Owning your own home

Anyone else looking to extend their lease if/when the bill currently in parliament gets through the lords and into the statute books?
Not sure if the election result will speed up or delay things plus Labour I believe want to go the whole hog and replace it with commonhold.
There is also the changes to management companies which will affect all leaseholders, hopefully for the better.
Did think of starting a thread but it’s probably just me who’s following the process and any developments, I have a situation where I want to extend a lease by December for going on the market in January and am looking at roughly £25k if I want to start that process now under the current rules plus there will be marriage value included in the fee’s.
It would also be a 99year extension not 999.

We hit 80 on Xmas day 2027... Definitely holding tight but I have absolutely zero faith that labour would do more than the Tories. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't even count on substantial reforms taking place under labour. So hopefully this gets sorted before the election.

Did this too and was straight forward, moving into my garden office in the next couple of weeks

Toolstation item number 75571 manual auger £28.98.
Wouldn't be without my auger for setting fence posts.

Julian at Hydrosmart is in SE22 and is great - really thorough and reliance for us over a few years now.

Amazing, just what I needed cheers!

Currently prepping the garden and will order a https://www.powersheds.com/ 10x6ft

I'm going to fit a plastic grid base or the above have a treated timber base you can buy.

I need to sort out a shed this spring. The corner it's going in is quite wet at this time of year so I want the base a little above ground level so it isn't sitting in water. There is a big tree in the neighbours garden so probably lots of roots. What's the best base? Concrete with the finished level higher than the surroundings? Some sort of plastic mesh full of gravel that might need less digging/root disturbance? Something else?

For sheds I'm a big fan of ecobases (the plastic mesh full of gravel).

You still need ground prep, but everything else is easier. Most tutorials you'll find will recess them into the lawn, but in your case you probably want to level up. You can then edge the border in something to hold the gravel and make it more attractive.

The main one I used is only half sunk as I wanted to reduce standing water from a wet in winter lawn.

Edit you can sort of see how hidden it is here now the grass and various things I've planted have covered it at the front vs the side ;

One thing I don't feel people talk about enough with sheds is guttering. Ime this makes a massive difference to water. I've only done it on one side of one shed, but there is such a difference on that stretch where I've installed it.

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If possible I'd like to dig out this area slightly for a bike shed. It's got this manhole cover though which I imagine will make that difficult. Can these things be easily lowered or is it a ballache? A quick google seems to suggest lots of angle grinding and concrete.

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What's the rational for digging out, vs making the surrounding ground level with the man hole cover?

Also have you considered the risk of accces being required? What is it, the water shut off for your section of the street?

Bike shed will be outside the front window so would like it as low as possible. Plan would be ecobases and Asgard shed or similar so nothing that couldn't be moved if it really needed to be (it's access for a surface water sewer serving half a dozen houses I believe).

Given the bike shed will have a base and only be holding bikes, I wonder how much support you need beneath it?

You can easily cut the eco bases, so it wouldn't be hard to make a cutout for the manhole cover and surrounding concrete, then set them level with the cover.

From memory when our front was done the water drain probably has about a ft of sloping concrete around the metal. Edit. I found a pic, hopefully you can make out the concrete surround.

Obvs that doesn't get you lower than the current cover height, but it does stop it going higher.

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I assume you need planning for a bike shed? I'm quite Shure obstructing a drain cover is illegal.

But if it's something a couple of guys and pick up and move, does it matter?

We have a massive planter on ours for that reason.

I mean, that's a bit different eh

Yeah it is, isn't it 🙄 - you can still see the cover and one determined person can move it.

Removing a 5x1m planter at the weekend. Walking to and from the skip (and 2 dog walks) added up to 6 miles at the end of the day. Joys of living in a street of terraced houses and crazy parking.

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Technically you do but if they start enforcing that there will be a lot of houses near me having to remove bike sheds from a look around the local streets and the council planning site.

Realistically it will be easier to move than a big planter if access is needed.

Does look like trying to drop it further down is too much hassle though.

Perfect timing. I’m planning my shed for reals now, think taking up some patio and using these eco bases makes most sense, plus I can reuse patio brick things in the front garden. Cheers for sharing!

are you re-using all that soil?

I though I was tripping when I saw this

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ha! literally "deceptively spacious"

I've got some mould coming through in the coving in the bathroom above the bath/shower. I've done a few things to hopefully minimise it in the future but what is already there just isn't going to go away.

Access is awkard as it is directly above the bathtub, I'm guessing that putting a stepladder in the bath risks cracking it or is that nothing to worry about?

Old t-shirt / cloth soaked in white vinegar on a stick?

Would be careful applying point loads to a bath. You don't know how it's supported and fucking it would be an expensive mistake.