lnr | House stuff (Reply)

Sometimes owning a house is a series of annoyances.

The wires from the satellite dish started leaking rain water into the back of the freesat box. One of the connectors on the box was fried by this. Thankfully it seems the other is OK. The company that installed our dish had since gone bust. Mike managed to find someone to come and do a quote and then fix it on the same day though, and he fixed a drainpipe that had come detached from the guttering while he was up there, so that was good. New LNB (the received bit on the dish), new wires, and now we have one into the freesat box for recording things, and the other into the telly, which also has a freesat tuner - so we can still watch one channel and record another if we want. Phew. That was the minor one.

Two of our windows have blown their seals, and need replacement double glazing units. I got some quotes, after faffing taking measurements and photos. It was more money than I'd hoped, but someone has come and done the precise measurements and has manufactured the new units, and will come and install them in the existing frames on the 10th of October. I shall work from home. That's a fairly minor one too, but it'll be good to tick it off. (Though annoyingly one of them has since dried up all the condensation inside the pane and looks fine, so I'm second guessing myself, but it really *did* have some, and better to get it fixed now before it gets cold).

The third issue is more annoying: a damp bit on Matthew's bedroom wall. This turned out to be because of cracks in the tiles and grout on the shower wall on the other side, letting water through the wall. The solid blocks were saturated, and the tiles starting to lift, and the plaster has slightly blown on Matthew's side, hence the starting to crack and show little damp bits. It turns out that getting this fixed involves not one but two separate items with the insurance. One to trace the leak and dry the wall, and a second to come and repair and redecorate once it's all dry. A total of £500 excess. We've had two weeks of a noisy fan and dehumidifier, and the first company has declared the solid wall dry, and the plaster on Matthew's side dry enough that when they remove it they'll be able to replaster the wall. They've taken meter readings, so we can get a refund for the electricity used by the machines in the process (about 600 watts an hour for 12 to 16 hours a day). Sadly the process has resulted in a couple of chips in the bath enamel that weren't there before, and a couple of marks on the carpet from the feet of the fan, which I *really* hope come off, because the carpet was only new last year! The surveyor for the repair/redecorating is coming tomorrow, and Mike will have to supervise, because I'm busy with job interviews at work. (Not for me, for a support technician - I'm just doing the informal interviews). It may be about a month before they can actually get someone to come and do the work, but we decided we couldn't face the faff of trying to get our own contractors to quote to do it, and went with the insurers ones. The insurers have been really helpful throughout: *if* you phone them up. They are completely hopeless when it comes to email though - supposedly they'll reply in 48 hours, but they mostly seem to do so by *ringing me* which is not the point of email. And not generally withing 48 hours, only if I also leave a "note" on their "portal" which won't let me login using Firefox and has files I get a 500 error if I try to download. Unimpressed. But at least it's all covered. Probably. And will all get done. Eventually. And is "only" £500 and not a small fortune.

Phew, if you read all that I'm impressed!