Owning your own home

Do you find someone keeps eating your porridge?

I would of thought it would be a Big, Bad Wolf you'd have to worry about.

bits of roof do blow off, and the birds like nibbling at the ears of wheat in the thatch

It's ok, we have decoy piglets down the lane to keep the BBW away from the house

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You must have been very happy with the detail
and
professional finish.

Ermagherd adorable patchy piglets! Yours?

Old Spot x Tamworth?

Or the whole thing becoming semi dethatched

Oxford sandy & blacks.

Alas no, not ours (until we steal them)

Thanks for all the responses re my heating/boiler issue. Seems to be an issue with the thermostat not being sensitive enough - turning it down manually until it clicks off stops the burner and makes the boiler behave as it should, but the thermostat doesn't seem to be able to do this itself - it's like it never reaches the threshold temp (even though the room is warm enough acc to a thermometer).

Leaving it at the manually 'clicked off' temperature is too cold and there is too a big range between the click point depending which way you're turning the dial.

Anyway, should be able to buy something digital for not much cash so will probably do that. Something like this I guess https://www.screwfix.com/p/danfoss-ret2000ms-digital-room-thermostat-230v-white/4644p (cue exploding boiler)

Do your rads have thermo valves? Could use them in the meantime.

I bought one of these https://www.screwfix.com/p/horstmann-centaurstat-7-thermostat-room-thermostat/12157 when I first moved into my place and the thermostat was shit. Did the job fine (I think I even passed it onto someone on here when I replaced it with a connected one).

Nice and easy to fit, removed the old one and matched the wires to the terminals on the new one.

Thanks, yeah this one is just a separate thermostat with the timer handled by a different yellowing plastic box next to the boiler, so think I need to replace the thermostat with something similar.

@Howard they do, but not sure how effective they are. Can just manually tweak the thermostat to off in the mean time.

Has anyone ever transfered sole ownership of their home to joint ownership with their spouse? Bought my flat before we were married and would like to get her on. It it just a matter of contacting the bank and they will sort out a solictor to do the deeds I presume? Will it cost much in fees?

I think it's two separate things - getting your wife on the mortgage (which the bank will do for free, probably), and getting the deeds changed, which the bank won't do for you. Should be quite straightforward with a solicitor for <£500 I would've thought.

Seem to remember one is reliant on the other, can't remember which way round it is though.

Doing the opposite (me buying other half out) is costing around £500 in solicitor stuff. Maybe £750 in total. The bank will ask you to get your own solicitor, I'm fairly sure.

I think the "transfer of deeds" bit is around £350 but there are some extras.

You can do it with a form from the land registry but via a solicitor is probably less stressful

If you have a mortgage on it then yeah the bank needs to know all this and they might get shirty

I (still) need to get round to doing this so when you find a solicitor send them my way

Snap - just brought my ex out so now I am financially significantly poorer, the mortgage is now much, much longer (and maxed out) but monthly repayments are lower.

I was £800 in legal fees. There was a concern that as was leasehold might have to notify the freeholder but there was a legal work around to save monies.

It did need a lawyer to make the changes for some reason though, didn't think it was possible to do directly, it might have been something to do with the mortgage.

I used a regional lawyer from Chester so doesn't need to be London based

Good news - I have the house in my sole name - woohoo
Bad news - level of deb to maximum but worth it getting rid of PITA ex

Thanks all, will crack on and try find somebody

Boiler advice please... We have had 3 people look at the boiler over the past 6 months or so for various reasons. Chap comes out to do a service on Friday (been waiting for it since the summer) and instantly says he can't do it because the gas feed needs to be 22mm, not 15mm as it is at present so he'd have to fail the boiler.

So firstly why did no one else mention this when working on the boiler (including others from the same company), and how did the previous owners ever get it serviced? Is he just trying to generate some (unnecessary) work or taking advantage of a new, tired, stressed, etc mum (I was out at work)? Or is this a genuine requirement? Would rather not get taken for a ride when money is already tight.

Is it a combi boiler ?

https://www.superwarm.co.uk/combi-boilers-why-you-may-need-to-upgrade-your-gas-pipes/

I think the feed needs to be converted to 22mm if you're upgrading the boiler but you should be able to service the boiler if it's a legacy 15mm

Yes combi, already in place. We're not upgrading anything, just servicing an existing installation. The heat exchanger was replaced over the summer so assuming it was pressure tested etc then hence my questioning whether the pipework needs upgrading.

Double glazing is leaking in the spare room. Traced it to the two screws that go through the top of the frame and in to the brickwork, presumably to hold the frame in. Water dribbling past the screw heads and sidestepping the seals on the window. I imagine this is bad because it means water is entering the brickwork somewhere.

This is a flat, and I don't own the windows, but any bodges anyone can think of - pump silicon sealant in to the screw holes then re-affix? - because being on the fourth floor I imagine getting this sorted properly is going to be a drawn out and painful process.