Owning your own home

Boring shit utility question. I get really pissed off my when my £20 a month phone bill fixed for 24 months goes up by RPI + 3% in April, especially if the contract was entered into in March. Doesn't seem to happen with broadband each year in my contract. Anyone know why that is?

At uni/houseshare days, used to have cupboards of old routers from switching, anything particularly green to do with old ones - do providers take them back ever? seems wasteful getting s new router every 18-24 months

BT just took theirs back when we switched provider. They sent an envelope with postage.

Doesn't seem to happen with broadband each year in my contract. Anyone know why that is?

It does with some broadband contracts/suppliers.

do providers take them back ever?

Yes. You can often print out a return label and then put it in the post.

BT just took theirs back when we switched provider. They sent an envelope with postage.

i had the same with EE

What are the best furniture floor protectors?

Want to protect our nice new floor.

Carpet

^Lol

Probably should be more specific.

1. Static furniture like tall boys and chests of drawers
   
2. Sofas that get sat and jumped on/over
   
3. Dinning chairs
   
   

Noticed these condom ones - will they look as bad as I think irl?

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I used these little felt pads that come in different sizes, which were ok once I had applied some additional glue.

On sofa's I actually do have tiny carpet offcuts doubled up on each leg.

Anyone fancy playing another game of "how bad is this survey really"?

Had an offer accepted on this house, again in the Welsh valleys, with more garden and garage than we could really afford elsewhere. Doesn't seem as disastrous as last time to my untrained eye but any views would be very welcome.

Worth noting that we've offered at the top of our budget (89% of asking), and with mortgage rates/prices going up and pressure from our landlord we would be in a rough spot if we have to bail, so I'm not sure how clear my judgment is. TIA for your thoughts!

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• Survey extract 2.pdf

Fuck me those are gross. Real sex pest serial killer vibe. You can get solid cup/coaster type ones with felt pads on the bottom. For stuff that's not going to be moved around, just glueing felt pads underneath would be fine. Still haven't found an agreeable solution for stuff that does get moved as ms_com just drags stuff about which peels off the felt pads. I imagine those fuzzy jonnies would be similarly dislodged and just be left discarded around the place like a furry's favourite dogging spot.

A quick glance left me with the feeling that there is a lot to put right, some of it expensive and disruptive, i.e. evidence of rotting timber in the roof, internal and external joinery being mostly fucked.

Plenty to negotiate on, then, if that's your bag.

Thanks for the feedback - looks like it's gonna have to be our bag given circumstances (buying a house on a single lowish income due to disability is barely possible from what we've learned)

You can get felt ones where the (replaceable) felt is in a plastic/metal cup that then is fixed with a screw or nail.
Those are the only ones that stay put, but add some height and can look off.
Would find the supplier I bought from last time, because they have loads of different ones including ones for the Rey chairs I restored, but EU probably no use.

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Cheers.

I think....

1. Static furniture like tall boys and chests of drawers = regular sticky ones
   
2. Sofas that get sat and jumped on/over = your screw-in ones
   
3. Dinning chairs = ...? Not sure I can stomach screwing anything into them. Although they already have brass caps so maybe 🤷‍♂️
   

Get a big selection of the felt ones, clean the area you’re applying them to well and stick on. We have those on all our chairs and no issues - if they do come off we have hundreds more ready to go. I find what happens more is that they compress over time and just need to be refreshed

Any recommendations for a company to supply and fit a custom made wooden front door? (SW London).

Just had London Door Company round setting what is hopefully the upper bound. (£6k including the 20% summer sale discount.)

Needs to be hardwood not composite (house is Edwardian). This is a communal front door for two separate flats. Also want ERA locks (pair of keyed alike yale/latch and deadbolt with thumbscrew for night-time) - Banham just too spendy. New frame/sill and all the fitting that goes with that.

The roof is the only thing that sounds like it actually needs work before the winter in my opinion. It would be great to update the consumer unit and get an electrical safety test done too. There are loads of things it would be great to do too.

Some of the rest of it was bollocks “we couldn’t see the water pipe so it could be lead and that’s terrible”

It’s a house in the valleys, it has always been and will always be damp. I didn’t see them mention subsidence, so it’s doing better than most houses built on a mine!

You can leave the garage for a few years if you don’t have cash now.

Go and look in the loft - take a ladder. Be annoyingly nosey. Has it been sitting empty? Maybe when it is full and has people in and heating on the damp will be less. If you’re prepared to live somewhere that needs a lot of work, and prepared to do that work yourself, I’d take living in a tired property that I owned above a nicer rented property every day of the week.

Which valley is it in? Lots of good cycling around there, inc some nice long shallow alpine-ish climbs.

This has led to This could lead to These defects could lead to. You must also take note of our comments in Section I - Risk

Nice he proof read it.

I'd want to get the rotten roof joists checked out and the bulging ceiling too but apart from that there is little that would worry me.

It's an old house that has old windows and stuff. It's not going to fall down.

Or as I suspect many surveys are total cut and paste jobs they just did a bad job pasting in the right spot (proof reading still relevant)

Sounds painful

Didnt @stevo_com post about a front door some time ago ?

I used London Door Co for ours, must be well over 10 years ago now and it was over £7k for the door inc frame and glazed unit above the door. So £6k now sounds relatively ok.

At the time I think cheaper options were still around £5k so I just went with LDC.

Ebay and a carpenter?

There are a load of really nice wooden front doors on Ebay.

If you can find someone who would quote for the job they might be able to let you know if a door you find is suitable and how much work might be needed.

Yep.

I got this door for £135 off eBay. It took a few days to sand and fill any imperfections and to then prime and paint it but it was all done, trimmed adjusted and installed by my carpenter for £150.

The whole thing cost me about £350 to do including the paint, new Yale lock etc. I then sold the old one on eBay for £125.

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Yes, Asashrepair did ours. Although restoration with a lot of stained glass work.

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