Owning your own home

This is me right now!
I contacted Lewisham homes.
I started the repair process.
I started a claim with their insurance people.
I also notified my house insurance people.
I'm waiting until the amount of time required passes and will chase up Lewisham council insurance

Are we entitled to claim for damages to our property as a result of a leak from a council owned flat?

Yes - should be a buildings insurance claim.

But that’s assuming you are the leaseholder of an ex-la flat in a la block. If it’s more complicated than that, your insurer is the first port of call.

@Chalfie @Howard

Thanks, both of you. LFGSS to the rescue as always!

We are indeed leaseholders of an ex-LA flat, fingers crossed it'll be fairly straight forward then.

I'd have thought BT would have got their act together by now.

BT won't ever upgrade - not the wire, at least.

The problem is that the cabinet is in Bermondsey, the physical loop is huge (as in, the wire travels a ridiculously convoluted route), and the wire is aluminium, not copper.

When I lived there, plenty of companies gave chat about fibre and cable, but nobody ever did anything.

Depends where it is.

New house and new paint means some fucker knew there was a problem and opted to cover it up...

Injected DPCs are 90% of the time a complete waste of time.

So after a bit of waving my phone around under the floorboards of my newly moved into house, the floorboards and joists re very rotten.
Any recommendations for someone nice (friendly) and reasonably priced who would replace these?

Cheers,

Joe

Alarm system - Bit nervous about having a house thats so accessible from the street and has old single glazed sash windows you could prob blow open - suggestions? I'm kinda lost. Looked at the Yale options and they look ok? Would need something pet friendly. Would love it to be voice controlled.

I got a quote for a wireless, wifi enabled, app controlled system earlier this year with sensors on doors and windows to get rid of PIR's due to my cat, which was £695 +VAT including installation (1 bed flat so more for a house, but the sensors themselves are the cheap bit).

I ended up just replacing a couple PIR's as the company that quoted were honest enough to say that my current set up was a good spec and it wasn't worth the cost to replace given it was only 4 years old.

Cheers for the reply and info... I'm swinging towards the Yale wireless system now, its DIY instal and the older non Alexa model can be had for £210... its a few window bits and bobs and sensors.. need to read up if its pet friendly... also cute drawn to just using a Canary cam or whatever they are, kind of opposite solutions.

Is that a general thing in the UK? Most of Denmark seems to have access to speedy fiber - mostly because all the major power companies have been laying fiber cables every time they dug to do other work. I think all of the Greater Copenhagen area have access to 1000 Mbit fiber @ £30/month.

Yeah, even in The London our internets are pretty poor compared to a lot of Europe, step outside of the M25 and you might as well just use smoke signals.

It'll all get better after Brexit, I assume?

Yes, because after Brexit everyone will have to relearn smoke signals.

Yeah because we will taken back control and not have any sponging foruns using all our good ol British Internet.

Or something.

I have a couple of canarys - they're handy for pet watching but I doubt they'll deter a break in.

Helpful for poisoning gas though

Do they not have alarms? Swinging towards old school Yale.

We have the Yale system. Have a cat and unless it jumps
/climbs massively high hasn’t yet been a problem as yet with the pet safe sensors. Easy to use set up etc. And as said earlier easy to add all sorts to it.

Had some moments when the WiFi has dropped off for no reason and you get a message thinking your house is being burglared but isn’t, you find out later after you get home. Thankfully.

Cheers for the reply. Sounds like the Yale may be the best choice. Just realised we have no high furniture either so climbing cats won’t be an issue.

Where abouts in Walthamstow you ended up buying? St James I think you said?

They do but you have to trigger them yourself (after getting a notification saying ‘it looks like a person is in your house’ and a video clip of your cat)

Hah so many of those moments!

Pet safe maybe depends on room design/size then - ours was set off by cats on the kitchen table and going up stairs.

Yep, found a place in pretty original condition (no extensions pre regs alterations) just off Coppermill. Looking forward to feeling like we are in the country side while being 15 mins from Liverpool Street.

Need a new front fire door. Any suggestions for decent suppliers down south london way. Would like to keep the lock that’s already fitted as well..
Let me know..

Typical Victorian terrace:

Front bay window-£800

Smaller windows around the house were between £325-375 each if I recall. There or thereabouts.

Real wood too not MDF.

Cheers, was interested too. Will buy.