Owning your own home

Easiest deal I ever made...

Is this the tread where we discuss dehumidifiers? I feel like it is, maybe.

I have an EcoAir dehumidifier that I use every night because 18th Century house in Scotland. The last two nights its been on and the fan is running but no water is coming through. Not at all possible that there is no moisture as the condensation on the windows has been there from cooking. Anyone got any ideas?

Cold rooms?- I find ours works a lot better when the place is warm.

Compressor or Desiccant type?

Compressor type (EcoAir DC14) and the room isn't that cold. Its not the warmest house but with a small person living in the house (my 1 year old daughter) we have to keep it liveable.

Uhuh...compressor not running? If it's in warranty I'd just claim, if it's not I'd just replace, presuming a turn on / off and move it around type thing doesn't 'fix' it.

Ridiculously we've owned quite a few dehumidifiers and the majority have stopped working in about 3 years of use. Only the original Delonghi soldiers along.

The move back to NI is becoming more and more tempting

https://www.propertynews.com/property-for-sale/2-warren-road-donaghadee-bt21-0ds/property/EAF0270/

Smart alarms owners talk to me 🕵️ Forum recommended brands? Plug and play or get provider to install and subscription?

Are Simply Safe, Yale or Era kits worth it? Worth mentioning we have a big greyhound that may not bother with intruders but help trigger the motion sensors 😂

That's a giveaway, and a beautiful house... A waterfront property down the street from us would be AU$2m at least...

I'll probably not be in a position to move for another couple of years due to our current deal and needing to further convince mrs_com.

Having an office in Belfast makes the work scenario a non-issue, luckily.

I'd be interested in this as well. Our house came with an alarm and subscription but we didn't renew it because it was really expensive (don't tell the burglars).

There are wires all over the door frame and it seems like technology must have moved on - there must be something wireless and pet-proof that isn't £30/month or more.

Simply safe with monitoring seems to be under £20 a month but I rather get some first hand accounts before deciding

if anyone is interested, we had the shiny dude from peter james around to value the letting of our flat yesterday. cheers for the headsup, @dt

if i asked you to draw an estate agent, you would draw this guy. although, he was very friendly and clearly knew what he was doing and didn't turn on the spiel(sp?), which i appreciate.

about £300 less that the middling zoopla valuation due to the 1 double/2 single bedrooms (rather than 3 double). fees were 11% for find and let vs 17% (discounted to 13%) for the full service.

changes our approach a little bit, but we know the relative figures now...

if i asked you to draw an estate agent, you would draw this guy

They all look the same to me. The only way I can tell them apart is the branding on the outside of their little cars.

We've had Simplisafe for a couple of months now. Really pleased with it so far.

Felt very weird having a camera on all the time so I've put it on a WiFi timer switch. It only comes on at night but we can set it on all the time if we are away.

The alarm went off once accidently (my fault) and the security service called immediately.

Considering it was under £400 all in (we'd been quoted over £1k by a more traditional firm) I'm very happy.

Classic disrupter behaviour.

How much is your contract with them?

Think it's £20 a month.

Also, it's not a contract. It's £20 a month pay as you go.

Does it do anything if you don't pay the £20 per month (e.g. siren, notifications to phone, capture images locally, etc?)

I have Yale and it’s pretty crap. Feels like old school company trying to do smart but not investing fully.
No way would I pay a subscription though.

The siren would go off but essentially it's a standard alarm system. I don't think it's a great proposition without the monitoring.
I can be away with work quite a bit so it's worth the money to have peace of mind for her.

I also like the idea of not having to rely on neighbours investigating if the alarm does go off.

I guess we would be in a bind if they increased the monthly costs significantly.

Thank, it is good to know that the monthly fee is worth it. Also great trick with the timer switch, is it from same company?
We don't travel much so we are considering Simplisafe or going with the Era (with Giffgaff Sim card) to keep the running costs down. yet to find out whether that will still support remote monitoring....

Does it have remote monitoring? or just cableless alarm kit?

BTW do you have any pets? does it keep the pet-proof promise?

2 house cats. Behaved perfectly so far (the alarm not the cats. Obvs.)

Just picked up a WiFi switch from Amazon. Lots of options out there.