Owning your own home

@hugo7 @Velocio ta, will look in to squishy a big lump of insulating product up there then kicking it down the road.

IIRC @dancing James has one

On burner chat - we stayed in friend’s posh golf timeshare on the algave once - it had a sort of glass fronted box - you pressed a button and little wood pellets dispensed into it and it and created fire - a little grill on the front blew hot air at you.

Ant and Dec were also there

Weird

Anyone else find it inexplicably stressful having builders in their house? I mean, the window fitters seem to be doing a great job, but I am itching for them to fuck off for no real quantifiable reason.

the building noise, the dust, the BLARING radio, the constant anxiety about them asking you to make ANOTHER decision

doing another renovation project? couldn't be me

ta!

The last lot of builders we had in never ate, but just drank monster all day and never seemed to stop for a piss. They are truly the backbone of are country

Ah ok. Yeah PV is off due to the shape of roof meaning we wouldn't get a decent array plus we're in a conservation area.

Gas? And if the thought of burning a fossil fuel is abhorrent to you, then why is burning a fresh organic fuel that releases CO2 OK?

Because the carbon cycle in wood can be measured in years/decades rather than millions of years.

I don't have any open fires in my house, just gas heating, but I do burn wood in a fire pit when camping with a youth group. Am I evil?

Our fire risk assessment has things like burns in it. Perhaps we should update it to include lung damage etc and get parental consent.

Ground source here. V happy but we did put in UFH in new extension and had to update the radiators elsewhere.

the building noise,

Yeah, it's all totally reasonable. And necessary. But I am finding myself hovering over the Zoom mute button waiting for the next angle grinder or mitre saw spin up.

the dust,

Again, understandable and these guys are actually being considerate in that regard. Although, I did have to apologise to Large US Tech Corp earlier when I had to duck out of the call to go and retrieve mini_com's bath toys out of the way of dust and debris as I had forgotten to do so earlier or just assumed they'd throw a sheet over the bath.

the BLARING radio,

Currently have "Play That Funky Music White Boy" turned up to 11. I think it's Heart, or Capital.

the constant anxiety

I think the above contribute to this. But there is some sort of dread that they are going to find something wrong that can't be fixed. Or if it can, it'll cost ya. And all that coming down to some failure of mine somehow. I know I didn't build the house or not maintain it for the last 30 years, but that's what I mean by inexplicable stress. The anxiety is telling me that it's my fault/responsibility. Did I chose to do things in the wrong order? Should I have somehow known that said issue was an issue? Have I bought a complete lemon and am I going to bankrupt my family?

Catastrophise? Moi?

Anyone have an air source heat pump and are they worth it?

I'm also considering air source but they all seemed a bit on the small side (eg around 16kW for a big one compared to 30kW for a large gas boiler). I do need to get some sort of sales person round though as my 40+ year old boiler isn't going to last forever.

Yes. I’m over it again, already, and our builders are great and really nice.
I’m done with house stuff for a good few years.

Right nice to know.

This would be as part of our renovation next year, plan was ufh. We'd need to install a new bigger boiler anyway. From what I can tell over a 7 year period the RHI would pay for the cost of an ASHP and we could also get £5k back through the green home grant. So would seem to make sense...

the constant anxiety about them asking you to make ANOTHER decision

Worse is when they don't ask questions, they just bang away in the next room for five hours and you have no idea what they're up to, where they're at or what you're going to find.

(the only ones I've had round have been organised by the freeholder)

When we had plumbers in installing central heating they found that the wall which they planned to put the boiler on is hardly attached to the rest of the house and you could wobble it a few cm with a little push, then that afternoon we had a ceiling collapse and water running running down the wall.

The thing I hate most about having people in is finding they've started doing something differently to how you expected and asking them to redo it differently. I guess if you have some practice at managing building works you know what needs defined at the start and it's a case of working to that all the way through

oh yeah, coming back from work to find they've put a radiator in a completely different place from where it was on the plans and you can no longer put your couch where you want it... cool cool, lovely stuff

(they moved it in the end, at least)

my 40+ year old boiler isn't going to last forever.

Anecdotal, but the guy who fixed our boiler was adamant that old boilers were much better quality than modern ones. So it might not be a good idea to remove it until its beyond repair.

When we had plumbers in installing central heating they found that the wall which they planned to put the boiler on is hardly attached to the rest of the house and you could wobble it a few cm with a little push, then that afternoon we had a ceiling collapse and water running running down the wall.

Sounds mildly stressful

"M8, your house is fucked, and we've double fucked it by making it wet. Where's that tea?"

Apparently burning toast is worse than a log burner... Read it online somewhere so definitely true.

We were also told that by a plumber who could have sold us a new boiler. Apparently part of the problem with modern boilers is the control boards fail and they don't make spares for long.

Didn’t really think about the bath screen situation in my bathroom. Figured I’d get something off the shelf and budgeted around £300.

Turns out that if you want a proper bath screen, £300 gets you fuck all. Had some quotes and all in the £1,500 mark.

Wtf

How much?

Shower curtains aren't pretty but also don't cost £1500

Anecdotal, but the guy who fixed our boiler was adamant that old boilers were much better quality than modern ones.

Define quality. Old boilers are far simpler in design because they weren't required / regulated to be mind bogglingly efficient and installable by a single human even if needed to be carried up four flights of stairs.

Do find it kinda unforgivable that appliance PCBs randomly die though.

I think mine cost 150 quid? Its just a sheet of glass and two hinges but I didn't want anything with any silver/black/brass trim.