Owning your own home

Own a perfectly decent London property for decades and do zero maintenance, then apply to demolish, Whitechapel:

https://twitter.com/SAVEBrit/status/1758762203581452751

Boils my piss. You can see where the old theatre was, this is your actual history. They can be £1.25m done up:

https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/rare-georgian-house-whitechapel-hits-the-market?

That would be a real shame. Hope it gets saved.

Have a look at ecobases.

Since being introduced to Newpipe, I'm back on YT binge sessions and have got really into this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BE36bi1mKg

In particular the method of creating concrete piles(sp?).

These are for garden rooms, so I would expect that for a shed you could definitely diy a less hardcore version.

I mentioned it because this style of a series of independent footings is the sort of thing people do with tree houses where there are lots of trees and roots around.

I did concrete piles for my garden room, using cardboard forms & reinforced with rebar. I think it worked out to 1/2 the cost of an equivalent flat base.

Big ol' ground screws are also a thing. No idea how they stack up against a base or a pile, but might be worth researching.

Pretty sure you basically need someone to come in and do it and cost is on par with a slab.

Happy to be corrected.

I remember. Did you find that part straight forward? Also how's your roof looking?

This is pretty spot on.
I looked at a place one street over when moving out of Vicky park. Needed gutting but it was on at 625.

I have ground screws for my garden room, think that's right that costs are comparable to a slab - but much less intrusive if you're worried about tree roots (that's why we went for them). We found you need ventilation under the structure though so it either ends up a bit raised or you're still digging a bit...

That's really helpful, thanks!

It was very straight forward - although I did have access to a cement mixer. There wasn't a huge amount of concrete needed (single digit bags of cement), but it would have been zero fun doing that by hand.

The digging took maybe 2 days, and the pouring could have been done in a single day.

The roof is looking OK - I still haven't got round to planting out more varieties of sedum / alpines, but it's otherwise well established.

Good to know.

Given the overall costs I think it makes sense to get a mixer. On FBM they look to be £50-150, and you'd probably get most of the money back.

I guess it's just how easy they are to collect.

Someone should introduce him to an auger.

I used a manual auger and one of those tweezers like scoop things. Treated 4"x 4" posts, post savers and postcrete to put 10 supports in for my deck (back edge is on a concrete pad, saving a further 5 supports). Also liberally treated the top of the posts. No mixer required. I reckon it will outlive my tenure in this house, more than enough for a shed.

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Beaulieu River?

Yup, good spot

I mean the point of this run of videos he does is to show how one person could do it diy with the realistic minimum of of tools - eg no nail gun, etc.

Most augers on fmb are petrol ones for >£100.

more than enough for a shed.

Fwiw I was referring to TW garden room, which needs more supports Imo, that I'd probably want 100% confidence in the concrete mix. Whereas I think postcrete can vary.

I was actually going to say that for sheds it feels like post covid and all the garden room videos people tend to over engineer shed bases. People used to just put them on top of used council pavers.

I'm a big fan of ecobases from my limited use. You seem to need to do a similar amount of prep work whatever base you choose, but the application is super fast. Probably wouldn't do it for a full on garden room, but their weight limit is pretty high...

Grid load capability > 300 tonnes per m2

I guess it's just how easy they are to collect.

Easy enough that mine was nicked...

Are there any kind of independent system agnostic advisors who could look at my property and give me a truthful take on heating?

What would that be called?

Our gas boiler is probably in the last 12-18 months of decent use. It's very old and cheap (will be at least 10 years old) so suspect a modern fancy one is the solution but want to make sure I'm not overlooking something else. It's a Victorian terrace with side return but quite small exterior at the back, so not sure on amount of space for something like an air pump etc.

Plus my understanding is those are only really worth it if your house is insulated to fuck which ours very much isn't.

We have old crap windows, old crap rads, condensation in some corners. Those things are all in various stages of being addressed but be good to have someone look and tell us without having an incentive to get a commission from Big Boiler or Big Pump.

Pretty sure heatpump is the way forward even in a pile of rubble.
The are heatpumps witchcraft thread is https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/374560/

Heatgeeks.com I believe. We're in a similar situation and I'm planning to ask for some advice from a local heat geek. Just gotta save up a bit more money first!

Thanks both

A few pages back there was chat about guttering and the consensus was to see who is good and local - anyone have a tip for someone in se23? Mostly cleaning but we might need a slight repair...