Owning your own home

Did someone on here use Millboard or another composite decking? Was it you @Soul ?

Anyone else used Composite decking? I have about 60sqm I need to do as a combination of seating area and walkways, it is a bit sloping and also has awful drainage, so considering composite decking so that I can put some open drainage underneath.

So, yes, they should have consulted.

Doesn't everyone know that?

I don't know! This shit seems complicated. The situation in a nutshell is simply that something was done that has cost three leaseholders more than £250 in one hit, i.e. its accounted for in one year. For what I believe to have been one piece of work. I think they should have consulted on it, both because it would have been the polite thing to do, but also because I think they HAVE to have consulted on it, like you say.

So now I feel slightly vindicated in that they should have consulted on it, I guess the question to ask is 'where are the consultation documents? Because I didn't see any.'?

I'd assume this question comes after they have supplied me with the contractor briefing and receipts for the work, that shows it was for a single piece of work, i.e. a door replacement?

I have that with British Gas, my DD’s are always going up even though I’m in credit, and as you say the fluctuation between summer and winter, are quite high and now I’ve got a smart meter they should know my usage on a day to day, week to week basis and so should be able to amend my DD accordingly.

Yup - we've got Millboard for our decking area.

Ours has a couple of levels as it sits on top of the concrete base of an old garage as well as a concrete walkway and just a lower part of the original garden.

The builder who installed it used normal pressure treated timbre underneath rather than their super expensive proprietary system.

Obviously, we didn't do the installation but it seems like a super easy material to work with.

This is ours:

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That was going to be one of my questions, they recommend laying on a concrete base and then on their system, but if i'm doing that I might as well just lay a patio, so was going to do the traditional decking method of posts in the ground and then make a frame for it to sit on.

Did you source the millboard yourself or get your builder to get it? And any reason why you went for Millboard or any of the other composites?

which internet provider do I want?
I just want a fast internet line. If that means I have to buy a phone line too, to get a decent price, so be it.
I DO NOT WANT TELLY THOUGH.

All much of a muchness really IMO. Unless you're into heavy online gaming then I don't think you need top-end speeds offered. Go with whoever's the cheapest over the contract. I switched to SSE Broadband as they offer 1-month rolling contracts (currently selling-up and don't want to start a 12-18month contract) - The Scottish chap I signed up over the phone with sounded well happy.

I really don't utility/insurance companies though - I understand that they prey on the lazy, but surely they should reward existing/long-term customers, no? I'm 'treated' to at least a £100 car insurance premium hike every year unless I shop around. My £11 mobile phone contract hasn't changed in about 5 years...It's all just so tiresome.

Fair enough, that’d wind me up enough to switch too!

We’re always around £150 in credit (similarly have big swings in summer and winter), got them to reduce our DD by a fiver but they wouldn’t go lower at the time.

Can anybody recommend a building surveyor in Essex / East London?

Do you even do these things on recommendations?

Posts in the ground and frame is what he did for the bit sitting on the soil base.

The builder sourced as he got a discount; we were going to pick it up from Champion Timber but he was ~10% cheaper.
We went for Millboard because it looked the nicest. We wanted it to look as much like natural wood as possible whilst still looking clean and sharp.

This is the only pic I have of the ground before. You can see the old, rotten scaffold boards the previous owner used. The decking goes all the way to where the fence is painted so past the concrete base and onto soil...

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Ah Champion timber is where I have found it, looks like they are still the cheapest.

I guess my one worry with the wooden is obviously it will rot eventually, so was pondering using concrete posts and then bolting treated timber to that, so the bit not on the ground is not wood at all.

I have a few samples coming in the post, got the Millboard in front of me, just their cheapest Enhanced Grain Brushed Basalt, it does look nice that's for sure.

Sorry one more Q: they say you can just drill screws through it and they heal over and aren't visible, is this actually true? Some of the other systems have channels on the sides for hidden fittings.

I don't know! This shit seems complicated.

It is. I was being ironic. Or sarcastic. Or something.

I guess the question to ask is 'where are the consultation documents? Because I didn't see any.'?

