Ferdinand

Also worth a note that this is the last day of Amazon Prime Day. https://www.amazon.co.uk/primeday Reductions tend to be around 20-30%.

Metaphorical crap, one hopes.

I'm struggling with the Yank term "French Door Refrigerators". Which are the ones we call "American Fridges".

The change of energy scale is the big difference. A good fridge or freezer is now something like a C. When I looked the only things that made an A were wine coolers. For a comparison perhaps look at annual power consumption.

Why not run the warmed water down the slide if not too hot? Kids will love it, and you will get a bit of extra sun exposure.

Interesting. Octopus has now allowed me to reduce my monthly payment from £111 to £65, it having been £91 previously up until last month, and their recommendation "based on my usage" being £147, now reduced to £137. The only change I can see is that my account is now about £100 in credit, having been £14 in debit. Hmmm. The current forecast. Actual energy bills in the latest month were just over £40.

You need to reread the definition of "Party Wall". eg Para 1 here: https://www.gov.uk/party-walls-building-works From all the above, yours is *not* a party wall and N has no rights to attach to it, paint it, wee against it, or grow a plant supported by it. Technically such is criminal damage. Having said that, I have attached to others' walls in the past, and others have attached to mine. 8 times from 10 a modus vivendi which does not upset anyone works, but that is for you to decide. There are two possible conversations here: one to educate N as to the status of the wall, and the other as to what you will accept if anything. It will be perilous to let 2 occur without clarifying 1. But OTOH you could blow up your relationship with N over a minor matter. And you may not be able to see when he does something, or practicvally be able to stop him without going nuclear. As Deep Thought said in H2G2: Tricky. What N SHOULD do is to put up a fence or framework on his land next to your wall, and attach his paraphernalia to *that*.

And knicks.

Better to fart at you, my precious.

I have discovered that the doglet (gorgeous Blue Staffie) is currently staying with its Grandma. So Happy Days.

Yes. 'Tis fun.

I'm not sure if I would be encouraging you to go down this route, but have you considered asking the insurance company for a cash settlement at lower than the lowest quote, and you organising it? Or taking the 2** and selling the flat as reno after minimum work to stabilise / treat. I've done that once after a water leak many years ago. But my total claim was only about 10k. Ferdinand

It wasn't in that tone. And as a LL I would far rather over-pander to neighbours on small things rather than have them never talking to me, especially as it has just had an extended period of emptiness. Small 30ft long by 6m wide gardens. It turns out to be bellbind (hedge bindweed) - the one with white bell-flower. And it has swallowed a chunk of the garden including the laundry pole to the top in a few days, but should be conquerable with glyphosate and dog kept indoors or supervised for 24 to 48 hours. I had one neighbour for a T who used to put in a barking-dog complaint each year for about 4 years as a way of getting at the T and me. Council officer had to come round with a clipboard every time, as they had no vexatious-complainant para in their procedure. It drove T distraught. Nasty bullying individual, and in the end we had to go via Community Safety. Ferdinand

Staying slightly non-direct I note that: 1 - Is that not more than building a brand new one? 2 - The area has technically changed, since a conservatory is not part of the house aiui - Estate Agents would not include it in the liveable space, for example, normally. Hmmm. 3 - Is any of this related to flood protection measures that are expensive? 4 - Are you going to find yourself uninsurable? 5 - It is going to be tricky handling your bit and their bit, and how to separate them so that you are not on the hook for insurance company rates for your bit. F

Fortunately, it isn't. JpK I know and love. I'm going to pop over for a chat today to check what it actually is. I'm not posting a guess, because we'll spin off topic as per any day with 'd' in it 🙂 (said the culprit).

