Owning your own home

tl;dr - pumps are for chumps, tanks are for champs

Unless you're Putin

Interesting...

Being duel fuel They are ideal for storing solar energy

Also interesting, I'd never thought of that. I was planning to get a megaflow here for future onsen 2.0 fun but this is all the more reason, especially as there's some community solar panel project thing a few streets away which is eventually supposed to be coming to our street.

Or the price drops had left them in negative equity so they couldn't remortgage. Happened to lots of people outside London.

For my money... a storage tank as high as possible with the mains cold water would be the way to go, with a power shower (heater) next to it. It's not going to feel like a fancy hotel (you typically want a negative head 3 bar pump for that)... but it will be warm, weak/adequate pressure, and will be good for 2-3 showers per day and the cost is reasonable.

That's pretty much what I got with a combi boiler and a normal shower in my loft.

A power shower will raise the pressure (like a pressure washer) but they can't increase the flowrate - remember pumps push water not pull it.
If you've got good cold water pressure coming into the house (and the combi boiler is the limiting factor with hot, for whatever reason), then they are probably a decent option - 1 bar = 10m elevation and system losses shouldn't be large due to (relatively) low flow rates.

Edit: FWIW, our main shower head is ~6m higher than the house main and with a 35Kw combi, we get a 'hotel quality' experience!

Yep, which is why I'm not a fan of them either!

Whether you've got good cold water pressure coming into the house often being the question of course. We had to put in a new pipe to the main at our old place to get that but it was totally worth it.

'hotel quality' experience

Boast post :P

My parents have fantastic water pressure at the cold tap and a prostate alarm dribble from the hit taps- and, I’m sure entirely coincidentally, a very old boiler.

Thinking about it they have an immersion tank in the airing cupboard as well, which leaves me a little puzzled at what’s doing what.

Presumably a traditional hot water cylinder with the pressure being provided by a cold water tank in the loft while the cold is direct from the mains.

Are prices going nuts at the moment? People round the corner bought for 700k in 2019, did a load of work, including a loft and rear extension, and are now asking for 1.2m

I thought the days of recouping double extension costs were long gone.

Victorian 4 (was 3) bed terrace, for context.

£700k in 2019 would be worth, say, £900k excluding works before any Kwarteng discount?

If they have done the full side return & loft job to a decent standard then they could be over £200k in the hole for costs. Add £100k for stamp duty on the way in, the place they had to rent during the building works and agency fees and £1.2 mm is the closest round number. Not a lot of profit in it at that level given the hassle.

As to whether it's worth that... I would have been surprised when rates were <2% and shocked now rates are >5%.

At risk of sounding obvious, I guess it depends on the quality of the works, as you mentioned, and crucially demand in the area. Property prices seem to be ruled for what people are willing to pay for. We recently refused to pay over 750k for a similar house after a survey showed some potentially serious humidity problems only to see it sold for o£800 6 months later… 🤔 knowing how stubborn sellers were, I bet the problems were still there 🤗

I dunno - all sounds a bit MASH SF Steel "Tracklocross".

what people are willing to pay for.

That's only true for cash buyers, in the case of a mortgage the bank decides.

Yep, sorry forgot to account for mortgage valuation. But there seems to be (or used to be before recent hikes) some wiggle room even within mortgage valuations. It would be good to know what their criteria are… in my limited experience structural surveys that include valuation are pretty similar to zoopla estimates and yet the house I mentioned above went for £35k extra in not particularly nice area and there is no potential for adding extra value or size as it has been extended to the max. with good quality materials and has a tiny garden (cat litter size). So again whatever floats people’s boats 🤯

😂

Yes. nods sagely

wut?

For Sale - MASH SF Steel "Tracklocross" no-expense-spared build

Ha! sick^rad fixeh

Shows how little time I spend in the cycling sections of the forum these days.

When I asked the bank about this unless you've increase the floor space then you wont move LTV necessarily.

Just depends what they say it worth at time of renewal

Maybe. Yes. Kinda.

Of course the quality of the renovation makes the house more valuable but no one knows the exact value of anything until someone stumps up and buys that thing. The house with the amazing kitchen might one day sell for less than the house with the shit kitchen another. Depends who is buying that day.

Mortgage company valuers and estate agents can fairly easily get within 5% or so on the type of house that’s regularly sold, but where it sits in that 5% is what the selling process decides. There are too many variables to be more accurate, even on a street of matching Victorian terraces every one has slight differences and if the last one that sold was two months ago maybe the market has risen or fallen since then.

Generally therefore a sale price will need to be >5% above what a mortgage valuer thinks is sensible for them to be confident it’s too dear and to down-value it.

Even if they do down-value a buyer borrowing, say, 50%/£200k of a £400k house might decide to ignore a 10%/£40k down valuation because they really want the house and don’t mind over paying, or they think the valuer is wrong. So long as earnings etc still stack up the lender just sees the £200k loan as
55% of £360k instead of 50% of £400k.

TLDR: value of a thing is solely determined by who is buying and who is selling in one specific instance. But no Mash is worth £3000.

Reading that ^ back I can see why people never talk to me at parties.

CLS-63 AMG Shooting brake, yes or no?

To live in?

Hah well it depends on the hotels you frequent!

I’m happy with a mains-fed combi for now but I think next time we need a boiler (10+ years I hope) we’ll investigate options that allow solar/hybrid approaches.