Owning your own home

Extractors don't need to be directly above hobs to be effective.

I thought above one (cooker hood ) is the most effective at removing grease and smell from the kitchen, are the wall mounted one that much better?

They might be more effective, but you can always compensate by chucking more a more powerful one elsewhere, if it's not practical to have one directly above.

A couple of hundred on a chonky extractor, versus a couple of hundred on a cooker hood, plus a couple of hundred on the ducting and install, plus the sheer ballache.

Yeah true. It was the perforated beam that brought to mind the Eames’ house.

Surely depends on how far away?
Water vapour and smoke, I would agree, you could have on the other side of the room, like a bathroom extractor,

But for airborne grease, I would have thought it would deposit on way more surfaces unless it’s sucked through a filter closer to where you’re cooking.

Don't want to fix the window and then not have ventilation. And if i stick with that window, it isn't even going to open properly. Might have to ditch the window it and fit a normal sash, which can be opened when I shower.

If you ditch that stained glass window, I will find you and kill you. And you'll need planning and consent to do so in a CA.

Windows are terrible for ventilation in bathrooms because they don't provide what you need - an incentive for the wet air inside to exit the building. They can let wet, cold air in that furthers condensation and damp. They can push the wet air in the bathroom in to the rest of the building.

Doing a hole in the wall isn't really possible if I move the shower where I was planning to, because that wall is shared with next door. It could be at the other end of the bathroom though.

Yep extractors should be in the farthest point from the entrance so they pull air across the entire surface of the bathroom. Because of the layout of your bathroom this is tricky. Directly above the shower might be good enough but it might limit your choices because it's a wet area. You can use some ducting in the ceiling to route it to an outside wall on the assumption you are allowed to do so then make an exit for it. Like they did with that bastard boiler flue.

A good dehumidifier will work wonders however, better than relying on a window.

Evening, folks. Apologies in advance if this has been asked before…

Is there a forum-approved site for getting ballpark building quotes? Like a Shiply but for building work?

For context… Quick debrief with the building surveyor after his inspection of our prospective purchase. He’s basically saying the third bedroom (in the loft) isn’t actually a bedroom. The price is very much “three bedrooms” though. Don’t want anything fancy. Larger velux window/skylight in roof, door to the room and some electrics. Where would you go for a rough quote? And would you renegotiate the offer based on what comes back? We love the house but we also want that third bedroom to be a third bedroom!

For a loft to qualify as a bedroom it has to meet building regs, the stuff you want doing probably won't be enough for that (can't say for sure without knowing the space). A proper loft conversion is anywhere from 40k to 100k depending on spec so a lot of people do more simple conversions which give space but can't be labelled as a room.

Whether or not they can get away with selling for the price of an actual 3 bed just depends on the location tbh

What @Gewürzt said. It was probably done on the cheap for additional space but there is unlikely a quick fix to make it a 'proper' bedroom that meets regs (otherwise the current owners would have done it). There are all sorts of rules like insulation, stair specification, ceiling height, landing size at top of stairs etc that need to be met. Could be that starting from scratch would even be cheaper.
I would personally value it as slightly higher more attractive than a 2 bed, but not comparable to a genuine 3 bed. If you want a real 3 bed you will have to do a legit conversion that will cost £££

I'm more than happy with what they have done, even more so given nothing in this house is straight or level.

I wouldn’t price it in as a third bedroom - you don’t know exactly what building regs might require to have it signed off. Could cost £500 could cost £5000+. They didn’t bother to foot the cost to do a proper job so why should you have to foot it in the price?

He’s basically saying the third bedroom (in the loft) isn’t actually a bedroom. The price is very much “three bedrooms” though.

I wouldn't expect this. Depends exactly why it isn't classed as a third bedroom but there have obviously been some corners cut. Depending how shonky the "conversion" is the cost of rectifying could end up being as much as getting a proper loft conversion done and on top of that you may not have the option of leaving as is.

I'd definitely be finding out exactly why it isn't a bedroom and what, if any, sign off they had on the quality of the work.

He couldn't tell me everything that needed doing as that's not really his job and he can only go by what he has access to inspect visually. But he did say it needed at least a door to the loft space (currently has built-in stairs which, although look tidy, couldn't 100% say if they'd pass either), smoke detection and emergency exit (current velux would be very difficult to get out of in an emergency). So very much a rough analysis(!) but enough to know it's a 2-bed. On the plus side, the roof is structurally sound so at least they haven't fucked that up.

Local authority search didn't bring back any planning permission relating to loft. What would your next steps be? Ask vendor about the specifics of the work? Talk to the builder? Get another builder in there to get a quote?

It was all going so smoothly until then... :D

I would raise the issue with your solicitor and the Estate Agent.
Send the EA the section of the survey.
Ask what work was done, when and by whom. What sign off did they get and if not why not?
Then say the property is being sold as a 3 bed (or at least priced as one) but clearly isn't.
Ask for £ off that you would accept.
If they don't then you'll have to decide whether it's worth it to you.
Also worth getting a building quote to what the cost of bringing it up to Building Control standard would be.

And if you do go ahead with purchase you may need indemnity insurance which the vendor should pay for (£150ish)

Gotta says it’s a sterling jobs, even thought it’s a staggering amount of money.

(We reused the floor and have some new reclaimed one fitted to replace the very dodgy work from the previous handyman).

Next step; sanding the floor ourselves.

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Next step; sanding the floor ourselves

Mug’s game. Get in touch with Zen.

Yep if there's one thing worth paying someone to do...

Money can't buy the satisfaction of doing it yourself though.

It's a strange thing, knowing that with enough time you could do a better job at quite a lot of things, but also valuing your own time and getting people in to do it, then spending too much time making sure it's done right.
I'm aware this is going straight into the Golf Club thread, but I stand by it.

I should add, I will never sand a floor again, I did a shit job and there was not satisfaction from doing it myself.

Mug’s game. Get in touch with Zen.

Agreed, he did our lounge and came round yesterday for a quote to do the stairs and Hallway.

We hired a floor sander rather than kneeling and sanding for years, surely it cannot be that difficult.

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It depends how good a job you want.

Ours is a bit rough in places and not that even as we were trying to remove a deep dark wood stain. However, ours are wood tiles so we were weighing up <£200 all in to improve the look of our downstairs vs £2k for new flooring when we moved in.

Young kids have fuck it anyway so I don't care that it's not as good as it could be, and I'm glad we spent very little on it.

My tips don't relate to technique, but the dust management:

• seal off every room with two
  plastic dust sheets in a door/curtain to create an air lock style system. If you've got stairs put them at the top and bottom.
  
• Cover your hair
  
• use two of those black o-rings you can see in your pic holding the bag and always change the bag early. Having a bag break is a massive PITA
  

Also it's the edging sanders you need to be really careful with. They'll fuck your floor up if you're not paying attention.