Owning your own home

I'm going to Ty Mawr tomorrow morning for there intro to lime plastering course as it happens.

Silly Savage I'd persist take your time getting the right guy/company. I'm sure easier said than done.

In Pembrokeshire I had the choice of I think three companies, contacted two. 1 had a year long waiting list, the other guy started after 4 months (April) and was finished with two rooms by end of August.

https://www.londonlimeplasterers.co.uk/

Tried this site?

Can someone summarise dehumidifiers again for me please?
3 bed house. 2 adults 2 kids.
Blinds at windows because light and warm. Curtains.

Condensation

Would like to know:
Size
Cost
Running cost
Can I leave it running overnight
Will it kill me
Does it have to be upstairs or downstairs
Noise
The basics for a basic idiot like me.
Ta

We have Meaco MEA25LE 25L Ultra Low Energy Dehumidifier
Its great.
It won't kill you.
It adds a substantial amount onto your energy bill.
We leave it on overnight- in our 2 bed flat and it does the whole flat.
Its not crazy noisy.
I like it.

We have a spare Older version you can have if you come pick it up. Its a bit noisier and lower spec, but it works.

I got a Blyss 10L dehumidifier from B&Q. £100 odd.

3 bed flat (2 adults, 1 kid), all on one floor (converted house) so it wasn't designed to be chopped up and blocked up as it is, airflow not great (bathroom has no extractor fan for example, no airbricks of note, main house stairwell blocked up and doored off, etc)

We dry clothes inside year round (access to outside is a pain in the arse)

Dehumidifier required from mid-September to mid-March as we can't have the windows open as we can in summer as it just gets too cold

Generally have it on whenever anyone is home and we can move it into whichever room has washing in or has condensation on the windows (front windows double glazed, rear windows not all double glazed)

Never leave it on when not in (but one of us is generally in 5/7 days a week)

Don't leave it on at night (we could but just never have needed to)

Noise wouldn't be a problem if in a room with a closed door, without a closed door in between you can hear the general hum it but it doesn't bother me (and I work from home 2-3 days a week). Don't know what it's like for the downstairs neighbour but he's never said anything (and he would if it annoyed him)

Apr-Sep the sensor tells me it's roughly 50% relative humidity indoors and no condensation and no damp feeling in the air

When we start to feel we need to use it then it's usually reading ~60%

With a fresh load of washing drying it can go to over 70%

It occasionally looks at my slightly menacingly but has never killed me (yet)

If it's on for 12h then I'll have to empty the 2L collection tray thing twice a day, so it's performing close its rated capacity of 10L/day.

For running costs, I'd say it's on roughly half the time between September and March, so that's half of half a year. It's rated at taking 200W so on the basis that 1W per year = £1 (see cals below[1]) that means it's costing us £50 a year, plus it kicks out a bit of warm air so part of that also reduces heating costs (although it won't be efficient).

It's certainly cheaper than buying/running a washer-dryer and is also sorts out the condensation that we'd inevitably get if we didn't ever dry clothes inside, something a washer-dryer couldn't do

1. Electricity is roughly 12p per kWh. So 1W for an entire year = 8.76kWh. 8.76 * 0.12p = £1.05
   

We also have clothes inside from this time of year, because rain!.
Is it better to have it downstairs or do I need to wheel it upstairs when I'm sleeping?

Should I buy smaller room sized ones for the rooms overnight?

I can totally overthink.

This is very helpful btw.

Don't overthink.

Borrow one if you can, try it out keeping it downstairs, see how it affects things over the course of a week or so.

The worse the airflow in your house the worse the condensation will be, but then the less you need to care about placement of the dehumidifier.

Right.
on that...
@user15324

Where are you based?

@Chalfie

I have one you can borrow but it’s near Cambridge...

shakes fist at sky

Get two meaco dessicant (so?)

Nice and quiet

Blow hot air so helps heat as well as reduce humidity

You could get one, they are light and don’t mind being moved unlike compressor models.

Also @Dick is selling a combined air con / dehumidifier / fan thing if you need cooling in summer too

Attempting to buy a place that is on Purple Bricks.

Had a couple of viewings (had to phone them up each time as their shitty online viewing system didn't work) and put in an offer on their also shitty online system.

Had a call to confirm the details that was effectively just a marketing call for their conveyancing and mortgage services.

