Owning your own home

Still here but bought a house in Cambridge

Thats the one!
GLWS, my neighbour is over the moon at the offer he accepted, but I dont mean to get your hopes up too much.

Is there not now? We had to alter plans slightly to meet planning permissions, I can't imagine half these old extensions has similar restrictions.

I think Walthamstow is a bit of an anomaly in the the current housing market.
Yep, neighbours sold maybe two weeks ago, his house is still on the Stow brothers site.

@CYOA
Triple glazing would block out a bit more noise than double. But it's expensive and the 50+% increase in glass weight and thicker frames put more strain on the hinges. I don't think the UK is generally cold enough to warrant the expense Vs double glazed windows with Low-U glass Argon filed units and poor triple is worse than decent double glazing.

Theres actually acoustic laminated glass if you have LOTS of noise and this can be built into a Double Glazed Unit. But a cheaper way would be to just use two different thickness pieces of glass. For a 28mm DGU 6mm clear (outside) / 18mm warm edge spacer / 4mm clear Low-U (inside)

When you say the front window frame is warped, so doesn't close fully. That being open slightly will allow a lot of noise through.
What type of window do you have?

Handles are a few quid and easy enough to change. Why the handle snapped may need some more parts replaced if something else has seized.
It probably just needs adjusting the hinges and/ or repacking the glass to support the sash and get it square within the frame.

Feel free to PM

Laminated glass, talk to me. Someone smashed through our french doors a couple of days ago.

There appears to be a fair bit of enforcement on the planning but not much on what is actually built.

Ask your local glaziers. They would be able to make up or order in units with laminated glass. However Laminated can still crack fairly easily if hit, so could be expensive.

Usually doors and low level windows have toughened glass, as it's generally harder to break and turns into a million small cubes if it does break, so life threatening lacerations are less lkely. Unfortunately it's relatively easy to smash from a small fast impact like a birds beak!

There's good security films that stick on clear/toughened glass... But the glass really needs to be removed, filmed edge to edge and refitted, so the film is anchored all the way round by the glazing seals/beads.
If you just film the accessible visible area, the glass could be smashed and the lot pushed in.

Good that property is doing well somewhere.

I need to sell my old flat but the property market round that way still seems a bit flat. Running out of time before I have to absorb the additional 3% stamp duty.

tenderloin
why you selling then? did you put offer in on wisteria house in bedford?
i went into the plough and harrow round the corner from you and asked for smashed avocado on sourdough toast and the barmaid nearly slapped me across the face. leytonstone is a bit of a dump if i am honest. i thought it was turning hipster.

i went into the plough and harrow round the corner from you and asked for smashed avocado on sourdough toast and the barmaid nearly slapped me across the face. leytonstone is a bit of a dump if i am honest. i thought it was turning hipster.

Hah!

i went into the plough and harrow round the corner from you and asked for smashed avocado on sourdough toast and the barmaid nearly slapped me across the face. leytonstone is a bit of a dump if i am honest. i thought it was turning hipster.

The two things are not necessarily incompatible. Round the corner in E10 on the Lea Bridge Road we're in a period of transition where you can buy an avocado from the Aldi and a craft beer from the pub, but the greasy spoons are still a bit murdery and if the locals spot you carrying a bottle of wine you'll probably be spat at. All part of life's rich tapestry.

This is really helpful, thanks. Will have a read and google some bits. I'm in no massive rush but would be good to tick another thing off the list.

i went into the plough and harrow

Yup, that's where you went wrong

There are regulations but if you just ignore them and build any old thing in your back garden, most of the time no action will be taken about it.

Hence the proliferation of back gardens which resemble shanty towns.

Bringing back the dehumidifier chat (I have read through the previous chat on the matter):

Is it better to get two smaller dehumidifiers (Meaco Zambezi), one for each floor, or one larger one (Meaco 20l) and hope/assume we don't have to move it around too much?

Personally, I'd get two of the things. I find their effect is fairly localised.

Meaco Zambezi

Have one of these, it's fantastic

kitchen extensions! any recent experiences / recommends / readers wives will be greatly obligado'd.

rear or side?

rear and to the... side a bit?

us and the neighbours are planning on going in for a party wall double.

ah right. we did side about 7 years ago - i'll send some pics.

main learning was.... make sure you get your kitchen layout planned before you build anything and run pipes and wires. make sure the kitchen people speak to the building people...

Also we let the builder spec a cheap skylight and most of the double glazed units are blown now and need replacing.

readers wives

ours will be on resi.co.uk soon, if you need referral hit me up, we both get £100

My neighbours went for 40k or so over I think with Stow Brothers on first day.

I noted this 😭 A similar thing happened with the smaller place (more like we're looking for) that sold on your road in July.

We're still planning to make the move this year (sooner rather than later hopefully but sorting some niggles with our place still before we put it on the market) and a similar scenario wouldn't stop us moving but we'd have less to spend post-move...

Look forward to seeing that... not sure when ours is going up on any site.

@Fox there's another for sale with Estate 17 or whatever, old school estate agent, prob dont even know how to use the internet so prob won't be a similar frenzy, get in quick... ;-)

FWIW the work done on my neighbours was VERY cheap and not to a standard I think you'd accept, I know I wouldn't.