Owning your own home

Some local authorities provide a subsidised pest control service. Ours (Bromley) was excellent, £30 well spent.

Whereabouts in Bromley are you Andy?

Hole cut already? You'll need to mention that if not. Or maybe you want it routed in a different way.

We've got one ineffectual fan in the wall, but we need a useful one above the shower really. That would mean coming out through the roof I guess.... unless we just need a better wall fan? Anyone got any experience with steamy bathrooms/peeling ceiling paint?

I'm in the Borough of Bromley, not Bromley itself. We're in Beckenham.

Ah, fair enough.

We're moving to Bromley in 6 weeks or so... looking to get some inside tips on good / bad bits of Bromley etc.

BR1 assemble

Good bit; Beckenham.

Bad bits; the rest of the borough.

Just put our first offer in for a place in Deptford. This is where the fun/stress starts right?

Try Tim Guthrie: http://www.timguthrie.net/ Based in Brockley but he may travel. He is the nicest, most honest, straight-talking tradesman I have ever met.

Shit. Too late now.

I've bought a house here: https://goo.gl/maps/3MnNt

South East Bromley is a mystery to me, but great spot for quick access to the lanes.

Oh ace, thanks. I'll email him now.

I am looking forward to this bit the most. Pedal and motorbike will get a lot more use.

We have a good-quality fan above/in the shower but it is overwhelmed by the volume of steam generated by the average hot shower. The best thing you can do is open your bathroom window as wide as poss when you shower, and leave the door ajar if poss to create a through draft.

You rang?

Yeah we do that already. DOesn't help much, and Winter Is Coming

That foam stuff is an hors d'oeuvres to a rat. It's an invitation to warm their nest and invade your house. Even if you fill it with razor wire.

There's a product from Toupret which works well on surfaces that get wet, however you need to examine the bond between the plaster and the initial coat of paint. Usually new plaster should be mist coated with diluted paint, it's slightly counter-intuitive as most people load the surface in an effort to get more paint on it and create a 'stronger' layer of paint which makes things worse.

If the ceiling is in a new build or been recently plastered this could be part of the problem.

Is Bromley in London? Genuine question.

London is a state of mind

Is Bromley in the neocortex?

Somehow my postcode is BR1 but council is Lewisham .. so dunno

It's still in the m25 so maybe "greater" London?

Wall fans do sod all. You want a centrifugal fan fitted in the ceiling between the joists, something like this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/manrose-pro-showerlite-centrifugal-shower-fan-kit-chrome-100mm/37637

It always amazes me how people spend plenty of money on refurbishing bathrooms then just replace the wall fan. They move sod all air and that's patently obvious.