Owning your own home

Luckily ours isn’t leaking just old. Next door neighbours who’s kitchen and roof extension flat roofs needs doing is also getting quotes ranging like yours from 5 to 12k. Think it’s a buyers market for this at moment for any builder. Only suggestion is go with a trusted one that comes recommended as the cheaper ones my neighbour is getting seem more fly by night

And as you say scaffolding is pretty much a given price wise

I had my front roof replaced when I had my loft done on my Victorian terrace and although the scaffolding was already here it was only something like 1.4k for the new roof using redland 49 tiles. Would have been another 1k I think for Chinese slate .

We just have our roof done. End of terraced + little garden extension roof. The roof has two lofts, one on each side.
Completely stripped, new wood buttons, insulation, slates (1200), repointing bricks and change all the bricks on top. The lead and new rainwater pipes. 1 month of work/12k + vat

Could you lift a floorboard or to by the window and see the condition underneath? Damp soil/rubble collecting

Anyone know anything about buying a new roof? Aside from choosing slate over concrete tiles what else should I be aware of?

Check they have quoted for a natural slate rather than a man-made type of you want to go down that route. Spanish slate is decent quality and far cheaper than UK stuff. You will need them to lay new breather membrane and battens. What condition are the flashings in? Have some of the companies assumed they will be retained? £4.5k sounds cheap.

Spoke to the neighbours (in the Victorian semi-, so mirror image of ours), and they had a crushed surface water drain pipe when they moved in (~3 years ago) that had caused their bay to show cracks.

The surface water drain out front doesn't appear to be obviously damaged, but it's still on the list of suspects, pending a bit of digging. it does look as though the drain on the road may be full, so that's also something to look at. The soil on the drain side is damp though, where it is dry everywhere else.

I've cleared the some of the godawful decorative pebbles out front, to have a look if there is anything obvious there. I didn't realise that the front garden was concreted over at some point (joy of joys). But its obvious that someone has removed some of the concrete around the bay.

To add to the general fuckery, there's this nonsense: a PVC waste pipe, going through the wall (at the expense of some removed brickwork) that goes nowhere.

2 Attachments

It's in the longer term plan* - There's no doubt all sorts of crap under the floorboards, if the other room (with the same flooring) is anything to go by.

I've already pulled out bits cement through the airbrick hole (where there was a missing brick).

I'm also aware that the concrete in the front garden abuts the cement parging, which means the DPC has been breached since forever - And which contributes to the long-term damp problem in the bay (the stone windowsill with no run-off or drip groove caused plenty of problems, but has been remedied by and large).

* Lift all the boards along the outer wall, strip the plaster (lime, with a skim of gypsum, probably with cement slapped on too at some point) up to a height of ~80cm, clear the rubble & trim any damp joists, install airbricks, move the dwarf wall away from the external wall. Rather than re-plastering, it will be cupboarded in, keeping the walls bare with a stud in front. The bay will have a seat box in it.

This is making me think:
FUCK BUYING ANOTHER HOUSE THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

And also
THANK FUCK I'M NOT IN A POSITION TO BUY ANOTHER HOUSE.

But now:
FUCK. I HOPE THIS POSITION DOESN'T WORSEN.

And now:
I WONDER WHETHER I'LL BE ABLE TO GRADE COCKS ON A COCK SORTING LINE .

Where in or near Petersfield is nice?

Anyone bought blinds from Hilary's? Any ideas how much you can haggle them down from the initial quote?

Also, any suggestions for similar blinds companies that will do the full shebang (measuring, supplying, fitting, etc )

In the sea?

Joking, i have no idea. We have the prince of Petersfield himself here @umop3pisdn

I tried to buy some shutters from them once a few years back and they were fucking dreadful. Absolutely woeful. Buy from anywhere else, literally anywhere.

PM me

I think ours were done by Utterly Shutterly.
It migh have also been Shutterly Fabulous.

A friend of mine did lots of research so I just jumped on the back of his hard work.

This was nearly 10 years ago and they are still working and looking great (imo)

In what way? I know a few people who have been very happy with them but that was up north so possibly completely different people.

@pqr so far as I can tell online they only do shutters. Looking for a combination of Roman, roller and Venetian blinds.

They completely fucked up the measurements, I waited 5 months for them to be delivered and installed, then the bloke turns up, gets in a strop with me for no reason at all and then storm off.

Hillary's then basically tell me they couldn't care less and offered me a 5 pc discount and said I'd have to wait 5-6 months for replacement shutters- they didn't even apologise.

So I guess if you want to wait a year and be spoken to like a dog then go for it. Id have probably have forgiven them if head office gaf but they didnt and I would not like to chance how they'd sort out any problems within the warranty period.

Roman Blinds Direct did our Roman Blinds. Highly recommended.

Thanks for this.
I think the lowest price is assuming the flashing and fascia boards can be retained but I'll need to dig in a bit and make sure the top end is 100% new everything.

Why can't tradesman give proper itemised quotes? It's a right ball ache.

No itemised quotes so they can charge extra.
And if you ask for itemised, they walk away.

I'm sure they'll also request to be paid cash to save you the VAT when they're not even VAT registered.

That's what's been happening with most of my tradesmen and they get pissy when I flag up that
1) they are not VAT registered
2) the banking details they've given me are personal and not business

Can I do anything about it? No

It’s a shit game, isn’t it?

I’m guessing they can play it as another job or some tasty medium term subbing is just around the corner.

My builder itemises everything, does good work and answers phones, texts and emails, but always makes just a bit too much mess and isn't very good at timelines. Also, he's probably too expensive, but he doesn't like to not do things properly so I'm happy (ish) to pay. Used him twice now; the thought of having to find another builder who likely won't be better at the doing it properly or responding to messages is too much to bear so I accept his faults and pay the price.

Would you recommend them? What kind of work have you had them do?

Project house v2?