Not totally sure I am in the right section here, however... In a small garden (rental, empty for part of Covid), a neighbour phoned me to point out a persistent (will need to check name) weed which is coming into his back garden allegedly from mine. Since it was empty for 18 months, this is very possible. My garden mainly has weed membrane, so it may be shallow or at he edge - need to go and look today. Fair enough, so far - no problem dealing with the root cause on my side if that is the issue, and it is probably better if I do it rather than T. N is pleasant, if a touch overconcerned sometimes, and has lived in his house since 1971 when it was new. However, I will plan to use Glyphosate 360 if it is as claimed, and my (relatively new) tenant has a dog, which needs to be considered very carefully. The plan will likely be to install a temporary knocker-post and sheep-netting fence to screen off the bottom half of the small garden which I think needs treating, and I'd welcome any comments. How, long, for example, will I need to keep the area screened off? I have generally avoided weedkilling in areas where dogs have access, and I need to be safe. Would I be better to go for a different weedkiller? Dog and tenant are both very civilised, house is beautiful, and the dog is well-looked after during the day. Any advice is very welcome. Ferdinand

Looks interesting and wishing you atb. To me your solar shade overhangs are far too vestigial (1m approx?) to impact solar heating to any extent. The real problem with PHs is low sun in the shoulder months - autumn / spring. That, I think, requires a rethink. I'm planning an overheating prevention veranda, and I will be going out about 3-5m on the S side. I also have a bungalow with a 1m overhang over a full height window wall on the S side put in by my dad in 1970. That was 2g from the start, and the demands are now more stringent, due to 3g and airtightness. In simple terms, imo you roughly need the shadow line at whatever time of year to be outside the bottom of the window. Also, I thought para 79 was "open country", whereas that site seems to be in a village margin type built-up area with all those neighbours. How does that work? At this point I am not convinced by "Earth Energy Banks" - is this just a warmed over "Seasonal Heat Store", which were tried over 20 years and found to be unjustifiable in normal circumstances. Where's the robust science? To me - until I see some proof - it sounds like an expensive gimmick for the gulllibles. One issue with blinds is that may make the inside dark? Q to others - does this happen? F

Landmine?

I also use spelunking for rapidly scanning through a document - like going through screen by screen just pausing for half a second to recognise where in the document it is. It's like abseiling down a cave in jumps 🙂.

Octopussy is still saying I should be paying £147 per month (the algo has perhaps not recovered from the £700 it was overestimating me by in January, and I am only with them since last November), and whinges on the website when I try and take it down below £111. So I would need to email. My balance is still slightly negative, so I'll hang fire for a month. F

Incidentally, bringing my thread back to topic, I just had my partial June Energy Bill. This covers 30 May 2022 - 27th June 2022, ie 4 weeks or 28 days. 30 May 2022 -> 27 June 2022 Elec £ 32.06 85.0 kWh Gas £ 12.00 64.0 kWh Total £ 44.06 = £1.57 / day ___ These were the previous 2 monthly periods, and notes, to save anyone spelunking back through the thread: ___________________________ 24 Jan -> 30 March 2022 65 days Elec £ 114.06 489 kWh Gas £ 181.44 4170.4 kWh Total £ 295.50 = £4.55 / day ____________________________ 31 Mar - 30 May 2022 60 days Elec £ 46.27 77 kWh Gas £ 64.10 668.3 kWh Total £ 110.37 = £1.84 / day ____________________________ The notes are: 1 - GFCH was turned off about one week into April. So it looks like approx. 15% of gas is water heating / cooking. I have not done much optimising except for being careful. I still need to del-lichen my solar panels. 2 - I have no idea by electricity usage fell like that. I would have expected it to fall by 50-60% or a little more. Perhaps unusual solar patterns. 3 - We did have a notably cold spring and warm April-May iirc. 4 - This is for a 200 sqm house with one occupant working from home, with a big 10 kWp solar array but not optimised with a divert device. 5 - I'm keeping my payment at £91 per month for now, which looks about right. That payment was £74 before Avro Energy went bust. I put my monthly payment up to £111, but I'm tempted to put it back down to £91.

So it works from the inside out with toast !

Ho ho ho - the joys of landlording. I have a T who at the end of a tenancy has left the oven door handle removed from the oven, with no screws in sight to put it back on. Does anyone know what screws I am likely to need to reattach the thing? Some sort of machine screw? It is a modest Lamona (ie Howden's own brand). I have a query in with Autumn at my local Howdens, but I wondered if we had any BH geniuses. . Ferdinand

Purely on a comparison, to me that looks pricey. Should these not now be cheaper per kW? I paid £11,500 for 9.98 kWp and full solaredge for all panels in 2016. 35 panels. On FiT all admin handled. But it's a distant comparison.

The thing to watch in a bathroom is where you will have to drill your holes.