Owning your own home

Hampton Road. Well posh, innit. I've seen a few forumengers moving in around Danes Road over the last year. Need some LFGSS E7 drinks...

Deptford is the new Shoreditch®

Yep, our plan was to drop the price last minute when they no longer had the upper hand - it felt devious but we were so fucked off and knew they were in an ongoing chain and ready to move but we were chain free.

But it all got way more complicated, with our survey revealing much work to be done. In the end we haggled a decent amount off the price anyway.

Just back from viewing it now it's all been cleared out, as hoped it's a small empty flat. Collecting keys and painting tomorrow then to move all our stuff on Saturday.

Going from a 168m^2 flat with a workshop to a 36m^2 one bed is going to be interesting...

Just had a letter from hackney homes saying they need to do a complete lift renewal. The have estimated £90,000 for the work (lift covers ground, 2nd and 4th floors).

This seems like a lot of money to me, has anyone had experience of lift renewal or even replacement?

why not ask to see the tender for works, plus bids returned

Place I used to work at are paying £10,000 to renew all the doors on one lift.

Lifts are surprisingly expensive pieces of machinery.

Thanks. There is a place I can go to check out docs etc regarding the job. Will do it if I can as Hackney Homes are not exactly known for their squeaky clean business practices.

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How can it cost 92 large to refurb a lift?

Lift manufacturers charge an absolute fortune. It's a combination of the large amount of standards your kit has to meet and a premium exploiting a landlords fear of people dying in their lift.

I guess it's the same reason that your mate can charge a fortune to dispose of unsold meat. Fear of consequences.

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They put stuff out to tender and don't go for the cheapest

That's not necessarily a bad thing. The lowest bidder will cut corners to turn a profit.

What you need to be looking out for is backhanders & sweetheart deals.

It happened, we completed!

No electricity currently but the building manager is sorting access to the meter (it's in an adjoining building) so hopefully that'll be sorted by the time we move on Saturday. He was helpful on the phone so I'm hoping we can get to the bottom if it asap.

Needs painting but is otherwise ready to live in. Only took 7 months...

Well done Ed!

Great news Ed - congratulations!

Ooh la la!

Hopefully one of the beautiful big ones, hopefully not one of the ones that's painted red.

Fancy bistro on the corner if you're that end as well. Though the best food in the area is towards East Ham I think.

Shedloads of regulations to comply with, a limited production market, and rapid obsolescence, so that if you need to replace a control panel you end up having to replace the entire control system and quite possibly the motor too. Plus, access is usually terrible. A lift 'refurb' may well end up actually being a complete reinstallation, with precious little original kit left.

Thanks guys, stoked on getting moved in and settled.

Anyone got a recommendation for a small contractor to carry out a complete flat refurbishment in North London. Bathroom, plumbing, stud walls, new opening in solid wall, re-wire, flooring, decorations etc? We have architect's and structural engineer's drawings and are looking to get a few quotes for the work. I would rather not go down the MyBuilder route if possible.

Why avoid MyBuilder?

Rather get a personal recommendation. Last time I tried MyBuilder I got swamped with messages from mostly dodgy sounding tradesmen. It was difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff and the guy I used (to change a lock) wasn't great despite good feedback.

Aha, I knew there was a reason I had these things bookmarked when I was talking to people at work about moths.

Any idea if this is the only thing you need or do you need to be spraying clothes individually, etc. Cheers

They will kill everything.

Open your wardrobes, drawers and cupboards, get things out from under the bed, etc - basically do everything you can to get the fog everywhere, but you won't need anything else.