Owning your own home

Just get on your local FB or Whatsapp group. Ask around there. The kind of companies that do one-offs for residential typically operate locally.

What he said.

When we were leaving the UK and about to rent out our place it was really hard to find anyone in short order. Ended up with a local couple of ladies.

I think you're going to have to get on the phones and try a large number of local ppl

cheers for the advice. Sadly (or maybe not) I'm not currently on a whatsapp local group and don't do FB. Will get googling instead if no one ends up having a local recommendation here.

Check gumtree / add boards in local supermarket.

Yeah, google will give you nothing, other than outfits that charge so much they can afford to pay Google for pay for click, which is madness.

Our neighborhood FB often has people posting on behalf of neighbours who aren't in the group, so could do that if you're friendly with any of them

Appreciate your inputs on this. Thanks.

Managed to get hold of solicitor today. Interesting to note that he said it's ok to

get the work done and claim back

as long as it's an "emergency". Then confirmed that there is no clear definition of emergency, but that what I was describing could be viewed in that light. So I have proceeded: boiler fix and drain jetting people are coming tomorrow.

Next question (brace yourselves, as there will be many more)

New place has a gas hob. We became used to the induction hob in the old place.

I will of course get an electrician to sort the install of a new induction hob, and have the gas capped off by a gas safe professional.

The gas guy can do his bit tomorrow, but I'm struggling to get an electrician. Is there any way to confirm in advance that it will be possible to install (in regards to adding the necessary fused spur, with sufficient current capacity etc)? The breaker board (consumer unit?) looks fairly modern to me, but I don't see any available unused circuits. Can new ones be added?

I don't know what I'm looking at to be honest, but my father in-law suggested that the property might previously had three phase power.

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I think the language is intentionally woolly so conveyancers can argue over it for it a bit :-/

Good luck on finding an electrician too. Our regular has a 3 month waiting list at the moment!!

Seems sparks aren’t interested unless it’s a big job. Wish we had a 3 month waiting list but that’s not really how it works with our stuff

+1 to that, I’ve been knocked back for the smaller things so I’m just making a big long list and getting it done in a oner.

Sure you need it hard wired? Some induction hobs (but maybe not yours) come on a 3-pin plug. They still need to be plugged into a socket with a dedicated feed, or if your oven's fused spur is the type with a socket in it then it could be plugged into that.

My previous induction hob had its own fused isolator with a big heavy switch. To be fair I don't recall whether it had its own circuit on the CU, or if it was shared with the oven.

I don't see how hobs are plugged into regular sockets, based on the one I had which was rated at over 30amps.

Some are, some aren't.

It'll be a regular switch but off a 45a cable on its own circuit

3 phase in a domestic property is quite unusual in England. You've got the expected 1 phase feeding the meter and I guess the other tail feeds another property?

The board is really small. I can't see a spare way, normally it would have a blanking plate. You might need to have an chunky earth connecting to the incoming water and gas pipes if you want to change the consumer unit or add another small consumer unit by splitting the incoming supply to the current one with a henley block.

Hobs with 13A plugs have software that limits the total power draw to 3000W, so if you turn one ring up high it will automatically turn down the others (if it needs to). How annoying you find this depends on what you cook.

Annoyingly they generally only come as separate models rather than something you can disable if you decide to install it properly later.

software that limits the total power draw

Makes sense. I would find that really annoying.

In Scotland, but presumably rare here also to have 3-phase.

There is an upstairs flat, so the other tail could be going there. Or, I have a garage with another consumer unit, could that be an explanation?

In any case, what I'm taking from your discussion is that it should be possible to get a new hob in on its own spur, but details (which would be apparent on site to the electrician) will determine how it would have to be done and now much of a faff it would be.

Yes, it should be possible but I would guess that splitting the supply with a Henley block before the existing consumer unit and adding a small second consumer unit would be the least disrupting. Maybe just changing the consumer unit for a larger model would be preferable but a bit more expensive in materials.

They would have to check that the installation is up to date in terms of earthing requirements etc. in order to add a circuit. Also depends on the complexity of the cable run to install the new connection in the kitchen.

Has anyone used waterproof tanking slurry?

Thanks again. This is really helpful.

We've decided to keep the gas hob for the time being, as it appears (gas engineer checked) to be working fine and safely.

We'll go for hob replacement once we can get a local electrician to confirm a timescale for the work.

Next task is the leaking kitchen tap.

Water is bleeding out somewhere and running down the flexi tails. It's happening above the isolation valves, so I think they're fine.

I was thinking it could be a case of taking the flexi tails off and replacing the washers, or possibly replacing the whole Flexi.

But I also noticed dripping from the tap above the sink, which makes me think the cartridges are leaking too.

Does this look salvageable, or is it new tap time? If wholesale replacement, any recommendations for a half-decent replacement? Can't afford £49k kitchen spec. Had an ikea mixer tap in my old place that seemed to work ok, but something from Screwfix is much easier to acquire as the store is closer.

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Replacing a cartridge is cheap and simple. You might also find it’s the washer on that actual faucet not the cartridge. I changed both to solve a leak but not sure which one actually solved it.

Is the tap tightened enough on the sink? You may get some residual leaks coming through from above? If it is I would remove the tails as the isolator, tighten up and put them back in just incase something’s made itself loose.

This is kind of what I was originally thinking, but then I noticed the drips from underneath the hot and cold handles (mist be a better word for this, bit sure what it is) i.e. it's leaking both above and below the sink (see first picture).
This makes me wonder how much effort it's worth trying to fix it at all. It looks visually similar to the cheapest kitchen mixer I can see at Screwfix, which is about £40