Owning your own home

I’m Sydney just now. Property prices have gone up 25.6% in the last year. I didn’t even know that was possible.

Might be worth perusing more quotes for gas. Some fitters will insist on a scaffold some will be more creative.

Offer accepted (appreciate thats not a done deal)
Can’t decide what to call the refurb instagram account? @TMHbullshitBingo? @ModernistTickBox?

already have 2 Eames birds/ Cadovious wall unit/Johannes Andersen and Henning Kjærnulf coffee tables, no aesop soap or ‘that kettle’ though.
might have to pop round to @amey and borrow some props.

ModernistTickBox?

ModernistShitBox

might have to pop round to @amey and borrow some props.

Nothing but QuickStep office grade laminate here I am afraid

we have a winner.

6k, I’m not sure what you’ve been quoted for but that’s high. Electric will cost you a fortune to run, that would be a terrible swap from gas.

Just get gas while you still can. Compared to anything else it's cheap and efficient.
An electric boiler will bankrupt you, air source doesn't work in the winter, oil is very polluting and wood pellets are almost as bad.

We have an oil-fired boiler (no gas in our village) and the quote for replacing it with the only greener and more efficient alternative (wood pellets) was about 21,000€.

If you really want to go all electric, forget a CH boiler + rads and look at efficient things like IR heating panels.

at least £6,000+.

That is high. If you're Walthamstow / Chingford way, let me know and I'll hook you up with a legit legend. Only workman I've ever full throatedly recommended.

Where are you? I have mine replaced, given the cost it’s not worth converting right now (£2200 for new boiler & everything)

full throatedly

Blimey 😶

I glanced read that as

Only workman I've ever full throated

might need that number if we ever make it to E10 (fingers crossed!)

Can you message me their details? In E10 and our boiler is not going to last forever.

Any idea how I can repair this?
What's a good temporary fix? Thick plastic/perspex sheet behind it?

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Also failed miserably to replace a light fitting: The replacement trips the RCD (and lights for the whole house) no matter which combination of wiring I use.
It's got 3 separate light cables coming to it, I followed the wiring diagram but something's clearly wrong. A sparky's coming round in a couple of weeks and i'll get them to do it properly.
I'm worried it'll trip again in the meantime: Is there a way of isolating a single light fitting so it doesn't f-up the rest?

one of them will be a switch live -
If you don't need the light fitting, just get some wago connecters or choc connecters and cap it that way

Thanks - half the battle is finding out what these things are called!

Here's some terms

3 plate, loop in, loop out, switch line.

you can find diagrams that explain the wiring. It can be a lightbulb moment when you get it!

You've done exactly what I did (probably). I found going away, swearing at the sky, reading about common lighting wiring possibilities and drawing out the potential circuit diagrams helped. Having to go into the bedroom floorboards more times than planned did not.

I'll wait for the sparky but it bothers me why I've failed.

The diagram I was working from is similar to the one attached but with three separate cables/lines.
I couldn't work out which one was the switch line.
So I tried each live cable in the switch line bit and none worked without tripping.

Straight after I removed the old ceiling rose (and stupidly didn't take a note of what went where) I checked each live with one of those main tester screwdrivers.
One arced on the tip of it, melted the tip of the driver and tripped the RCD.
The light does still come on though.
Of course being an old house there's not enough length of wire to work with so I can't be sure everything is properly connected.

I guess you need a lot of patience to be a sparky...

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This one looks a bit simpler

Finally got a reasonable moving quote from a well reviewed company.

680 plus vat.

A lot of the other quotes were 1300 to 1500ish plus vat.

They say they intend to use a 7 ton lorry after having done a house survey. Sounds a bit light to me but I guess they are the experts and if they have underestimated then they will have to go and get another small truck on the day.

I'm only moving a mile up the road so I guess I could also leave a few boxes with neighbours for a couple of hours and they can come back and get them if needs be.

If they are pros I wouldn't worry, I had to do our survey on Zoom and they still got it bang on.

The guy said it's rare they get it wrong, as it messes the whole day up and everyone would be hating on them all day

House buying question for you guys
I'm thinking of putting an offer in on a relativly new build house... it was built when leaseholding the land was allowed.
There's 5 years left on a 10 year cycle (where I think the lease can be sold to other developers or ground rent can be doubled)
Buying the leasehold is 6k apparently

I think paying that 6k seems the most sensible thing to do, does anyone have any experience in doing so, are there hidden costs? Should I just walk away?
I'm going to put an offer in today with a reduced price stating all that. Any help?

Thanks