Owning your own home

The wire isn't supporting anything itll be to do with an existing or historic TV ariel

well I expect that’ll be where the damp in the chimney breast is coming from..!

Oof, did you get any kind of survey prior to purchase? Am I right in thinking you've bought in Scotland?

aha! good to know, as one of them has fallen off onto the roof in the past few years - thanks

I did, but it’s in England - survey did flag that it could do with repointing and having the flaunching redone, but was done at street level with binoculars as far as i know.

Most of the stuff I’m posting/moaning about we had an idea of before we bought - our offer was suitably lower than other ‘done up’ houses on the street (we paid 205k, good condition ones somewhere around 270ish, if not a bit higher now)

Yeah. You can't really see that stuff without access or a velux.

This was our crusty boi. Loved the way the shiester builders who painted next doors flat roof left their tins on our roof.... brilliant.

1 Attachment

I've recently met 2 surveyors who use drones for such stuff but they both moan continually about how shit most in their profession are. With the most heard comment being "hiding behind 'requires further inspection'"

I did wonder about that. I guess a very small drone is fine to fly so close to houses?

When I looked in to inspecting our flat’s roof a few years ago it was basically forbidden to fly within so many meters of residential buildings that you couldn’t get near it.

I agree that the residential surveying game is a bit of an odd one

Colleague had his roof redone recently, primarily went with the roofer he did because they came out with a drone and flew it over and clearly explained what needed doing and why. Simple but effective idea for not a lot of money.

In fact I know a couple of Christmas ago Howdens were giving away a free drone with every kitchen, I know because my kitchen fitted was annoyed I didn’t go with howdens so he didn’t get one!

Oh bollocks

1 Attachment

How much do you have to earn to think 3hrs a day on a train to and from a job is worth it?

Edit. I know the answer is 'a lot more than me'

Edit again. And that's 3hrs on a day when the trains aren't fucked....

I was actually going to respond with a lot more than me until I read your edit!

I'm assuming anyone moving out of London to Bath probably has decent money coming in. The commute wouldn't have been a surprise cost in the move but I'm also assuming that there is some amount of WFH too.

My main point was this example used to show people regretted leaving the big smoke for the countryside was shit as they'd picked someone who moved to another city with good transport links and plenty of posh shops and expensive coffee.

Thread back on track... Completed on Tuesday and have a house full of boxes. Can't find anything, no hot water, no working oven, so much DIY to do, quite a lot of bigger than DIY Jobs to do, not really got the money to do them... But so quiet, loads of space for the kids and adults to get away from each other, lots of 70s décor (some cool stuff, some less cool) and bags of potential of we ever save up enough for some building works.

Most of the stuff I’m posting/moaning about we had an idea of before we bought - our offer was suitably lower than other ‘done up’ houses on the street

This is a mantra I find myself repeating over and over. It does help.

Similar to older cars- you either buy a fundamentally sound chassis which you know needs a lot of work, or you buy something that someone else has restored.

First option means you know everything that’s gone into the finished article, but takes longer.

Congratulations! Photos pls, sounds like an awesome project.

Thanks. Yeah, loads of options for reconfiguration etc. Needs some roof work which is the big one. Away for a couple of days over Xmas but can post some photos when back.

It's an old stables then doctors surgery then house dating back to 18th century. Currently wondering why anyone would polystyrene their walls but apparently it was "a thing", same for string wall"paper". Both are everywhere!

I feel for you, especially for when it's happened.

Have you been in the loft to see if buckets can delay it getting worse, etc

Thank you, sympathy helps!

It's a single story extension. There's been damp coming in for ages where it joins the wall, builder tried to sort it out at first then gave up and disappeared. So this is an escalation of a known problem in that the damp patch is now actually dripping water. We do have someone booked in next year to redo the whole extension roof properly so I guess it's not really anything more than we're already planning, just means we'll need to be on alert with buckets when it rains until the work starts.

You could easily be doing 2hrs living and working in london…

Currently wondering why anyone would polystyrene their walls but apparently it was "a thing"

Hah yeah. My parents house had this when they bought it in the 80s.

Properly dangerous if you had a house fire I would have thought.

My mates bought a house a few years ago and whole internal was mock tudor fake polystyrene everything, it was nuts beams in every room, weird walls, 'features' all over the place pretty sure everything not polystyrene was probably aspestos.

I hope it’s a straightforward fix¡

Is it this stuff? Mid 80’s it was all the rage.
https://youtu.be/A60KfZuTQf8

I'm not sure what the law says but quite a few (domestic) construction companies use them.

I used to do a bit of on site prep work for a company that made pre-fab loft conversions. They would get their measurements using a drone that was basically a flying total station the last job I did for them was in Putney so I would imagine they were allowed to use it as neighbours complain quickly in that neck the woods.

That advert got stuck in my head when it was first on (too young to know the original song) so badly that even 35 years later, when I hear the phrase “what goes up must come down” I always mentally add “superfresco makes it easy it’s by Graham Brown”. I don’t think it’ll ever stop. It’ll probably end up being my last words or something.