Dakka Home Owners. Discussion and Tips.

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**kabaakaba**

By central you mean boiler in your house or central is connected to city network? Or you don't have citywise heating?

**Overread**

kabaakaba wrote:
By central you mean boiler in your house or central is connected to city network? Or you don't have citywise heating?

"central heating" in the UK means a heating system central to the house itself; not city wide.
So there will be a boiler fuelled typically by oil if you're in the countryside/smaller villages or gas if you're in the towns.
That then runs heated water around the house to radiators.

**kabaakaba**

Oh, lol, we call centrally heating only city/village wide heating.
Is gas there is cheaper then wood or coal?

**Overread**

Gas is cheaper than wood and coal plus you typically only see the latter in countryside areas where there's no gas and only oil heating.

I believe there's likely also a bunch of restrictions/limits/discouragements to coal/wood in urban areas. Most urban homes are simply not built with anywhere to burn solid fuels. Even in the countryside its woodburners for the most part today instead of open fires (heck we changed our open fire to a woodburner as they are both safer and more efficient)

**Lathe Biosas**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Lathe Biosas wrote:
Do you have any fluffballs in your new home?

Not yet, but I will be getting a dog eventually.

Do you have a fenced in yard... or the bane of greyhounds: stairs?

(I miss having a four legged companion... but I don't have the space, and I'm not going to put a dog through apartment life.)

**Nevelon**

If you don’t have space for a dog, cats are there for you.

Even if you do have space, cats are still there. And the better option.

(He says, with a cat purring in his lap)

**Jammer87**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Fair points

On a slight downer? Had a wobble last Friday night. I’m a creature of habit and whilst not a slave to it, I prefer to have a routine.

With the house move, having to go into the office for work, issues with deliveries and the lads in sorting the roof? I hadn’t had a chance to have my home to myself since I first moved in.

It felt like I was just house sitting, something I did for a period around 15 years ago when I was homeless. New environment, lots of things going on. Just made me want to go “home”.

I’m struggling to describe it, but it was just too much variation on routine in too short a space of time. And having to get up three hours early for my commute, with no broadband for comfort watching? I was left wondering if I’d made the right decision.

I mean…I had, of course I had. I’ve bought a bloody house, cash down. If there’s a world where that’s an objectively bad idea it’s not a world I want to live in. But still the out of sorts feel persisted.

Feeling much more Me now. Got some of my woodcuts up, my delightful books are around 50% unpacked and shelved. The last two days I’ve been back to Working From Home. So it’s all settling down.

Still a bit to go with the unpacking and finding a home for my assorted bits and doodads and gubbins and thingies and wotsits and that. But on the right side of Temporary Discomfort Hill.

Yeah, moving into a new house is always rough for me. My job has me relocating every three years, and honestly it takes a good six months to a year before I feel properly "settled in." It’s not just unpacking boxes—it’s the routine of learning where things go, how the space flows, and building that familiarity over time. Once everything has its place and I’m used to the little quirks of the house, that’s when it finally starts feeling like home. Until then, it always feels a bit like I’m just visiting.

**Lathe Biosas**

Nevelon wrote:
If you don’t have space for a dog, cats are there for you.

Even if you do have space, cats are still there. And the better option.

(He says, with a cat purring in his lap)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-First-Edition-Cats-2229528

I looked up this "cat." Very interesting article.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Nevelon wrote:
If you don’t have space for a dog, cats are there for you.

Even if you do have space, cats are still there. And the better option.

(He says, with a cat purring in his lap)

Now against kitties, but Dogs are my strong preference. Got a fenced in rear garden, and a dedicated dog park just a few hundred metres up the road. So, as someone that works from home, Pooch won’t want for exercise in the week. Weekend? We go down to the beach for general derping.

**Nevelon**

Lathe Biosas wrote:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Encyclopaedia-Britannica-First-Edition-Cats-2229528

I looked up this "cat." Very interesting article.

