Owning your own home

Carpets. Talk to me.

Need to get a carpet sorted for a shared set of stairs, myself and upstairs flat are splitting the cost. Does anyone have any experience with the larger retailers and/or any recommendations on hard wearing types of carpet materials that will withstand a fair amount foot traffic.

I went into a place in Cardiff the other day and the guy baffled me with information about his piles so I left pretty confused.

Cheers

@tenderloin I can sort you trade?

Talk to me... :)

Just seen the pics of birch ply sofa bed on http://davidblairross.com.

Want!

Is it massively £?

carpets...

CarpetRight in Catford had what we wanted at okay prices but the fitter put the big carpet in the little room and cut it to size before realizing that he's put the little carpet in the big room and it didn't reach the walls. The guy (who you pay independently in cash on the day) tried to blame my duff measurements and I STUPIDLY paid him on his advice that'd he square it away with the manager of the shop. Only after he's gone did I twig that although they provided replacement carpets for owt, i'd still have to pay another fitter. I was able to prove what he'd done by measuring the offcuts to show that it was his fault, and by pointing out that my heavily pregnant wife had to sleep on a matress on the the remnants of the ripped up underlay for a week till they got the right stuff back in stock was I able to wangle a refund of half the cost of the additional fitting. Should have fought on for a full refund but couldn't be fucked to keep up the argument and settled.

Bunch of twats. Avoid.

Callback to moth chat from two pages ago: new carpet requirement was a result of moth infestation. Seemed to do the trick. Along with all the usual moth warfare steps that have been well documented upthread.

Moths, winged twats, discovered yesterday they'd munched through 5 suits, each with two pairs of trousers and realised today they've had a go at fancy wool overcoat (urge to kill rising). Planning to bomb the bastards out of existence and just bought a load of garment covers.

The clothes were already in suit bags but not the zipped sealed type and my fitted wardrobes are wooden so I suppose they provided the perfect dark breeding ground.

My old wardrobes had glass doors so I imagine that kept the interiors quite bright. So fucking annoyed...

The fluttering bastards are all over the place. I've had several unsuccessful attempts to annihilate them but not been thorough enough.

Next week when family away I am getting out the napalm.

Kill them, kill them all with fire!

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anytime, just gimme a shout

Put an offer on dreamhouse today. Waaaaay over budget but fuck it.

Fingers crossed for you bro.

I think I'm at the point where I'm realising it'd make more financial sense to just get the fuck out of London, buy somewhere cheap, and pay a £400 a month mortgage for a few years so I can save up a decent deposit before buying somewhere decent in London. I've worked out that by just saving what we currently spend on rent we should be able to save up £10k a year. Would make a huge difference.

If you go to Carpetright, for example, they will divide up the carpets by room type, so you can usually select 'stairs' specifically.

One thing I would advise is to insist that they install the carpet in a single run, if possible.

I originally had some sisal-type carpet installed by Carpetright on our stairs and noticed fraying after a fairly short while where each step met. It transpired that they had cut the carpet to fit each individual step (WTF). They were adamant that this is standard practice (it generates less waste), but it is always going to pull itself away from where each step meets due to the motion of foot traffic. They eventually came and refitted it as one run of material and I haven't had problems since. They didn't charge me anything either, and I switched to some hard wearing polypropylene.

Not sure if this is quite the right thread but does anyone have any recommendations for decent flat renovators in or around Whitechapel? All the people I've tried so far have fallen through and the clock is ticking (baby on the way...)

Does anyone have a recommendation for a gas qualified plumber working in SE who'd be able to come and look at a mercurial boiler?

I've pmd you. I used sacredhart's mate. But @sacredhart was taking his exams at the time so may be qualified by now as well

warm roof vs cold roof. discuss please.

flat or pitched? what's the construction/materials? is about retro-fitting insulation, or are you thinking of a new building?

Flat. Unknown as of yet. single story extension.

Flat roof, new bit of building, I'd say definitely warm. Warm roof means the structure (which is likely to be timber? Unless you've got a grand project in mind) stays warm under the insulation, which means you don't get condensation in amongst your timber structure (not something you want). And less risk of cold spots so less risk of condensation on your ceiling and generally less heat loss.

If you're going for a concrete roof structure you could consider an 'inverted' warm roof, which just means top to bottom it goes ballast (soil, stones, paving etc), insulation, waterproofing, structure. Instead of waterproofing, insulation, structure. The waterproofing and insulation are swapped around, the advantage is that the waterproofing is protected from extremes of weather etc. Some other wierdness can happen with the layering (cold rain getting to the waterproofing), and really it's only good on concrete because you need all that ballast to stop the insulation blowing away.

Not sure there's ever an advantage with cold flat roof, you need a ventilated void in there which can be a problem with extensions (flat roofs vent round the edges, so easier if they are 'free' edges not up against a building).

I've used this guy and he turned up on time and seemed to know his stuff http://www.full-flame.co.uk/

Not sure how SE he covers though.

Thanks. We were thinking thinner roof so we could follow the ceiling line inside. sounds like we should go warm tho.

Thinner because the insulation and structure are in the same zone? But remember you need to add ventilated void (at least 5omm I think). You *might* be able to reduce depth by putting a bit of the insulation around the top of the structure and most of it above, but need to judge the condensation/cold spots risk. You can also go for thinner, pricier insulation. Have you got a builder/architect/person you can ask?

designer type guy doing the initial drawings. dosnt seem that interested tho.

Thanks mate, doesn't look like he comes near us but might be worth a call...