Owning your own home

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  • Possibly stupid question - in short succession over xmas we've had the lead nicked off our roof and our sewage pipe under the house was found to be displaced after a cctv survey. Can we claim off our home insurance for both without paying the excess twice?

  • I suspect not, as it would appear that the incidents are unrelated.

  • Ikea carcasses and custom doors


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  • That looks great, especially the island. How much more did the custom doors cost than the carcases?

  • We got our Howdens quote yesterday - more than double the DIY Kitchens basket. A couple of things in the quote that we expected to make Howdens more expensive ('floating' island, some open shelves made from end/filler panels that I can't make on the DIY Kitchens planner), but nothing that should have made it £31k v £16k - we're not really £40k kitchen people, and we can't even afford £40k.

    I've sent the DIY Kitchens quote to the Howdens guy in case they can price match/tell us what's missing from the DIY Kitchens order, but I doubt we'll get far - the builder says he's been told they can't shift on price at all because it's one of their 'paint to order' colours.

    The temerity to put "we won't be beaten on price" on the bottom of their very-beatable quote sheets.

  • I got a decent result on mine earlier in the week.

    Howdens came it at 25K. I used their blueprint to design a DIY Kitchens that came in at 9K. I then sent the same blueprint and the DIY price to Benchmarx. They just sent their design (which looks identical to Howdens) and is price matched to the 9K DIY kitchens.

    I had previously given Howdens the opportunity to price match DIY / give me their best price. They sent me an email outlining how superior the quality of their units was, told me they'd call me back on price but then didn't. I'm not going to do any more work to help them make the sale so likely will go for Benchmarx.

    I can only assume that Howdens just isn't meant to be used in the manner I'm trying to. Their price is similar (still more, but closer) to the cost of Benchmarx + fitting, so maybe if I'd have just approached the fitter and told him to design + buy + fit it would have been a more comfotable price.

    we're not really £40k kitchen people

    We thought the same with the howdens price, but if we were, I definitely wouldn't have got the kitchen from Howdens mid-range. It's just overpriced. We didn't get prices from Schmidt etc as we thought they'd be too much, but in our case I imagine they'd be close to that Howdens number.

  • We went to Magnet at first and were then amazed when it came out at £27k - that was so much more than we expected. I might go back to them as well now - along with DIY and Howdens, they're also a Which Best Buy.

  • We had a first quote from Wickes and it was like 14k excluding any building work, so we went with DIY Kitchens and got the units for 8 or 9k, DIY'd and went on holiday with the difference.


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  • That looks great - you're happy with the DIY Kitchens units and process?

  • I was! very similar situation as you - planning to do it in spring when/if bonus lands. let me know how you get on @DethBeard

  • Life hits hard eh. Remember the good old days when bonuses went on coke and hookers, not asbestos garage roof replacement.

  • They price matched when we got a cheaper quote for stuff from B&Q.

    So, "won't be beaten on price" remains true so far as I'm aware, assuming it's the equivalent items and they actually sell them.

  • Rookie. You get someone dodgy (or a bit of late night DIY) for the asbestos removal and spend the diff on coke and hookers.

  • Yeah very happy in general, I think it's been 2 years and not really had a problem.

    The real bits of joy I get from it are from planning and doing the under-cupboard sensor lighting from Ikea (they come on when you start walking down the hall to the kitchen), and planning in that the bin draw is where I do all my chopping so I can use a bench scraper to get stuff into the bin.

    Make sure you do your planning and thinking through of your workflow first otherwise you just get a storage and not something that works for you.

  • This is likely a niche suggestion, but you can buy used kitchens on ebay. I bought mine for £600, after spending around a month checking every few days for a local listing that had the correct units, doors & worktop configuration. Picked it up in 2 trips with a LWB van.
    I did then fit it myself with help from my da, but I would imagine any fitter would be happy to.

    £60o for a dozen base units including 2 corners, 6 wall units, a solid beech countertop, double sink, and 1m extractor fan.

  • Idk if it's ebays previous pricing structure, but I noticed near me there are lot less than there used to be, and many are very aspirationally priced for something people want you to uninstall and remove for them.

  • That is definitely a bad point of ebay, but easily remedied. I excluded any that needed uninstallation. If they're overpriced and won't accept an offer, move on.
    If you're not in a rush then the right one will pop up.

  • Hah, yeah - an ex of mine's parents found a kitchen on eBay for a quid that they used whilst theirs was being all rebuilt. Included a brand new oven - you dont see that all that often these days

    A quid to a seller is better than paying 250 quid for a skip I guess!

  • There are a couple of websites selling second hand kitchens too, including a couple of very fancy ones.

    We're very fussy and particular about what we're after unfortunately, though I've been sniffing out lots of bargain appliances.

  • Managed to get £10k off the Howdens quote by sending them the DIY Kitchens one. It would still be more - there's about £3k difference in the worktops - but some of that might be worth it for the things that we can't really replicate with a DIY Kitchen, and worktops I might be able to source elsewhere.

  • Well done! The fact that they can reduce their cost by 10k and presumably still make a profit boils my piss a little.

  • @Tenderloin where did you get your custom doors from?

  • Let me dig out the costings

  • Is this the right place to come to for house-buying advice. Planning on doing the family thing and looking to buy a house (the one I'm looking at was built circa 1985-2000 and has been owned by a landlord for the last three years), and having lived in flats all my life I have absolutely no idea what I'm meant to be looking out for when viewing etc. and trying to figure out what red flags could exist. Are there resources anyone could point me to to get started..? Hoping to at least get far enough to understand if it's worth getting a surveyor in.

  • There are as many red flags as there are houses for sale. So it's best to start by narrowing your criteria. What are you looking for in a house? What are your non-negotiables and what would be nice but not essential? Just start by viewing a bunch, if you are local to the area you want to live you can easily string together half a dozen viewings on a Saturday and that will really help you start to get a feel for what you are looking for.

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Owning your own home

Posted by Avatar for Hobo @Hobo

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