Good question to ask. I'd ask them to let you know when they served a consultation notice pursuant to paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 3 of the The Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 and to provide you with a copy, and if they consider that the consultation requirements in Schedule 3 did not apply, to provide you with details of the works done, notifying them that pursuant to section 22(2) of the LTA85 you require the landlord to afford you reasonable facilities for inspecting the accounts, receipts and other documents supporting the summary of expenditure you've received and for taking copies or extracts from them.

I just used https://www.reallymoving.com/quote-forms/surveyors and it came up with one which was a couple of hundred quid cheaper than the rest and still did a very thorough job, was happy. They were http://www.tpcltd.co.uk/ (not sure where they go out to)

You could concrete in some metal posts to put the treated timber on - that would lift everything off of the ground.

Obviously, their own solution is composite too so shouldn't rot: https://www.millboard.co.uk/products/subframe-accessories/plas-pro/

In order for the screws to be invisible, you need to use their ones: https://www.millboard.co.uk/products/subframe-accessories/fixings/. The screws do disappear into the top layer of the material and leave a small hole about 1-2mm across which you can see if you're looking for it but otherwise you'd never notice.

If you're ever south east, you're welcome to come and take a look.

Many thanks sir, this is really helpful.

thanks very much

Just moved to zen, £35 for 40mb+ fibre broadband, includes land line, £50 connection.

No issues so far, customer service is great..

The whole business plan of these companies are based on a few things:-

a) Charging the same DD over the entire year so that the majority of customers can budget accordingly. (Most customers wouldn't like being billed for actual usage, i.e. £20 in summer months and then £100+ in the winter months.) They give discounts for payment via DD to incentivise this.

b) Since charging the same DD over the entire year means someone has to be in credit and someone in debit at various points over the year, the companies want to make sure it's not them owing money, since that costs them money.

(Even though if all customers were equally distributed over the year in terms of break even point then, as a company, there wouldn't be meaningfully out of pocket or massively in credit at any point during the year. It would be a lottery for individual customers though.)

c) To minimise owing customers money, if there's a chance, based on a customers current DD and balance, that the customer may go into debit during the winter months then the company will look to avoid this by increasing the DD to claw some of that back, and then eventually reducing the DD once enough of a credit is built up that the customer will not go into debit at any point during year.

So, vaguely shitty practices but you can see why they do it.

MSE has a section on the rules about how they should set fair DD values and also give you money back if you've built up a significant surplus:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/

(Scroll down to Step 2: Ask for your money back)

A smart meter doesn't affect any of this really as nothing can predict your future usage accurately.

Lovely. Thanks.
I'll use this as a bargaining tool with virgin.

Thanks for that, makes their motives clearer.
But then what’s the point of a smart meter if it doesn’t track your consumption and amend sd accordingly. Don’t they have an algorithm for that?
Just feels like I’m constantly overpaying and then having a largish sum (usually £100+) in credit in one and (£40-£50) in the other as they are still working from the old way of estimating my usage and then only confirming it when a meter reading is in. They have my info, just figure it out better and value existing customers, otherwise they like me will leave as you’re giving us no value..

I really don't utility/insurance companies though - I understand that
they prey on the lazy, but surely they should reward
existing/long-term customers, no? I'm 'treated' to at least a £100 car
insurance premium hike every year unless I shop around. My £11 mobile
phone contract hasn't changed in about 5 years...It's all just so
tiresome.

This.

But then what’s the point of a smart meter if it doesn’t track your consumption and amend sd accordingly.

Smart meters avoid the huge expense of paying people to go around physically reading meters.

Having access to accurate and recent readings can make estimations slightly less inaccurate but it's still complete guesswork.

For example, the smart meter you have has no idea about the radical changes in your household since this time 12 months ago.

Mmm. Our bills have doubled since n+1

Our bills haven’t doubled, but my missus complains of being cold constantly even when the central heating is on, and I walk through the door and am immediately sweating, but our consumption has gone up a fair bit..

I think there have been jokes about this since forever.

Regards crappy Energy people. I've had a right to-do with Spark after the sale of my stupid flat. Cut a long story short, after they finally agreed to remove £80 worth of charges on a £20 bill for an empty flat, they just sent me a final statement and the balance is over £2000.

Haha. Aah. It's clearly wrong and meant for someone else.