Owning your own home

Was kind of hoping someone could provide me with motivation to answer the six million silly questions they forwarded to my solicitor tbh.

Imminent housing market collapse sell sell sell etc

Now the sky/ceiling has fallen down in my bedroom I can change stuff if I want for little extra effort but should I? What are your thoughts and opinions on bedroom lighting? Traditional pendant or recessed spots?

We saw so many that they all merge. As I recall it was the location that put us off, as it was a long walk to a station to get the girls to school. The road it’s on is unadopted and is essentially gravel, and it’s not the nicest street.

I think the house was in decent decorative order. The girls didn’t like the size of the bedrooms, all bar the master are quite small.

I think the price has come down too, I’m sure it was on originally for £850k.

Just answer all questions with ‘no further information available’ and jack up the price £10k the day before closing to create scarcity value.

So tempting

pretty mad that i spent 9 hours on hold last week, while this fuckhead was sat at home pondering his move to the country.

4 figures quote advice:
After CCTV footage: 2 pipes need to be extensively repaired. All outside house walls so no brickwork included.
We had a quote for 6500+vat, which looks a lot to me.
I struggle to connect the work needed and the money asked. Has anyone experienced similar works? Was the amount requested close to this?

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no idea on the amount quoted but just wanted to say we think we've got some issues with outside drains having cracked (there's some water ingress in the underbuilding beneath our living room).

it is covered by our buildings/home insurance though - this may be something for you to consider also if it's going to cost that much

Yes, we are talking with the insurance. The area was highlighted in the survey as bit damp and possibly linked to rising damp (not to such an extended damage). I have been fully transparent with the insurance and possibly we can meet half way through.

Hang a soundproofed central plinth and light the ceiling from it. All the nice new places have that.

That seems like it's about 3 times too much.

What are they having to dig through to get to the pipes?

Wall to be damp protected

Any idea how? If they're fixing the drains, and there's no breaks in the DPC, then there's no need for any further remedial work.

It is, however, an easy way for them to make a couple of grand from pointless chemical injections.

Acid de-scale

I don't know anything about these, but it does seem to fit in the same camp as chemical injection damp proofing.

That has a strong whiff of snake oil about it as @TW says

Interesting idea, I shall have to investigate.

@rogan bit late, but really sory to hear this.

thanks all, very shitty day. will find out tomorrow whether our seller has any interest in sticking with us

Good call

They just have to dig into the ground, no brickwork required

“Wall to be damp protected “ was not explained further

“Acid de-scale” is because the pipe has inside grease and baby wipes

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I have been learning since then. We go a lot.
Plus my wife is fluent, which helps.

As far as I'm aware, the damp proof course is usually at a level just below the cement parging for these sort of walls (which I'm assuming is a Victorian cross / Flemish bonded solid wall) - and it looks like the ground level breaches that, which could be contributing to any damp.

The cement (I'm assuming it's not lime) rendered wall the right could be channelling water behind the render, particularly where there's the cracking behind the soil stack - this could also be adding to the damp problems.

The UPVC casement door could be causing problems - juxtaposing modern watertight materials against 100 year old leaky brick can channel water & damp, particularly if installation involves hacking away & damaging older brick & mortar.

And the paint could be preventing the wall from drying properly. Especially if the wall is plastered in gypsum on the other side.

How is the damp presenting itself inside?

Baby wipes & grease can be removed by a person with a pressure for £100.

As others said that's way too vague. Get a second quote from someone if you can. You mentioned the damp is near the pipes but where on the wall exactly?

double

IMO not downlighters. Pendant and/or sconces on (separate) dimmers depending on size and shape of room. Indirect light is what you want in a bedroom.

(Unless you have a specific predilection that requires more illumination, obvs).

Damp inside does not look awful, the wall is bit humid after rain.
the whole thing was repainted so pretty sure it could hide bigger defects.
the damp is way more visible on the outer wall

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Personally I prefer spots because they look neater and 95% of the time you're just using the bedside lights anyway (and the other 5% is when you want it bright).

Hmmm, I could put in some switched from the door and bed 5A sockets for bedside lights... That could be quite useful.

I'll believe it when I see it... ;-)