and in the bedroom some plugs can’t be used as we can’t get plugs in to them. We paid for a TV Arial in the loft with 2 points – only 1 works.

To top the lot we now have found out there is a moisture problem under the lounge floor, the kitchen floor and all of the downstairs. In fact our laminate flooring we paid an extortionate £1650 for is buckling. We had the floor drilled on 9/2/2007 and the construction manager said we have a problem. I don’t know what to do, I need to get some advise we are still waiting to hear we expect to be told they haven’t put the damp membrane in the raft base therefore the water is coming up through the polystyrene and through the concrete and is now affecting our laminate floor. We aren’t the only ones we think its all four houses built on the one raft base – God help us all.

On top of that our fences fell down to find that the posts were just pushed into the ground no concrete to hold them. We are by a river we are on a potential flood plane land with no damp proof membrane.

Well what next, Oh yes, I forgot all the front airbricks on all the properties on the development are under ground level most of us have had to dig them out so they are visible. What a mess customer services don’t want to know they keep fobbing us off with stupid answers its gone too far.

Time for action, time to get papers involved, TV and even court action. Someone has to take a stand against this company they use cowboys I found out that a friend of my son-in-law’s who is a asphalt roofer got a job laying bricks – he’s never laid a brick in his life before! They take anyone on. The site manager is rude and we were told by the sales women in the show home – oh you cant upset him he gets very funny. What a shame he has not done his job properly and its time the shit hit the fan.

Thank you, a very upset Persimmon Home owner wanting to get out of it.

Magistrates heard how in October 2003 Environment Agency officers had made the developers aware of potential drainage problems on their housing site off the A58 in Ripponden.

Officers were concerned that silt from the site could end up draining into the nearby River Ryburn and asked Persimmon Homes to take action to prevent this.

The company applied for a Consent to Discharge permit which regulated the amount of effluent from the site that could go into the watercourse.

However, in July 2005 the Environment Agency received a report of silt in the River Ryburn, and a sample showed that there was 48 times more suspended solids, such as silt particles, in the water than the amount allowed under Persimmon Homes permit.

Ms Fogg said the sample revealed 2,420 milligrammes of suspended particles per litre rather than the consented level which was 50 milligrammes per litre.

In interview, the company explained that it had a number of holding tanks to prevent run-off from the site going directly into the river. But run-off had escaped when a stopper came loose during bad weather.

In the second incident in May 2006 an officer inspected the site and found more pollution had discharged into the river. A sample showed the amount of suspended solids was again more than the permitted amount at 664 milligrammes per litre.

The court heard that although Persimmon Homes had the equipment to contain the discharge, there was only limited checks to see if it was working properly.

In both incidents, the river’s wildlife was not visibly affected, but the pollution could have had a damaging impact.

After the court case an Environment Agency officer Dave Tempest said:  Persimmon Homes was warned of the risk of pollution to the river yet failed to take all the necessary precautions.

Rivers in West Yorkshire are recovering from their industrial legacy and it is vital that businesses take responsibility for their actions and ensure that the environment is protected.