Ferdinand

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.

Agree - looks like agood product, especially with the perma-trade-discounts at Wickes. Personally, I would not go for the curved bar corners other than in a bathroom. I like Croydex as a brand.

I have not met separate chiller units for ufh.

It's that time again. 🙂

Don't tell his missus that !

We had a few conversations about it several years ago on BH. In answer to your q - I don't know. But it may be that they would send you a 500mm square sample for yo u to try, perhaps, or come and fit one? So you can see if the internal temp of the glass is cooler after application. Somewhere there is a (c) Jeremy Harris thread about it, which I cannot find. He had a piccie of some test patches he did on his porch window. Here is a quote from another thread: We had about 12m² of external heat reflecting film applied two or three years ago, at a cost of about £100/m². It was a mix of Solargard and 3M Prestige. It works very well at reducing solar gain, and made a significant difference to our need for summer cooling. When I was looking at my south facing bay windows, replacing the dg units in the main part of the window (which covers approx 80%) with solar control ones was surprisingly reasonable (but that does not help you): Interesting looking at my potential need to sort out my south facing traditional bay windows, since mum has moved her bedroom downstairs and the rooms were running up to 35C when I measured it late August. The other one is my office. Expecting a sudden demand next summer. The glass is 2G from about 12 years ago, and to replace 10 off of 450x900 units (ie the main windows not the opening toplights) with new ones with an anti-solar-gain outside pane would cost about £600 fitted, which might be a cost-effective solution given the extra lifetime over a solar film. Surprised at the relatively lowish price. And here is an example of the type of "all in one box" aircon I was talking about above: https://www.sunbeltsales.co.uk/olimpia-splendid-unico-air-8sf-18kw-all-in-one-air-conditioning-unit-copy Various products are around, but you need to look carefully.

@Adsibob A note that relying on the decrement delay works only as long as it takes the heat pulse to soak through, then you need a cooling down period of some sort to let the heat back out again via whatever method. Another tool you have could be light absorbent films if there are windows which are particularly a problem - with those you do not loose the visibility / light. Perhaps look at that big skylight or S facing or E facing windows? For air cooling units, there are products that work with both parts inside and have 2 pipes going outside. I am not sure what they are called. Someone else will remember, but i have been away from renovations for a year or two. All it needs is one hole in the wall to take all the connections in one place. I have an overheating problem on my S side, and I am eventually planning a veranda.

General tip for getting grab handles from disabled suppliers who have raised their design game. I've been buying grab handles to make stairs and bathroom for comfortable for an elderly tenant. I looked into this in a lot of detail when I did a downstairs bathroom for my mum several years ago, when I found the best route to things that worked but did not look institutional was careful selection from Screwfix. A key decision is stainless steel or plastic or stainless steel with a grip sleeve in potentially wet areas. Mira also do nice ones, which cost an arm and a leg (£50-150). I now see that the specialist suppliers for disabled / elderly have raised their design game and are worth a look. And also that Screwfix etc have a smaller range of relatively inexpensive ones in stock. Here are a couple that I am just ordering - both around £20-30. https://www.completecareshop.co.uk/bathroom-aids/grab-rails/stainless-steel-grab-rails/spa-stainless-steel-grab-rail-curved?sku=P01341 https://www.completecareshop.co.uk/bathroom-aids/grab-rails/stainless-steel-grab-rails/spa-stainless-steel-grab-rail-straight?sku=P01316 https://www.completecareshop.co.uk/bathroom-aids/grab-rails/bathroom-grab-rails/circular-stainless-steel-grab-rail-with-soap-dish?sku=M66388 The other key point with anything like this is to have 60-75mm of screw in the solid wall eg the brick. You never know when a 120kg large bloke is going to need to grab it whilst falling. Ferdinand

Appliances Direct have a quantity (10) of refurbished Liebherr large (390l, 1.8m high) fridges reduced from ~£1075 to ~£750. These are in A2 condition, which means possible scratches and scuffs - so think carefully. But fantastic brand, and well worth a look. Estimated energy usage is 75kWh per annum, so could also save you a chunk of electricity bill. They are stainless steel finish, so you also gain an excuse to buy baby oil. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/a2%2fkef4330/liebherr-a2kef4330--freestanding-fridge Ferdinand

For fridges the estimated power consumption is part of the published technical information. And as they run 24x7 it should be a reliable estimate. I don't think you will find an A-rated fridge (wine cooles only afaics). The scales have been redefined to (I think) get rid of A++++ and similar? An old A is a new D. But scooting over to Appliances Direct, and looking at a D rated 390l fridge and E rated 230l vertical freezer, I get energy usages of 78 kWh and 154kWh per annum. That fridge is an improvement over my 6-7 year oldie, and the freezer is a small improvement. (Both Appliacecs Direct and Currys have energy rating in their range of filters.) These are the not altogether cheap models (£1100- and £1000- 🙂 ) - Liebherr. https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/kef4330/liebherr-kef4330-freestanding-fridge https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/gn3735/liebherr-gn3735-comfort-freestanding-freezer On your 32kWh per week = 1650 kWh per annum, your extra usage is 1400 kWh per annum, which at 30p per unit is £465 potenital saving per annum. That will cover in short order your extra costs for a top end fridge and freezer over slumming it with a Bosch or Samsung, even if optimistic) ! But I note that Appliances Direct have a number of refurbed big Liebherr fridges at £750 here (30% off): https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/a2%2fkef4330/liebherr-a2kef4330--freestanding-fridge So I'd recommend a look at that, or the full price version. I got a Liebharr ex-showroom model Fridge-Freezer combo, and I would now happily pay the full price if it ever needs replacing. Worth their weight in bubbles. I'd say it might be time for a new fridge and freezer. Ferdinand

Find a past rental advert if he rents them out, and ask the lettings agent.

Hah. Octopus proposed yesterday that I increase my payment to £147 per month on the numbers posted above, but TBF I have only been withy them since last autumn and they previously overestimated my Elec usage by 100%. And that is still in the system. F ---------------------- We regularly review your Octopus account to help you manage your payments, keep your account balance at a good level and spread the costs of your energy use across the year. As you probably know, energy prices have risen rapidly over the last 12 months. We're spending around £150 million to keep prices as low as possible for customers, but unfortunately your current monthly payment amount probably won't cover your future energy costs. First of all, let me say: If you're having difficulty paying, please let us know. Our team are here to help. We've found most people prefer a steady monthly payment for their energy costs, with an adjustment here or there to account for increases or decreases in the amount or price of energy they're using. We recommend a monthly payment of £147.23, to smooth your future energy costs.