Owning your own home

@Howard mainly the second, house was completely renewed in 2018 and all seems done to a good standard (fingers crossed) only things I could spot are:
-leaning front 2 feet wall will or will just stay put and become endearing like Pizza tower.
-cracks on second storey balcony's floor would affect the structure, compromise water tightness and/or cause damp problems???

@NickCJ has that ever worked? My sellers are super greedy and stubborn, it seems only huge discovery will get us a discount...

@revenant. brilliant! will drop him a line. Many thanks!!

Plumber recommendation N1? Went to swap sower mixer tap and found the hot water tap is leaking. me playing with it has made it leak a bit more than it was.

If you aren't bothered about having a full written report I have just engaged Robert hopps from the hopps partnership to do a full survey on the place I'm buying.

Its cheap at 300 quid plus vat but it's only an oral survey. You do get sent pictures where necessary by email and he flys a drone over the house.

You then sit on the phone with him for 30 mins or so and he goes through what he found and you take a note. It's a very cost effective way of doing it.

Anti-guano gazebo in the space that will be my 20ft x 12ft workshop (alas not a perfect rectangle). Should have a door on it this year.

1 Attachment

me playing with it has made it leak a bit more than it was

This is how I do plumbing

This is how I do plumbing

Turns out it wasn't leaking. I'm just shit at tightening. Bought a basin wrench and PTFE tape. Jobs good. Now to reseal the tub and a we'll have a normal shower.

me playing with it has made it leak a bit more than it was.

Middle aged thread >>>>>>>>>

I have concrete floors throughout my flat which I actually quite like but the previous owner clearly lifted carpet/other flooring to reveal them and there are gaps under doors and some bits of skirting board.

I would quite like to keep the concrete floors but they are showing a bit of wear, has anyone had concrete floors laid/polished in their house or flat? And could they recommend someone to do it?

How can I repair this internal wall and make it straight enough to paint?
Ideally as cheap as poss.
Have removed old built in wardrobe and as expected some of the plaster has come off with it.
It has lining paper on it and if I remove more of the lining paper then more plaster will come off too.
Victorian house, walls dry but spongy/bouncy in areas behind the lining paper.
Don’t think glueing thin MDF or wood onto the current wall is an option,
Could nail it on?
Plasterboard?

2 Attachments

No tips for re-finishing other than slapping on a load of filler and skimming it (?), but I’ve had a bouncy bit of wall recently, and it’s due to the original earthen plaster losing its bond with/coming away from the bricks.
Photo is after purposefully starting to open things up.

Does it feel like the whole section is bouncing when you press it?

1 Attachment

It depends how confident you are in your DIY skills.

If it were my home I'd strip the lining paper off remove the problem plaster and re-skim the walls as it appears that the bonding coat is in decent condition.

If you aren't confident to skim or don't want the expense of getting a spread in it should be possible to get a decent finish with easifill (or whatever toupret product is the equivalent @Airhead will have to enlighten you there). The key to making that work would be to use a large plastering trowel to bridge between the 2 edges of the old plaster, if you don't have a trowel big enough a plasterers rule or darby could be used.

Anything other than this would be kicking a problem down the road.

Yeah pretty big sections!
The old wardrobe was nailed into the wall so it’s pretty strong.
Really don’t want to hack it all back to brick…
There’s no damp which is good.

We’ve got builders renovating our bathroom in the next week or 2 so they’ll be doing some plastering anyway.
Guess I could hack out the dodgy bits and they could plaster over it to save £££.
How do you remove the lining paper without taking off excess plaster? Soak with water or paint on PVA to dry it out and crack it off?

Score the paper (you can get special tools for this but the corner of a stripping knife is just as good) and then steam it off.

A wallpaper steamer is pretty cheap about £25 from Screwfix.

Anyone fancy this for £75?

Catch; collection only SE6

1 Attachment

tempting

Oh. I'll grab this if possible. Will fire a DM.

I'll take seconds please

Sold to Will provisionally, thank!

Nice chair and great price.

What is the @howard estimate for a full reno on this?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113240027#/?channel=RES_BUY

Depends what needs done and you do.

You’d blow 100 doing that easily and the rest I’d imagine

200k easy. New roof, walls, floors, windows, kitchen, a few bathrooms, pointing… even if you can see through the walls now you’d find new problems looking closely. It’s cool though, good proportions, nice square plan which avoids the classic Victorian dark middle of house.

Shitloads. And it doesn't actually look as big as you'd expect it to be so you'd probably end up knocking down walls.

If you could....I would seriously consider knocking it down and building something modern

Channelling my inner @amey but fuck me there is so little left of that worth keeping.