It’s autumn and the night’s are drawing in, which means it’s the start of peak-season for people replacing and fixing radiators and investing money into their central heating system. We had a radiator fitted last week and I wanted to share a few tips for those who are buying radiators for themselves; as very few people actually know what they need.
Before you choose a radiator you need to consider these two important factors:
Other useful things to know:
I can’t believe it’s September! How time has flown. Very little has happened in the last few months, but it was a hive of activity the Monday before last.
On Monday 22nd we had a lady from ‘Hi-tech Drains’ around to find out where the drains in our back garden lead to and two fireplace men who are fitting the fireplace in the bedroom and readying the living room for a log burner. We had the electrician around again the week before to tidy up a few loose ends. Now that the bedroom fireplace is fitted, we are ready for the plasterer again and hopefully to start some decorating in the living room too.
Hi Tech Drains
The drains are the most important as they will affect where the extension can be built. We actually have two manholes in our garden but some of our drains actually use another which we share with a neighbour. The engineer noted how strange this was, but it ‘s only to be expected with all of the other weird and wonderful quirks of the house.
The main drain that we are interested in goes into the neighbours garden which is where it becomes property of Southwest Water because it’s then shared. If it’s shared then there are a lot of rules about building near it but we are hoping that if we divert the water from that particular manhole into another one instead then technically it isn’t used by us and then it’s the neighbour’s private drains and pipes which means that we should be able to build where we like. We will have to check that this is the case though as it’s bound to be more complicated than it really needs to be.
We had a surveyor around last week who took some detailed measurements of both the house and the markings left by the drain engineer, which the architect will use to make some detailed drawings for us, then we can discuss what we can do in regards to the drains.
The fireplaces is something that has been needed for about a year, particularly downstairs where the hole in the wall is a constant eyesore and something that makes me really want the work to progress because i was getting very fed up of looking at it everyday. Though I have been told that I’m not allowed a log burner this year because there are more pressing jobs that we wouldn’t be able to afford if we had one put in 🙁
Paul wasn’t having much luck pulling the tree stump out
We’ve done some work in the garden, too. A lot of work actually, but you wouldn’t know it just by looking. We’ve had countless trips to the dump – which luckily isn’t far from our house. We’ve fully removed the back fence now and waged war upon the ivy which had taken over everything; it’s slowly diminishing but isn’t dead yet. We’ve added a few square meters onto our garden just by removing the back fence and cutting down the bushes. I did an absolutely sterling job of trimming the hedges that were hanging over from the neighbour’s garden (if I do say so myself). I’ve encountered so many spiders that I can now confidently kill any that are smaller than my little finger nail.
The face of victory
Paul has successfully managed to pull out the stump of the tree that we cut down. It was tough work which involved digging down a foot or so and cutting through the roots before finally prying it out of the ground. We also have a series of concrete posts in our garden which we intend to take out – all still strung with thick wire rope and a mesh fence – it’s a pain because the ivy is all entwined and it’s hard work trying to remove it. We’ve used copious amounts of weedkiller and yet it hasn’t really had an impact on it.
The garden is no longer recognisable as the garden that it once was. Not that it looks good at the moment, just bigger. I do have a few ideas for the garden but it’ll be a long time before they’re acted upon.
A rough idea of the future of our garden
Within the house, we have made the grim discovery that we have metal door frames throughout. For those of you who are unaware of metal door frames – count yourselves lucky. Initially it didn’t mean much to me, I just thought we could take them off and replace them with wooden ones. Metal door frames, however, actually support the structure and if you remove them you need to put in lintels above your door. In all, the easiest thing to do is to keep them and when we swap around the doors someone will need to use an angle grinder to cut out new holes for the hinges. Hopefully we can discuss that with a builder when they come over next.
In other news, our court case is ongoing and long winded – as we knew it would be. We are determined though to get our hard-earned money back into our possession in order to continue planning our extension. Bad times, my friend, bad times 🙁
After talks with some professionals, it seems that our builders have also under-quoted us which means that the extension is going to be put on hold for a bit longer, we will continue to work towards it but it won’t actually be started for a while now. At least we know now, rather than when it’s too late.
Early this morning it was announced that we were no longer to remain a part of the EU. I am both shocked and disappointed in this result as we don’t know how it’s going to affect us in the long run, both with the house and it’s mortgage and with everything else really. I know a lot of other people are in the same scenario as us, but we’re just going to have to carry on for now and try and prepare for whatever may come.
Anyway, back to the usual stuff I blog about:
There are no major changes around the house since my last update. We did pull down half of the fence at the back of our garden, which took longer than expected seeing as there are three layers of it. There’s some fence, then some more bits of fence then a big layer of chipboard. And that doesn’t include the sheer bulk of ivy and other plants growing up, around and through it, which make it even more difficult to pull apart. The wall behind is thankfully solid, but it will need some rendering. But that can only happen when we’ve pulled the rest down, remove the concrete posts and fill in the ditch!
My new plants have been looking good. I bought two foxgloves and two lupins earlier this year when B&Q were having a sale. To be honest I didn’t expect them to look that good. I’m actually pretty rubbish at keeping plants alive so the fact they’ve even flowered has surprised me.
Only one lupin flowered because the other one was ravaged by slugs, but it’s hanging onto life by a few little leaves. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago and this particular flower is now made up of seed pods, but he pink and white one beside it is still in its prime.
This was how it looked a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to get a lot more pictures but I had poorly eyes and wasn’t able to do it myself.
B&Q lied to me about my foxgloves. I chose a white one and a purple-y coloured one, because I was aiming for lots of purples and whites in the front garden but I probably won’t do that now as both turned out pink. I don’t really like pink that much, I don’t hate the flowers, I’m just a bit disappointed. Maybe I’ll just try and make everything really colourful instead. I have lots of wildflower seeds I have yet to plant.
One of my foxgloves fell over a couple of days ago. I don’t know why. Maybe it was a bit windy.
When I walk/ cycle to work, I have to go past this beautiful white foxglove. It makes me jealous because it always looks so perfect. Though it’s all closed up again now and my flowers are still going.
We’ve had a quote come through from a building company for some works to the house. It was a bit of a shock though. So we want to source some of our own materials, because I can get discounts, so we have discussed that with them and they’ve said it was fine. So fingers crossed for getting more work done.
The main two jobs were the fireplaces. We’re planning on having a log burner downstairs in the living room and a small decorative fireplace in the bedroom upstairs. We went down to Plymouth last weekend for Fathers day (which we had to celebrate on Saturday) and Paul and I visited a nice little reclamation shop that had a real treasure trove of old items in there, including loads of cast iron fireplaces. We bought a second hand, replica Victorian fireplace for £175 which was a lot cheaper than the ones we’d been looking at on eBay and online. So this one is for the bedroom.
For the living room fireplace, what we are going to try and do is get it all sorted apart from the actual log burner (which is the expensive part). We want to leave that until later so we can spread the cost a bit.
As for the other building company (the one who offered us a refund)? They haven’t refunded us yet and it doesn’t look as though they intend to. After many warnings, we are now taking them to small claims court. I’m fairly confident in taking this route, especially as the company have even previously admitted in earlier emails that they owe us money but have never paid it to us. My mum and the solicitors she works for have been a great help during this process. So fingers crossed that it all gets sorted nice and quickly and we can move on from the whole sordid thing.