Owning your own home

Hot tip: don't try to service a boiler yourself following "instructions" from Russian youtube videos.

I mean, unless you want to. In which case, fuck yeah bro - let's do shots and jump off this roof together.

Watching a YouTube video doesn’t make you competent

Any recommendations for conveyancing solicitors?

Looking for one for remortgage but potentially to tack on a small piece of land at the same time.

I've had SAM conveyancing contract work out to Chadwick Lawrence 3 times now, one of which was a remortgage. They've been very competent, great at communicating, and also cheap all 3 times. Seems like a rarity these days!

Thanks. Will drop them a note

That's exactly the point I'm making.

Have got a leak from the bath/toilet and causing some damp issues, anyone has a SE1 handyman on hand? Thanks in advance.

Collection SE6

BIG!

just had next dooor gethin touch wanting to remove the chimney stack as theres is crumbling and leaking they are worried if they remove theres it will effect ours so the best solution is to remove the whole stack.

where do i stand on things like this? im a bit clueless on this stuff

its a-classic victorain london terrace so shared stack

Ours in white rendered only recently neighbours un painted

We just removed our shared stack as part of a loft conversion, and are very grateful to our neighbours for agreeing to it.

Have they offered to cover all costs? If you know you're never going to use the chimneys, then use this opportunity to have it deleted for free. It's an obsolete relic that degrades, leaks and collapses.

Yeah thats my thoughts. i hope that they will do this. is there any legal stuff i need to do in case that drop it through the celling or fuck something up ??

If you're worried about this kind of stuff, then get a party wall survey and agreement. You can appoint your own surveyor, and by rights, they are responsible for covering all costs for this also.

thanks for this

I'd be surprised if they aren't expecting you to contribute to costs. if they're not - bonus.

another thing to consider is that if you still have chimney breasts in the house, these will need to be ventilated to prevent condensation causing damp once the roof top stack is gone.

How to do this? all our fire places are sealed up ? Drill out a section add in one of those screen vent things ?? They look shite but if it needs it

yeah, that sort of thing... lots of discussion here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6179196/venting-an-unused-chimney

You can get cast iron ones and similar which look a bit less shit.

yeeeee. near the VAULT

What's the ball-park price bracket for replacing a flat roof on a dormer conversion? Place we're looking at has an (internally) nice looking conversion - 6 years old, but looking on Google maps the roof already looks a bit like water has been pooling. I guess this is a survey thing but I'd rather have it factored in to any offer we make from the off as a contingency.

Also noticed some cracks in the ceilings below, possibly nothing to worry about but concerning if it's due to loading from the loft conversion.

What should I be asking to see - building regs certificate, structural drawings, ...?

2 Attachments

cracks in the ceilings below

You've also got some water staining along the plasterboard seams, which means there's been a leak at some point. Could well have been fixed, or maybe not.

We replaced a dormer flat roof, width of a single terraced house in West London about a year ago. It'll depend on damage - to redo just the felt (with either new felt or whatever the more modern version was), I think the quotes were about 2-3kish.

Ours was in bad condition and the wood underneath was rotten and also had to be replaced along with all the bits of render and other stuff that goes on on a roof. They didn't know this till the felt was removed. It cost just under 6K. It took about three days I think, but the scaffolder then inevitably took a couple more weeks to pick up his tower. It was less than I feared it would cost actually.

The inside of our room looked similar to yours for what it's worth - little pools of staining and lines along the joins. It dried up after a while and has been repainted and it's fine.

The roofer said it could have been worse if the beams had also rotted, but you wouldn't have known that until the roof came off.

Putting down a deposit on a prefab garden office/shed combo this morning and need to firm up details, specifically room sizes.

The building is 6m x 3m and I can go 50:50 on room sizes or 60:40. Is a 2m x 3m office big enough for a desk and a couple of bookshelves? Is a 4m x 3m shed too big?

I’d like to have a small home gym in one of the rooms (bike on turbo permanently, treadmill, some free weights) but torn on whether to have an office/gym or a shed/gym.

Wwyd?

2000x3000 office 4000x3000 gym 100%. Presumably this will be nominally smaller as 6000x3000 is exterior dimensions?

Only one of these rooms will you be actively moving around in. Free weights take up more space than you’d think, especially if doing barbell stuff. I have a static bike and a half rack in 3x3m of my garage and it is already tighter than I’d like.

This was under the flat roof of our dormer. No signs of leaks inside, but they may have been masked by horrendous cigarette tar/nicotine stains.

1 Attachment

fark. messy.

@christianSpaceman thanks. I guess I roof inspection would be in short order if we make an offer. The ceiling I posted is the 1st floor, below the conversion, so it was more concerns about loading, though I've just been sent the building regs certificate so I'll have a closer look at that.