Got a message this morning saying the offer had been declined. Clicked on the link to be told the property was no longer on the market. No other explanation.

I've tried to arrange other viewings via Purple Bricks too and they've all been cancelled. It seems pretty shit from my experiences so far.

Got the electriq 20l, which has a timer and various modes of operation plus air fliters. I move it upstairs or next to the washing as requires. Quiet enough to watch telly in the same room, but it's a bit distracting. I've not gotten around to calculating the running costs yet.

@Vesalius I'm in Cardiff. Ironic considering Lime is mined just North of here.

Yes I had a similar experience, the website is shocking. I ended up sending a message via PB with my mobile number and the seller called back. We then negotiated a price over the phone, was all pretty civilized with no estate agents/PB involved.

I still had to submit the final offer via PB, but that was the only contact I had with them. After that it was just the usual solicitor stuff. When we completed I cycled down and met the seller who gave me the keys. Job done. CSB

There also appears to be some kind of estate agent, working for purple bricks, involved. I spoke to him this morning and he told me he doesn't know what's going on.

On the other hand, it does make me much happier that I didn't take the cheap option and put my flat on the market with purple bricks.

Only thing to consider on this his how quickly you can move in.

I used to live there. It's expensive. One bed went for 400k about 10 years ago. Tommy from Groundforce was my neighbour.

Which uses more electricity - running a drying cycle or hanging up damp washing indoors and using a dehumidifier?

I'd like to know but you'd have to adjust for other factors to get a definitive answer for which is cheaper to run, for example, a condenser dehumidifier will pump out a bit of heat, and a heat pump drier will (I think) take a bit of the heat from the surrounding air.

We bought via PB a few months ago. Their system is really bad indeed. Biggest worry was that when we put in the offer, the PB agent had never relayed that it was conditional on us getting all kitchen appliances. Was awkward a couple of months down the line when the seller inquired if we'd be interested in half of their appliances as they were already set on taking their oven/cooker/washing machine etc...
So definitely send everything you send to purple bricks also to the seller, and make sure you've got a mailtrail of offer etc. The conditions to our offer got lost somewhere on the shitty PB website.

Depends on the dryer. If you've got one of the new efficient ones (heat pump?) then the dryer is probably a bit cheaper. That will only dry your clothes though, not remove condensation, etc.

Obviously there's also some cheaper options. After a shower or when drying clothes I tend to close the door and open the window a little. Doesn't have much of an impact on the rest of the flat and lets some of that moisture out. In the morning I open a few windows to get a bit of air circulating. The heating isn't on and I'm off to work so it doesn't really matter if the flat gets a bit colder for half an hour.

Our heat pump drier definitely warms the room it’s in and apparently costs ~23p per load based on 160 mixed cycles using 308kwh (which is the EU standard test thing).
I haven’t noticed any particular impact on our electricity bills whether we use it loads or not...

@Vesalius I'm in Cardiff

Not sure why I assumed you live in South London :S

@aggi I'm in the process of buying a place from purplebricks atm. They're a bit sh - the lack of proper contact with an agent early on is really frustrating, but once we'd been and spoken to the guy it got a bit better. I'm given to believe each agent's patch is quite large, and they're not incentivised to be flexible or make time.

Our (hopefully) place came up on a rightmove search, so phoned and booked a viewing. Then got an email saying viewing had been moved to a Saturday. This happened a couple times - no notes of explanation, loads of slots available with their system, I ended up going to their customer support chat and got the mobile number for the agent and it turned out they were doing an open house and the only time free is 2pm (which scuppered my plans).

From there we spoke directly with the agent, who phoned to tell us our offer was declined, and that they would be taking final offers after another viewing. He phoned again the following Saturday to say we'd won.

We're obviously not taking any other service from them, prefer to appoint our own mortgage brokers etc. Had a load of pesky emails saying viewings had been arranged, offers made etc.

To @gms point - we got in touch with the seller to ask about leaving some things and only through that found out they’re taking a tree from the garden, which isn’t a problem but shows these details get lost in the system (or I’d assume the system is just really basic and so not really fit for the purpose of spending 00s of 000s on a house).

TL;DR - depends completely on the agent assigned, but at best theyre not great, and the system is junk from arranging a viewing through to purchasing