Owning your own home

Pipes rubbing against the floor when they expand? Hangers missing plastic inserts?

Have been having the same thing recently, builder mate says as the above response- loose pipe somewhere.

Ours was doing this. Then a big bubble arrived in the top of the crappy one tube towel rad on the first floor. Bleeding that off when the system was off seemed to quieten it down.

https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/20/hearths-on-fire-uk-residents-incensed-by-pollution-from-wood-burners

The Guardian is deffo keeping tabs on this thread

But dont let facts come in the way of your hygge.

Its actually pretty bad for you and your family inside the house as well.

We really are in a self destructive spiral.

I don't care when I'm toasty warm.

Has anyone fitted a quooker tap? The one tahts all signing and dancing. Does hot water, filter water and sparkling?

Yep. Bit of a problem getting the gas cannisters for sparkling water. It would appear that the gas cannisters are exported to the EU to be refilled or something (I land of glazed over when I was having it explained to me by customer services) then reimported meaning a double dose of tax to pay (I think) for quooker and a small availability issue while they figure out what to do about it. Other than that its great.

@Soul had I think...

Joys of home ownership; had a slowly draining kitchen sink, look outside and the drain it empties into is over flowing grey water into the front garden.

No long rubber gloves to be found within walking distance so cue an afternoon armpit deep in stinky drain water with my arm in bin bag, pulling fist size chunks of congealed fat, decomposing food & I don't know what else out of the drains! Thank you previous owners, though I suppose a little at the top will have been ours.

Flowing freely again now though so hopefully that's sorted it & at least I didn't have to pay a professional to do it!

What else could it be?

@nankatsu beat me to it!

How much did you pay all in for the full tap system about 2k ish?

How long do the canisters last for before needing a fresh one

I had that a couple of weeks ago.

In my case it was leaves that had settled on the drain cover and stopped letting water through quickly enough.

The smell was coming back through the pipes and the plug so I thought I had a blockage.

Luckily I had a bucket and trowel.

Assistance needed. Anyone got a tip for removing hammerite off a RSJ? We left one exposed when we removed a wall and the builders painted it black.

Building regs won't sign off on the house until we remove the hammerite and repaint with intumescent paint. Absolute fucking ball ache!

Proper paint stripper with DCM in it (starchem stuff?), or mechanical removal with wire brush? or heat gun and scraper? - or a combo of the above? Acetone might soften it too.

Did they actually specify you need to remove the hammerite before painting with intumescent paint?

Having just painted some steels the hammerite might potentially infere with the intumescent paint (primer, undercoat and topcoat) from doing its job.

Pretty shitty job getting it off though.

I assume you have no leverage over the builders now? I.e you don't owe them any money?

Any way to encourage said bubble?

Apparently Oven Brite or other oven cleaners work quite well. How big an area are you dealing with?

Sadly not. They painted it 7 years ago.. we forgot about it. Now need to sell the house. Headache ensues.

Trying to get info from the council on what paint and primer (if any) is basically impossible!

The cynical part of me says, will they know if you strip it?! Just over paint and hope it lasts long enough to get out of the house...

I'm amazed that something that old is causing an issue, is there not an indemnity policy that could be bought to cover you?

I can ask one of the architectural technicians at work on Monday if you don't get anywhere. I've overheard some chat about intumescent paint before.

Edit: like Sam says, indemnity policy is the usual way to get around something that doesn't really matter but it's holding things up. When I sold my flat it was a shanky lean-to that didn't meet regs but was basically fine.

Yes, had one since Nov’19. We go through about 1 CO2 can every 6-8 weeks. Unlike others I’ve had no problems with delivery of new CO2 bottles. Ordered 4, 2 weeks ago and they came within 5 days. £70 pre brexit and £70 post Brexit..they are not collecting empties though currently. We’ve also been through 1 water filter in about 9-10 months. Another £80...and the new one is on 30% so expect to have to fork out another £80 in the next 12 weeks...the added expense of wfh and home schooling I guess

Thats good to know, I just need to get see if i can get a trade price on one now.