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Our heating engineer is a diamond, I am dreading him retiring.

Still trying to find a good roofer... :(

Roofers are universally grifters, as far as I can tell. I called one out because I thought I had an issue with water ingress on one side of the house. He glanced at it from the garden, made some generic "thinking" noises, then said I needed tiles replaced and maybe other work done, but he could start tomorrow for a mere £2000. Another said he could bang some tiles back into place because they were misaligned for £300.

The next guy I got for a quite said there's nothing wrong with the roof and it was an internal vent issue. He was right.

I've had nothing but problems with roofers in my house and flat. Luckily I've neve had any major problems that needed fixing, even if some of the roofers tried to make it seem like I did.

Yeah we have an awkward bit of roof where three slopes meet eachother, which has had persistent leaks in it since we moved in 10-12 years ago. (Bastard estate agents said it had been fixed, but that's another matter!)

Had must be 3 or 4 roofers on it now, seems each time a bit gets fixed another starts leaking. Got someone else coming today for an initial look at it, think the recommended fix (from previous guy, who is a one-man band and said it was a two-man job to sort out) is to strip off all the tiles in the area and re-line it. I imagine it'll be a couple of thousand... But if it means I can just stop thinking about my f'ing roof every time it rains it'll be worth it.

Slipspace wrote:
Roofers are universally grifters, as far as I can tell.

A point of cultural commonality.

Finding good contractors is something of an art. Word of mouth is paramount. Not sure if this translates, but another issue is that where you live matters in terms of what they charge. That's not true for all, but it is out there.

I've had terrible luck with housepainters, and instead of having a list of ones I like, I have a list of "never use gain." Same with roofers. I found a pair I do like, though, and that is a good thing (though hopefully I've just bought my last roof).

Painting walls? I assume you are painting over paint? Sugar soap it it to clean it, then depending on paint prime/undercoat, then 1-2 coats of your chosen colour. If the paint on there is curiously glossy after sugar soap Zinsser BIN appropriate can fixes that.

In general wood paints and similar need sanding, wall paints don't.

Yay! No more TV for me!

My TV died tonight as I was getting ready to watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people.

That sucks. We thought our TV had packed it in a few days ago. Turns out that the power cable had somehow managed to work loose. I mean, we've had it for almost 20 years, so we have definitely gotten a good chunk of use out of it, but getting a new one would be an annoying expense.

 Flinty wrote:
That sucks. We thought our TV had packed it in a few days ago. Turns out that the power cable had somehow managed to work loose. I mean, we've had it for almost 20 years, so we have definitely gotten a good chunk of use out of it, but getting a new one would be an annoying expense.

I've had mine for 8 months... 2 months past the extended warranty.

Argh.

Thankfully, relatively speaking; TVs are cheap now-a-days and easily replaced.

Indeed.

Weird to think that within my lifetime, renting your TV set was more common than owning one.

I think the only reason Mum and Dad didn’t rent one, is that Grandad got a free colour TV with a printing press, and that went to us,

Professional purchase, or communist agitator?

I remember in 1991 my parents being disappointed that they won the 2nd prize in a raffle. First prize was a tv, 2nd was a satellite disk and sky box. Back then no one else had one and it was only 4 extra channels (sky 1, movies, euro sport and sky sports if I remember correctly.) Obviously it wasn't long until they realised that they had gotten the better deal after all.

Hobby and Crafting room is now a usable space!

Fair amount of organisation needed, but I can now build my models in peace.

Congratulations! That great milestone. Me for example still vagabond on my own house migrating from room to room with hobby stuff

Think I’m gonna put my foot massager in there.

Foot rub whilst building and painting? Can you conceive of a greater decadence?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Think I’m gonna put my foot massager in there.

Foot rub whilst building and painting? Can you conceive of a greater decadence?

Yeah, since vibrations in your feet help keep your hands steady?

Well, you can also drink something while getting your massage and painting...