Owning your own home

We used Fantastic Cleaners the time before last we moved out as they had some discount deal on. The last move we did ourselves as we had a good relationship with the landlord...having said that, I'm now convinced it's worth paying £x to save the hours of effort.

Biggest thing for us, having been stung in the past, was the fact we could have a receipt in hand that proved we'd had the place professionally cleaned. The fact they were genuinely decent was an added bonus!

Sodo - best beers
Ill baccio - best food
Franco - there's plenty of them, I guess

We've been on board with the move to the boonies plan since Christmas. Missus giving up work and moving out. That's the plan.

We accepted an offer on our place in January. We've had our offer on house in Kent accepted since March. Our seller's purchase fell though two weeks ago and now she's gone into hospital for two weeks so nothing is going to happen fast with that.

My missus went into work for a "keep in touch" day yesterday and got offered a big promotion that she could do three days a week... if we stay in London.

Hnnnnnnng!

Dear Apone,

It is fun messing with you.

Sincerely,

The Universe

It is fun messing with you.
Sincerely,
The Universe

Things change, all too frequently.

We're trying to figure out at the moment if we are better off building upwards, or selling up and buying bigger.

Ta.

I like the look or Noraplan as well. @Fahrgestell have you got an in situ photo.

All the tradeoffs, eh?

Have you agreed a definition of "better"?

better

We're extremely lucky that we see eye to eye on most things like this - we'd be moving locally, and would be moving out if we were building. It's more about the tying ourselves to London life with a way bigger mortgage than we are dealing with now.

Oh come on. All the cool kids are doing it. What sort of danger could you possibly get into with rampant mortgage speculation? Right?

(PS - I assume that this is the same charming person I met at DJs BBKew a few years ago. Yah?)

Anyone on here know anything about damp?

I live on the first floor (top floor) and we're currently having our living room refurbished (plastered etc.). There is slight damp at the top exterior wall above and to the right of the window in the corner. It had caused the cornicing to bow and the damp meter is showing that it's damp but not a very high reading. The builder thought it was to do with the guttering or roof but had a roofer out and he said it's all sound.

The loft is insulated but not very well and there is no felt under the tiles. I'm thinking it might be down to condensation but I'm getting conflicting info on what might be causing it. I figured it might be because the heater is below the window and where the damp is forming and that the hot air from below is meeting with the cool wall and poorly insulated loft, causing condensation to form in that top corner. Does this sound plausible or does it sound like water is penetrating from the cavity wall somehow?

I'm under time constraints because the builder wants to plaster. He's saying that if it's condensation then we should just air the room more often and it should be fine. He also said that he can remove the render and mix a waterproof cement to repair. This would seem pointless if the damp is being caused by condensation from the inside though?!

Anyone had any experience with this or can back up my theory that we just need to ventilate more? Should I insulate the loft more or will this cause less breathability?

Cheers

get a roofer to check the pointing on your roof. sooner rather later.

I did get a roofer out and he said everything was fine, including the guttering...

Anyone else doing this Help to Buy ISA thing? My solicitors say they need a Closing statement, which has to be posted out to me from the bank's head office 1-2weeks. Bit of a pain in that we're hoping to complete in just over a week...

Still, we're getting just over £1k from the gov towards our deposit from 6 months of contributions...

exorcist then.

Damp is the London way. Every flat I've ever lived in has suffered to some degree.

^ this is true. we have a massive damp issue in our bathroom and no fucker has been able to work out where it's coming from.

My damp wisdom is deep.

email to my upstairs neighbour when he brought up my specialist chosen subject:

Ah the damp. My nemesis. We had it really bad right after we moved in
with water running down the walls. It was horrible. Flower cried and
the place smelled of mildew all that winter. I may have become
slightly obsessed with trying to fix it since. Here’s what we have
learned: We can’t be sure but the damp issue seems to be a mixture
of condensation from inadequate ventilation/lack of insulation in the
walls but also last winter we seemed to have rain water getting
through the damaged brickwork in very wet weather. The works we’ve
just had done will stop water getting in directly though the walls but
they won’t help with condensation issue at all. The main problem is
that the building wasn’t designed for double glazing and now that
everyone has it, there is no proper ventilation. This means moisture
from showers, drying laundry and cooking stays in the flats. Then
because the external walls don’t have a cavity that we can insulate it
means when it’s cold outside, the inside of the exterior walls get
cold to the touch. This in turn means when the heating comes on, the
warm damp air in the flat will condense into water droplets on the
cold walls. We looked into getting the building insulated and had
lots of surveys done but for a variety of reasons, it’s just not
possible. So it’s really down to individuals to do what they can in
their flats. We’ve done a whole raft of things to try and get it under
control and seem to be finally winning the battle after two very damp
and mouldy winters. These are all the things we’ve done:

• Bought a dehumidifier which stays on pretty much full time from autumn to spring
  
• Stopped drying clothes in the flat and bought a little tumble dryer which sits in the porch and vents out the front door.
  Stuff that can’t be tumble dried gets hung up outside or by a window
  with the heating on
  
• Fitted a new bathroom extractor fan with a humidistat (which switches on automatically when it detects moisture)
  
• Fitted a heated towel rail in the bathroom which stays on all the time
  
• Fitted a “tube heater” in the walk-in cupboard in the bathroom which stays on all the time. That’s really helped. It used to
  be damp and mouldy in there and now it’s warm and dry
  
• Bought a Karcher cordless “window vacuum” with which we hoover up all of the water off the tiles and bath after we shower.
  This has made big difference!
  
• Bought a new thermostat and checked all the radiators are working properly. We have that new Hive thing which is quite good as
  you can move it around the flat to make sure the temperature is even.
  Keeping the temperature constant rather than having big fluctuations
  through the day seems to help keep the condensation under control too
  
• We try and keep windows open as much as possible although this isn’t easy in a ground floor flat. I’ve bought ventilation locks
  so I can lock them open a crack but haven’t fitted them yet though.
  Doesn’t seem to be much point when it’s damp outside too And that’s
  about it. I think we’re winning the war though. Much less black mould,
  no damp smell and the windows don’t get soaked with condensation
  anymore. The walls seem to be staying dry too. I’m sure our
  electricity bill will have quadrupled come spring but I don’t care!
  Hope that was of some help.
  
  

Bollocks. Sounds like I'm just gonna have to give him the go-ahead to plaster as it is and just ventilate as best I can, periodically.

Wood burning stove and open windows.

electric underfloor heating as a replacement of radiator in a small bathroom .. yay/nay?

Yay. But, I'd think you'd want a heated towel rail in there too (or instead, I suppose, if its a big enough one).

The point is to avoid any wall heating things to save space (or at least give an illusion of a larger bathroom).

Currently there is a small radiator in there but we have NEVER used it, since we are re-doing the bathroom its just £250 on top with a 'smart' thermostat.

Meant to reply to Amey

My experience:
We've had electric underfloor fitted to our loft bathroom as a 'we'll see if it works and how much it costs to run' sort of experiment because: it wasn't expensive to fit; and we have the back-up of the (hot water) towel rail.

Over the winter we found the underfloor to be very effective to take the edge off in the mornings and evenings and it hasn't added greatly to our 'leccy bill. Can't comment on its use as the primary heating source though.