Owning your own home

In the end they left it and now use wifi and laptops.

To much time had elapsed so the main contractor said it was the sparky's problem, and they never really followed it up...especially as it would have been an epic amount of work to fix.

In their defense it was a big project with furniture in storage etc. so getting back to the stage of putting the computer in it's final home took a while.

Shame as the actual cupboard with all the switches, etc. is a work of art.

Still a lesson learned!

Anyone got a security/alarm system? I'm often away with work so it's mainly for piece of mind for my wife when she's in the house alone.
We had someone come over and give a quote for a wireless system, but just seen Simplisafe which seems like at least as good a system (if not better) for about a third of the price. Struggling to think of drawbacks tbh. Also there's a 20% off code active at the moment.

I use Yale smart alarm system,. it's ok...

Simplisafe looks better though.

The prices seem to escalate fairly quickly when you include their monitoring though and it's not clear what it does without them monitoring.

Also not clear if it can operate without going through Simplisafe's servers so maybe not great if the company goes under.

Does any security system with monitoring work if company goes bust? Not being argumentative,truly interested as we happen to be in the same position as Bainbridge. I have even considered setting my own with a Raspberry Pi...Any recommendations are truly appreciated!

Birdbrain?

We’ve got the Yale wireless too - just the basic one though. All we wanted was something visible as a deterrent, so didn’t bother with cameras etc..

Shit, sorry 😐 Other user I recently dealt with and wires got crossed!

I guess some have local functionality. The other point is probably that they're more likely to go bust than an established player.

But yes, it's always a risk.

Who are the forum recommended mortgage brokers? Thanks

Myself and Mrs Bobbo were really impressed with these guys we dealt with Anthony Emerson there.

I used https://www.landc.co.uk who were great at Brokering, though their recommended Conveyancers sucked.

Bit late to the EPC party.

Just starting the process of selling. An Energy Perfomance Certificate is now a legal requirement and should be valid for 10 years or as others have had loads of work done since the last one then get a new one as the rating might be better which looks good when your selling.
Renting was a possible outcome for me but the EPC has a cut off with somewhere in "E" getting a rating in "F" and "G" means the property can not leagally be rented out without doing work to get the performance rating back down to a A,B,C,D or a low end E.

Something as simple as swapping out all light bulbs to new low energy ones will impact on the score..... new bulbs incoming... they score the light bulbs !

I have a woodburner, it's ace, it's been in 10 years. It has no certification. This needs to be re-fitted and certified to current specs.
Or i am whipping it out, blocking the fireplace and have sold the burner as the cost of getting it leagl to sell won't effect the value of the property.

Trying to make the sell as easy and stress free as possible, not sure if that's doable these days :)

I've just got one the other day. Looking at it the easy wins seem to be lightbulbs and heating control. A programmable thermostats, TRVs, etc is also a pretty one.

If you haven't then slapping in a load of insulation in the loft would be an easy one too.

At the budget end of market and flat will be aimed at first timers and those who want to make it there own.
Could drop 5k and totally transform the place but then the newbies might undo all that anyway so leaving as is, just cleaned and painted..... in the words of the Agent, requires some modernisation but liveable and lots of potential for newbies/buy to let.

Expecting an "F" grade, but that's common for age of build and plenty of 500k + propertys round here (not in london) are "F"

We have an F, we had no real idea what that meant but it turns out it stands for 'fuck all insulation' as our gas bills would confirm

Yeah, this was mine. It's the low end of D due to some missing insulation

1 Attachment

When repointing Victorian brickwork, is any amount of cement acceptable? A builder today was talking about using lime with 'a little bit' of cement, presumably because it makes his life easier and helps it cure. If I go for pure lime I guess I'm looking at next spring at the earliest.

Most Victorian houses have been repointed with cement. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And a lot of them have spalling stone/brick from what I've seen. I'm just wondering if even the introduction of 10% cement does away with the breath-ability of lime, or whether it's a diminishing scale.

By the way, can I just say 'fucking builders'. Waited 8 weeks for someone to start on my front facade renovation, only to have him cancel and I'm now sat here listening to water cascading down my wall. Wakes me up with anxiety every time it rains.

If lime was what the house was build with, use all lime, and speak to a proper lime plasterer.

It will cost more and take longer but the building will benefit and you can have proper peace of mind

And a lot of them have spalling stone/brick from what I've seen

This.
Every town I visit I see shit cement point/render wrecking period properties
It's really sad

My personal view is that it's impractical to maintain a typical Victorian house with period correct materials.

It's highly likely that it will have been repaired with many incorrect materials before you become the owner. The cost of putting all that "right" is likely to be significant.

But each to their own.

On this one specific point about maintaining period properties

Cement, despite being ubiquitous in modern buildings, wrecks old buildings/causes damp etc/often necessitates repeated costly repairs far in excess of what it would have cost to do it right earlier

The are lots of lime plasterers out there, it's not that difficult