Owning your own home

heated towel rail

Two bits of advice;

1. If water heated make sure it's plumbed into the hot water NOT the heating. Otherwise you need the heating on to dry towels.
   
2. Get the absolute largest you can fit.
   

smart home security setups

Nowadays even if you can still have an alarm linked to the police, there is zero chance they'll come out. So a smart one allows you to check and handle it.

I think it depends where you live.

My folks have always one after a couple of burglaries back when I was younger so I thought they were pretty normal. But the area is a million miles now from where it was - needle exchange is long gone, rough pub is beyond gastro, etc. So not sure if it's still as necessary.

I might be naive, but generally you don't seem to have as many smackheads around. Most of the crime I hear about personally is mobile snatch and runs, usually on a scooter. I can't remember the last time I heard about an old school mugging, whereas it used to be pretty regular. Likewise car break-ins were a weekly occurance and I literally can't remember hearing about one for decades. In terms of burglaries the ones I do hear about now typically involve someone with off street parking and a nice car, or home invasions in high end more suburban areas. So yeah where you live(d) it's probably less use than it would have been in the 90s.

@chrisbmx116 something that randomly popped into my head at bathtime was weather you've factored in that kids bath toys tend to be primary colours. Seem to recall you saying something about pink tiles and wondered if it wouldn't clash. You'll have a whole host of these for at least the next 6yrs so thought it was worth mentioning.

Or get a dual fuel rad with an electric element.

How does a towel rad heat up on the hot water system? Some kind of timer / flow control?

Our towel rads are Td off the hot water, with a separate flow valve - when the hot water is called, the flow valve is called too.

I guess that means you need av system boiler, rather than combi.

+ dual fuel for warm towels in summer ^^

Oh yeah, or that.

Basically just make sure you cna use it when your heating is off.

It's the fucking bane of my summer.

Ay up mi duck! I grew up in Ripley.

My ex is from Duffield

Thanks, very helpful!

We put our towel rads on their own ring, best decision we made, used on their own timer, toasty towels when needed.

Nowadays even if you can still have an alarm linked to the police, there is zero chance they'll come out. So a smart one allows you to check and handle it.

SimpliSafe has a link up with securicor, so it is them who call and then come out and check your place, obviously not as good as the police, but if you are out of the county better than nothing. The other negative is that will charge you £75 if they do come out.

Likewise car break-ins were a weekly occurance and I literally can't remember hearing about one for decades

I guess it's very area dependent, these happen on a weekly basis near me. Together with the other wheeze of chopping catalytic converters out of cars parked on the street.

Good shout. Will be factoring in enough storage for everyone. I think I still want coloured tiles.

I might be naive, but generally you don't seem to have as many smackheads around.

Because they're busy ringing my doorbell at 10pm with sob stories asking for money :/

You're right though, crime has dropped a lot pretty much everywhere. One of the reasons I asked the question in the first place.

Windows quotes. 5k, 4k, 1.7k. That's a bigger spread than I was expecting.

Just been to the factory/showroom of the 1.7k outfit. All looks good. Will find out what the windows are like in February...

They were making some massive windows for a 250k order. Some people have very big houses.

Please could you let me know details ?

I've gone with Denis Windows but since I've only got as far as order I don't know what they are like yet.

Another day making stairs. This is balustrade number 3 of 5

Full of little mistakes. I’ll get away with it though.

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I've been converting our old electric heaters to newer ones.

The old 650w oil filled radiator/towel rail could be roasting hot in half an hour, so good for warming a towel but took forever to heat the bathroom.

The 700w new one is a great heater taking the bathroom from 17deg overnight temperature to 21deg in about 30 minutes.
The bottom half has less power so warms the towels a bit, without compromising the heating too much.

https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/product/select-xls-infrared-towel-heater/

Just seen our lad @chrisbmx116 place on the modern house - you’re Insta famous now

If anyone wants enough boxes and bubble wrap for a 2-3 bed flat they are welcome to come and collect in W6. Would also deliver a short distance by car if you bought the forum a beer (assuming that’s still possible on the new platform?)

Never heard of a radiator getting heated off the hot water circuit. You can zone value a system on a combi if you know how to wire and pipe it correctly.

Also think the rad won't last that long if its continually getting fresh water in it but what do i know.

That looks great. At least they are all the right way up!

Looking at the pine below it which you've stripped. I discovered by a very long process that it's important to remove that last layer of brown burnt varnish/primer kind of stuff because it really slows down the sanding stage. It ruins the sandpaper by clogging it.

Eventually I worked out that I needed to be very thorough and remove it all. With an IR stripper it's easier. Doing it by hand with a tungsten scraper it's much harder not to scratch the pine.

Only small fry are featured in stories, need to be a hot shot like @Fox to get articles.