Owning your own home

Regardless of steels or whatever, once you're getting a structural engineer in, reinforcing joists, etc then the cost is starting to head up for a not that usable space.

If you want storage then just board it over, add a striplight and don't put anything too heavy up there.

then the cost is starting to head up for a not that usable space

I hear that. I guess I'll draw it up in a few years and see if it makes sense.

Crikey those tradesmen certainly aren't cutting corners fairplay to them

Just bought a door dust sheet thingy with zip from screwfix, ahead of hacking off some plaster in another room.

Dust just permeates everywhere without

All this loft talk made me go check out mine. It’s pretty big but the entire floor is covered in 5cm deep sawdust. Old school scandi insulation apparently.

Door refurb still continues, but in the meantime I have successfully hacked a nicer bell push for the wireless doorbell.

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That’s nice work.

But what do you use if you're not press?

There'll be a knocker

I used to deliver Sam Fox's newspaper. She didn't have a knocker, only a bell. I did see her gold discs one morning though.

It looks like we're finally buying somewhere but it'll stretch our budget to the max and there's a fair amount that needs doing to the house.
My wife has been busy thinking up how to spend what little extra we'll have on making the house look nice and liveable (which is good) but she's happily ignoring the pressing remedial issues.
They are:
Guttering replacement/repair
Repointing (wrong type was used and some has blown)
Interior lime re-plastering (again wrong type was used)
Cellar has large cracks that need helical stitching and proper re-rendering
The first three are connected in that the guttering has been leaking, leading to wet exterior walls and one interior wall.

I'm thinking I could get away with delaying the cellar repairs for a while and prioritising the guttering, then repointing and interior repairs?

Any recommendations for guttering in SE London (will post on trades thread too)?

Anyone on here who is with or has feedback on Churchill Home Plus insurance? Underwritten by U K Insurance Limited.

Interior lime re-plastering

How pressing is this? Lime work is pricey and it could be that sorting out your guttering stops any penetrating damp.

Well it's holding up but you can see the plaster's blown away from the inside of the wall.
I think the guttering and re-pointing will sort the damp so perhaps it's the bit that can wait.
Was pondering doing it myself but it's in the living room and I'm not sure I fancy looking at my poor plastering efforts every night...

You'd need to sort the damp and let it dry for a few months anyway, otherwise you're nice new plastering would be for naught.

radon isn't something to be concerned about is it? Our local survey brought it up but assume it's just based on the uk radon map

(moving somewhere light yellow) https://www.ukradon.org/information/ukmaps

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@TW Ta - surveyor said he thought it was dry when he saw it but it's rained a fair bit recently.

Nah.

We live in a high radon area, had to put a radon thing in the floor when we renovated, but if we weren’t doing any work we wouldn’t have had to do anything.

Best camera to place on outside of house to be able to monitor car parked on street outside - approx distance 20m. Ideally able to be installed by a dummy (me)

Door refurb work is still ongoing. I naively thought they'd be here for a couple of days. But they are super meticulous and it's likely going to be finished this Saturday. Hoping the time taken pays off in the finish. Really taking their time to sand, fill, sand, fill, sand and fill again. Security/laminate panes are going in today.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/19/climate-crisis-to-put-millions-of-british-homes-at-risk-of-subsiding

Been mulling this over a lot recently. How long will it be before having a house underpinned is seen as a good and sensible upgrade vs. you should avoid this property?

same! I think we will see 'out of the box' design solution for this soon and approved suppliers/fitters list. There must be some other place where this would have happened.

Where my Wife's Dad lives they have hurricanes and flooding. Every time a house is wrecked it gets put on stilts with much deeper foundations. It's just what needs to be done.

I'm sure in the UK, it'll be "ok, you're doing a renovation, you need to underpin the house as part of that "

what are the approx costs for underpinning a victorian 3 bed? and how disruptive is it?

I got quotes for the non-invasive injection stuff and it was £8k but it fucks your insurance premiums and reduces the resale value of your house so the real cost is circa £50k

😳

Given tories obsession with helping out people who dont need help like middle class home owners and that they will hate if house values go down. I am sure there will be a state subsidized solution.