Owning your own home

And we have the best Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan cuisine in the citeh, actually in the country, possibly best in Europe.. right @amey?

We have some minor low level damp around the chimney in the 'dining' room in our Victorian 3 bed.

Has the chimney been capped properly? All too often it's just water getting in at the top and running down the chimney stack, now that there isn't a nice hot fire at the bottom to keep it all warm and dry.

In the long run (if we ever get enough money to do all the house to the right spec) would you recommend going back to original brick and insulating on the inside?

would you recommend

Be wary of any of my recommendations - I'm just an amateur at this stuff.

I've stripped one of ours back to brick and installed an insulated stud (all because of damp).

Redoing wth lime plaster is the "best" way to do it, but it's a messy job, and not that many plasterers do lime.
Another room isbduento be taken back to brick, but only to waiste height, as we're cupboarding it.

Could be - is there any way of finding out without getting up on the roof?

Feel the inside of the chimney stack?

Redoing wth lime plaster is the "best" way to do it, but it's a messy job, and not that many plasterers do lime.

Out of interest why this specific type of plaster - i.e. what kind of property does it have that others do not?

I'd be looking at the chimney pointing, flashing and capping, and making sure that is all in good condition. Fix that and you ought to fix water ingress. A leaking roof or leaking or overflowing
can also cause this sort of issue.
Ground level issues are often caused by things like applying waterproof render or paint to walls which should breathe, thereby causing condensation problems, perished bricks, or obvious physical breaches of the original slate DPC. Welsh slate lasts for thousands of years and is almost always fine.

Interesting article:
https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/the-fraud-of-rising-damp.html

It's not been opened up yet

It breathes. For old houses built without cavity walls lime plaster on the inside, lime mortar for the bricks and lime render for any rendering will be better than cement-based products

Here's the theory that I've decided is trufax

Solid walled houses have soft bricks & lime mortar (in general), which are more permeable to and absorbent of water & moisture in the air.

Lime plaster is also relatively permeable (particularly when compared with gypsum plaster), allowing the wall to dry out.

A lot of the problems appear to be due to mixing old with new though - Gypsum on lime allows the lime to wick water really effectively, making it difficult to see where any damp is actually originating.

If you put gypsum onto old brickwork, it won't come off nicely either, and can damage the brickwork.

Externally, lime render does much the same - exchanging waterproofing for permeability and the ability to dry out. All cement / other render does is to crack (over time) and allow water to gather, and damage brickwork.

Interesting, thanks. House we are after has two spots of 'damp' or whatever on the ground floor. I'm putting it down to a couple of contributing factors* and at some point we'll get it fixed should the purchase actually ever happen.

Also @bq - thanks.

* shit drainage set up on the extension, laminate floorings

You can't get rid of the laminate flooring, it's early-mid 2000's period correct. In decades to come, homeowners will shake their head at the great laminate flooring purge of the late 20-teens.

Our oven (terrible timing given we should be moving in the next few weeks) has started making a horrible noise like the fan is hitting metal while its spinning. It happens for a few seconds fairly regularly while turned on now, just started on thursday.

I took out what I could from the front and cleaned it up to no help. There is definitely play in the axle of the fan in all directions.. options:
a) stop using it, next owners problem
b) keep using it, next owners problem (could get worse? explode?)
c) find someone (no idea who?) to try and fix it at our expense.

Its a standard, built in fan-assisted hotpoint.

Hotpoint stuff is pretty cheap (and shit). I wouldn't bother repairing it if it were me.

You can prolly get a new one for <£200.

ooh - yes, oven chat. Our oven (80cm wide smeg thing left here by previous owners - electric with a gas hob) recently started taking about 5-10 minutes of fiddling to get the light to come on / get hot.

The interior light comes on but the tiny exterior light next to the dial doesn't appear until much fiddling/banging takes place, so consequently doesn't get hot. Sometimes even when it's on it fickers on and off quickly. Is there an easy fix? We're loosely trying to do a kitchen but not sure it'll be sorted before Christmas at this rate and I'll probably do murder if I can't roast the fuck out of some shit over winter.

If it is listed as included on the contents form, then do as @Señor_Bear says. Get a new, cheap one from AO. I'd rather that then deal with any potential follow up aggro. AO will even take the old one away.

Taking an oven out to get to the back is normally pretty easy. Just undo the screws and slide it out (which I was pretty happy about when I screwed up replacing the element on mine and had to take the whole unit out).

Plenty of spare parts for not much money out there so it may be a pretty cheap fix.

Tighten the bolt that holds the fan blades on the axle. Might need to pull off the fan protecting grill thing.

Failing that you could get and fit a new fan and motor but it's a ball ache. You might find the existing fan will not part company with the axle meaning you can't get the old assembly off without a grinder and who has the time for that.

We just replaced ours with a cheapy from AO - it was mid lock-down so they wouldn't fit it for us. But fitting them is easy. But you might find your existing oven is directly wired in whereas the new one will have a socket fitting. I ended up trimming the spur cable and fitting a new plug socket, then connecting up to that. Fun times.

I don’t want you hanging around @amey any more, he’s having a bad influence on you.

Could be - is there any way of finding out without getting up on the roof?

Don't think so. You could have a visual inspection by a drone, but I think a proper inspection involves some proddling. Of course, if you stick your head in the chimney, look up, and see daylight then the answer is almost certainly 'no, it isn't'.

What i dont understand is how i would tighten it?

theres a big nut on the front of the fan itself (behind the grate) but i cant see anything at the back to actually hold in place so i could even attempt to loosen/tighten the front bolt

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Hold the fan blades. The fan is an interference fit on the shaft - if the shaft spins whilst the fan is held still...there's your problem.

Bolt is / may be reverse threaded for extra excitement.

i cant see anything at the back to actually hold in place

They are often screws, rather than bolts

Hang on. Does engineered wood fit into the 2010s?