Owning your own home

After a petition it was debated in parliament (not actually in parliament) a week or so ago. Lots of positive noises but no changes. First we might here is if it's in the budget at the start of March.

feel you, sludging through the solicitor virtual waiting room for weeks now

I am not sure why we're still waiting on a date when we were asked a week ago to pick any date after 15 February because the sellers were ready to complete after then..

Gonna put down poison any suggestions for what is best to go for?

Don't. Other things might end up eating the poison, eg hedgehogs although hopefully not at this time of year, and you will never get rid of all the rats in the area anyway. Beef up your compost bin if they are causing a problem there etc.

Get a jack russell. Or an air rifle.

We dont have hedgehogs here, so thats not a worry.

are you putting cooked food in the compost?

No chance, that would have only attracted them. I'm thinking that they might be going from another garden as there is some slum back gardens round here.

We dont have hedgehogs here

I don't know where here is but you might have some other wild creature that should be allowed to get on with life.

The spreadsheet is your friend.

There's plenty of mortgage calculator templates available. Plug in a couple of scenarios (non-fixed term rate, remortgage with current provider, offer 1, offer 2 etc) and work out which is the best deal for you.

Likely that the base rate+ model will either work really well or not work at all. If it's close, just go for the long term fixed.

I spent ages in this position. Wasn't really convinced it wasn't all going to fall through until we exchanged. Made it in the end though.

2-4K for just labour.

I'm using these folks for my bathroom, all nice local lads: https://www.jsturtonroofingandbuilding.co.uk

Caveat: They are only half way through the job so plenty of time for it to all go tits up.

This! I'm wondering if it's all a dream.. Haha.

Would be interested to hear how your re-insulating project goes - am looking at a similar thing (on a fairly small scale though) here, prompted by cold temps!

Have you used a heat / insulation surveyor to see how and where you're losing heat? Have been trying to find a heating surveyor round these parts so I can see where and how we could make our place better insulated, would be interested to hear how yours goes.

Has anyone had a double garage built from scratch? Preferably one with eaves storage. Any ideas on cost?

We are looking for a new house at the mo. And weighing up the costs of building something in the garden of a house with no garage.

Thanks

I looked at this, but didn't ultimately buy the house. Including the slab it had to sit on we were quoted £55,000.

funnily enough i spoke to mr turton not two weeks ago on an unrelated matter, i though he was just roofs. he's a nice bloke gave me 10 mins of his time and advice, might try him again
thanks

I tried to book a thermal imaging survey - thought since it was from outside it might be ok, but they're on hold (Covid). Frustrating. I mean I know the walls and floor are bloody cold, but it would be good to know just how bad the windows are, or if they actually aren't.
Might see if I can buy some hours of advice from an architect whose done it to their own home. Just to complicate/expense matters, I'm keen to use as low-impact materials as poss (ie. not foam insulation). I'm dreaming about hempcrete, woodfibre etc. But might change my mind once I look into it properly.
Went to these webinars - might be useful for you https://selce.org.uk/how-to-green-your-home-online-short-course/
(I wouldn't wait to hear about my project - I'm terrible for getting started with anything!)

Yeah, sound guy. His sons Gary and Wayne are doing my bathroom. Nice guys who are positive and understand what you say rather than the no can do types who only know their way.
Finish so far isn’t perfect so will see how that convo goes.

Also considering garden office type companies. £25k (inc installation) seems to buy you something big that I can use as posh bike storage and workshop. Thats what greenretreats suggests. Is that expensive for timber frame. I've no fucking clue

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Looks like the size of a container, doesn’t seem that cheap if I’m honest.

I know if you get a custom one made from an architect you’d be looking at twice as much for half the size.

Can’t be hard to build yourself though?

Will keep my eye on this 🤝

You can rent FLIR cameras and DIY it. That's what we did. Helped us with a before / after on attic insulation and with helping us determine what windows needed replacing. You just need to find the hotspots (where you are losing heat). Not sure what else a full survey gives you.

@LongAndWinding did the work. It's not hard.

Thanks - good plan. Where did you rent from?