Owning your own home

I'm imagining so, but it feels like a truly Victorian quirk that these two don't have identical roofing. I can't find any record of permission for changing next door so maybe they've always been mismatched.

Or it was changed at some point in between, nobody said anything and it’s fine now!

Didn’t realise party walls weren’t a thing in Scotland - not sure how I’d feel about that if someone started re-pitching the roof joined on to mine.

@TW yeah I was fairly sure but didn’t want to sound like I knew for sure more just a general idea 🙃

Yes, @Tenderloin—that's much the likeliest I reckon, but it is cool that Edinburgh has managed to digitise its planning permissions registers.

Definitely wouldn't be planning to surprise the neighbours with some roofers!

Thanks for all the advice confirming our feeling of huge job!

Some more nicotine/tar removal in the worst room in the house (her bedroom).

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cif is really good on uPVC windows

Night and day! What did you use to getit off?

So grim, but satisfying to get clean I bet.

On the walls/ceiling, sugar soap and detergent. On the PVC, so far only vinegar.

Nice one.

The coloured grout looks great.

there's mixed reports online about the cif/jif being too abrasive but honestly, we used it on our nicotine stained white uPVC and it's come up sparkly with no issues so far. just don't let it get on anything else - that shit's nasty

thanks, yeah, it's nice, and is such a simple/cheap trick to add a bit of character. those tiles are the cheapest of the cheap - when we bought them the guy was like "are you sure you want these ones ? these are the ones the council buy" lol. you can seriously spend a second mortgage on tiles; we're happy with these

christ that is grim. imagine their insides... i didn't get the full story; did the previous owner die in the house or?

No, just smoked in it for 30 years and did zero maintenance or cleaning, it seems. Still, have to keep reminding myself that's how we could afford it.

That room (bedroom in the loft conversion) and the living room are the most affected by smoke, as that was her bedroom and I assume she spent the day time in the living room.

it's nice when you go to use the steamer to remove wallpaper, and the steam running down the wall looks like piss because it's been coloured by nicotine

Hi hi,
I have a leak (see wall)
I hope I have found the source/extent of the leak. The tap is dripping every second or so.
I am not a confident plumber. How hard/expensive will this be to fix?

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Any recommendations for a company to board and insulate a loft, add hatch and ladder, etc

Just wondering if it's worth getting someone in rather than doing it myself.

What’s the stopcock for?

Related to this, has anyone used those loft stilt systems so as to not compress insulation?

If that’s the mains stop cock I would call a plumber in.

@Sharkstar It's going into/out of the boiler. Not the mains stopcock (that's elsewhere)
I subsequently noticed that it's not a threaded joint, which definitely puts it beyond my skill set.
Any rough ideas on what I might be looking at cost-wise? Hoping for south of £100...

I would have thought £100 would easily cover it. I had an outside tap fitted for £130 and that involved drilling through about three feet of brick.

You can cut out a bigger section and use push or screw fit connectors.

If it is the tap that is leaking you can in theory turn the water off, take the tap apart, clean it, replace the washers and reassemble.

If it’s not your mains stop cock you should be fine, it’s a easy job to fix. You might not even need the stopcock and can just take it out and put a new bit of pipe into it doing away with the stop cock.

Plastic push anyone can do there’s no great science in it. If you do attempt it, make sure the fittings have full slip!

On the subject of taps. Replacing a kitchen mixer tap should be a DIY job, right? I can see where to isolate the cold water supply, haven't checked into the hot yet but it's direct from a combi boiler.

Are fittings standard - presumably just the size of the single hole? Current one is Ikea, courtesy of previous owners.