Owning your own home

We have an alarm fitted (came with our new build flat), does provide some reassurance (ground floor zone 2 flat) it's not monitored so a dummy box would do the trick I think.

When I had some sensors changed the firm that did it told me never to tell your insurer you have one, as if you did get broken into and had forgotten or not bothered to set it that insurers would use that as a way of not paying out.

Jon hit the nail on the head you’ll need a couple people to do what you want and the price to move your meter depending where too you might die a shock they charge like the light bridge.

The deal is that they fit the system for £50 (down from ~£400), and then we pay a £40/month monitoring fee (I think 18month contract).

Given the price of the monitoring I bet a lot of people get that installation deal.

I got a Yale wireless one for about £150. It's not amazing but it's nice and easy to install with no wires, has a box with a flashing light (and you can buy extras for a reasonable price) and makes a noise and notifies you when people break in.

I have simplisafe with monitoring (about £20 a month, unsure how long I'll keep that). All it's done so far is mean a very polite person called me at 2am when my smoke alarm fell off the ceiling. To be honest, I was kinda grateful as it explained what the random noise in the middle of the night was and meant I didn't have to get out of bed and deal with the scary thing. Although, not being able to remember the verbal password meant the call properly woke me up.

Well first water fitter visited and seemed quite unwilling to fleece me. Getting another round for 2nd opinions this afternoon but it looks like I'll be having a little exploratory dig at the weekend to see if I can easily find the T junction. As something's obviously been done post-the floor being installed. Seems odd given the timeline of owners in my head but they may have connected up the old supply to new prior to converting the downstairs bathroom into a kitchen and making it a dead end.

Edit: and another theory thrown in to the mix, that the pipe is looping back from the back of the house. Indeed there is a pipe disappearing in to the slab behind the washing machine, no idea whether it's flowing in our out as yet, will get my detective hat on tonight.

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Dent removal: we bought a second hand french door fridge freezer. Underestimated that they're heavy, super heavy. Queue slow motion slipping whilst loading it into a van and resulting dent in the side of the door. Any tips on removing/improving?

Google for an automotive paintless dent removal person in your area, they'll charge you around £70 to get that out.

edit: found answer by googling...

Can anyone recommend a good structural surveyor? The property is in Loughton, so North East London or Essex preferred, but I guess they travel.

Christ you weren't wrong £700 to move the gas pipe 2" to the left. I think it can stay where it is.

Told ya, they can charge what they like too because they are the only ones allowed to do it.

Waiting on full report back but wondered if anyone had had similar - surveyor mentioned that the roof has at some point had new heavier tiles to replace the old slate tiles and that it needs some additional support. It's a victorian terrace house.

Where I'm currently living (also victorian terrace but renting) I can see that the majority of houses have switched from slate to concrete tiles so must be quite common? Annoying though!

Was a full survey - structurally all OK

Ha, no, basically, unless you are living in a remote Essex mansion with 100k + worth of jewlery.
Self instal a smart system.

Yeah pretty common, you'll see that on a lot of Victorian properties. Concrete significantly heavier and cheaper than slate or clay. I've never heard of it causing a roof to collapse but I suppose it could cause damage of there's other issues. Wet or dry rot probably from leaks or lack of ventilation probably a greater concern.

switched from slate to concrete tiles

Coz concrete is cheaper

It's also ugly

Check the 'snug' and bedroom.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/78714408#/

lol

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Description says "high ceilings" :/

Edit, beaten to it by @6pt

I'm amazed they managed to take 13 pictures at different angles in what amounts to a single room with a large shelf attached to the ceiling.

Absolute bargain.

The fact the surveyor didn't see any structural issues gives me hope that we could potentially ignore it. When you say a 'pretty simple job' how simple are we talking and £££

Is it even legal to call that bookshelf a ‘bedroom’?

Surely it doesn’t meet any kind of building regs, or human ergonomic standards?

reminds me of this

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Presumably the spiral staircase is so that you can get to the bathroom without crawling through the 'snug' and walking past the living room window.

Love that they’ve put a mirror in the snug. Perfect place to have a quick glance at your outfit before heading out

To resume EA chat from a few days back... Had values taken by Peddler and KFH, based SE London. Others seemed less responsive etc so these are all we've spoken to so far...

Pedder are higher fees but hopefully we can negotiate that down. Other than fees, any strong views between them? I saw someone said KFH were crap + wondered in what sense / how bad can they be?

We kind of want to move fast as have seen somewhere we like today but can't do anything til we're 'proceedable'