That article was written by a dog person.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Now against kitties, but Dogs are my strong preference. Got a fenced in rear garden, and a dedicated dog park just a few hundred metres up the road. So, as someone that works from home, Pooch won’t want for exercise in the week. Weekend? We go down to the beach for general derping.

I’ve nothing against dogs, they are just not a match for me. No shade against those who do like them, but I’m firmly in the feline camp. Or that’s what The Fuzzy Mistress has told me to say.

Regardless, there is a four legged friend out there for everyone, and they make the world a better place. Stop by your local shelter and share your home with a loving fuzzy soul.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

I can get my kitty fix at a friends house. Harry is my special cuddle buddy, and has absolutely zero feline grace.

The other three will claims cuddles as and when they want them.

**Lathe Biosas**

I was looking up something about cats being evil, and found that there is a Cat Festival in Ypres, Belgium called Kattenstoet...

Then I looked up the history of the holiday...

Let's just say it was a bad time for cats during the second week of Lent and move on.

So.... how big of a backyard do you have? Enough to have friends over for a holiday?

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Nah. It’s big enough for Doggo, and for light entertaining (summer barbecue type thing) but not for camping.

**kabaakaba**

It's kind of garden backyard? Or something like grassplot with barbeque zone?

**Lathe Biosas**

I have a hard time picturing normal homes in Scotland.

I can only envision Glasgow apartments and farms... and fog shrouded mountains filled with vile angry goats.

**Flinty**

The most prolific Scottish homes are probably the 1960s and 1970s council housing with varying colours of pebbledashing that were brought in as slum replacement. But none of that is relevant as MDG lives abut as far from Scotland as is possible, while still being on the mainland…

While goats are not a particular focus for farm animals here, if you can find the right farm goat cuddle sessions are remarkably relaxing. We take the kids (no pun intended) every year and the ickle babby horn jumpers are just so sweet.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

I hehppen to hlive in ha Hedwardian terraced hice.

Hand has I hown it, Hi Ham Middle Class, don’t Hyou Know.

I do need to introduce myself to my other immediate neighbour. An old girl, seems to have home help. So best to choose a day where I’m not my usual hairy scruffy self with tattoos on show,

**Commissar von Toussaint**

Overread wrote:
Gas is cheaper than wood and coal plus you typically only see the latter in countryside areas where there's no gas and only oil heating.

I believe there's likely also a bunch of restrictions/limits/discouragements to coal/wood in urban areas. Most urban homes are simply not built with anywhere to burn solid fuels. Even in the countryside its woodburners for the most part today instead of open fires (heck we changed our open fire to a woodburner as they are both safer and more efficient)

My previous house was built in 1917 (Sears Roebuck catalog house - they drop all all the materials and plans, you do the assembly). It had a coal chute, but was subsequently upgraded to oil, and then natural gas. One of my improvements was to extract the oil tank and sell it for scrap. I lived in a rental with two friends that had oil heat, the one responsible for monitoring it always let it run dry - typically in single-digit F temps. Frost on the interior of the windows was a rude awakening.

Moving into my current domicile was work, but actually a relief rather than stressful. We had seriously outgrown our old place. Imagine three daughters with one full bath! They all shared the same bedroom as well. Moving in was like the pause after the Armistice.

Something to keep in mind is that a house is never finished. Always something to fix/repair/replace so be sure to budget for it (or get warranties/service plans). I've spent the better part of this summer watching contractors roam around, replacing the roof, bits of siding, new gutters, fixing a short in the kitchen, replacing the icemaker in the fridge and now some painting (much of which I am doing myself, but for the big ladder stuff, I hired a pro).

You think "Ah, but next year we'll ralax." Nope. It never ends.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Just had a proper “it’s Sunday, stop being lazy and attend to those wee irritating jobs” clear out.

I do need to buy some screws and wall plugs so I can get me fancy artwork up. That’ll free up surface space. Also need to chase up the friend that’s having my chest freezer.

Finally I do need to phone an electrician to see about getting the wall lights up and power out to the shed. That will mean all my appliances in their proper homes, which neatly frees up a load of clutter.

Also made a start on my Jabba’s Palace Star Wars display.