Living in Your Pure Home

Maintaining Your Home

Condensation

Your newly constructed home needs time to acclimatise, and following occupation re-quires a few months to dry out and if not addressed properly it can cause damage to your new home. During the construction period, the material and fabric of your home absorbs thousands of litres of water, but once the house is lived in a heated the materials dry out causing condensation on surfaces like windows, floor and walls.

To reduce this, we advise the following:

Keep moisture to a minimum by providing even warm temperatures and plenty of fresh air to ventilate. Opening windows and trickle vents will help.

Keep doors closed when cooking, washing and bathing, and open windows where possible. Also, make use of cooker hoods and ex-tractor fans.

It’s advisable in the first few months of moving in to keep ward-robe doors ajar whenever possible to allow air to circulate.

Ideally hang washing to dry outside and keep furniture slightly away from walls.

If condensation does occur, soak up any excess water, heat the room, open window and keep the door shut.

To reduce this, we advise the following:

  • Keep moisture to a minimum by providing even warm tempera-tures and plenty of fresh air to ventilate. Opening windows and trickle vents will help.
  • Keep doors closed when cooking, washing and bathing, and open windows where possible. Also, make use of cooker hoods and ex-tractor fans.
  • It’s advisable in the first few months of moving in to keep ward-robe doors ajar whenever possible to allow air to circulate.
  • Ideally hang washing to dry outside and keep furniture slightly away from walls.
  • If condensation does occur, soak up any excess water, heat the room, open window and keep the door shut.

Movement & Shrinkage Cracks

A s the drying out process occurs and the home is lived in, the building materials shrink, which may case minor cracking known as ‘shrinkage’. These are not structural defects, nor are they evidence of poor construction.

These can be minimised by:

  • Keeping an eye on even temperature throughout the home to avoid extreme hot or cold temperatures.
  • Keep to your central heating sparingly at first and keep your home well ventilated.

These cracks should not cause concern, and can be easily filled with a flexible filler and then painted over.
If any of the cracks measure over 3mm wide (width of a coin) we will inspect as part of your two year warranty.

Ceilings & Walls

The ceilings and walls in your home perform essential fire, noise and vapour insulation functions so please bear this in mind if considering any alterations or work on these. As part of the handover you would have been told which internal walls were solid and suitable for fixings. If you require any further information on this please contact Customer Care. Before fixing anything to walls, be sure to check where electrical cable and plumbing pipework runs. A detector can be purchased to assist with this and you can find further guid- Home 

Decorating

During the first year, walls are subject to the drying out process and as a result you may see ‘screws popping’ through a dry wall and minor cracking. The walls of your new home have been coated with an initial coat of ‘breathable’ emulsion to allow the drying out process to happen effectively.

We advise delaying decorating until the drying out and settling process, in approximately 9 – 12 months.