Second Time Lucky

amycool

The big challenge today will be to see how long I can last before I put the heating on! 13 degrees in here at the moment but I have lots of cleaning to do and I always end up boiling, so I'll at least wait until after I've done that.

Meter Readings

Gas - 5 units
Electric - 13 units
Water - 1 unit

Quite pleased with those! Haven't bothered with the dehumidifier this week but I have been occasionally hairdrying the wet wood. I've also had a few propagators on a few days.

Talking of which, I was rather excited to discover that my attempts to grow haven't been a complete failure! I have a pea emerging and now a spinach! Suddenly there's a responsibility to keep these 2 seedlings alive!

Today is the first of 5 days off work so I've made a list. Having family to stay at the weekend so top of the list is cleaning, but I'd also like to make 4 more tree decorations.

Checked Santander for these new cashback offers and only had one! For Waitrose of all places. I wouldn't even know where to find a Waitrose!!

missile

Good luck to you

amycool

Another spinach seedling has appeared! Far too excited by this.

Had family round all weekend so lots of gas and water used but worth every penny! Used a cake mix I was given as a gift and went on some long walks so otherwise not at all expensive.

One of my cashback claims has appeared, but £10 less than expected so that's ongoing.

OH away with work for a few days so hoping to live cheaply whilst he's away.

I totally failed to make 4 decorations but I did make 1. A felt christmas tree with buttons for baubles and stitched all the way round. I bought the felt years ago to add pictures to a baby blanket and the buttons were a gift last christmas. Something similar was selling for £5 online! My Mum bought me a bell decoration too so I'm slowly getting there.

Somebody I know has just taken on a 33 year mortgage and I'm so glad mine will hopefully be paid off in 10. That feeling of needing to work as much as possible just to get by is horrible and I can't wait to reach a point where we will have spare money each month plus the security of a house.

amycool

Meter Readings

Water - 1 unit
Electric - 24 units
Gas - 13 units

:eek:

The electric must have been doing a few washes and tumble dries at the weekend and lots of hoovering as we've had a few guests this week! Also using the drill to remove the brick from the chimney.
The gas is also surprisingly high but I guess we had a small person staying so I had the house much warmer than I'm used to.

Wet patch news
The saga continues. I have now removed a brick near the bottom of the wall (where it is dry), which should provide enough ventilation to dry the chimney out, if indeed this is the source of the dampness. It's so baffling as the water pattern on one of the beams appears to come from nowhere.
Plan E (or F, or G?) is to remove the cupboard (didn't want to keep it anyway) and the ceiling above it, as that is also wet.
I'm fairly sure we will then be out of ideas so I've been researching damp specialists and prices start at £200.

Only vaguely MSE related...I'm getting a bit fat. I don't feel any bigger, but I guess all the layers hides a lot! My work trousers, which were very loose, are now very tight. Really not the best time of year to try to lose weight but I can't afford to buy new clothes so I have little choice! Maybe this will be the incentive I need to start running again.

Veg growing news

It's all happening now in my conservatory. From dismay at no seedlings, I now have 2 peas and 6 spinach! I might try the lettuce again this weekend but in coir and perlite instead of compost. Not sure what happened to the broad beans. Maybe I planted too deep.

amycool

A very busy day yesterday so I can hardly move today!

Did some exercise.
Started to fill one of the raised beds (still need to buy more compost).
Made the unwanted pears into a puree to go with yoghurt.
Ate healthily!

Wet Patch News

Yet more investigations and I ended up in the loft, covered in insulation and dust. Found a sheet of plastic left in the eaves (really can't be helping the ventilation) and removed that. Could see some signs of water along the tops of a few rafters but the damp meter showed it was only slightly damper than the surrounding beams. Still no clear way that one spot could have got wet.

Money news

Annoyingly, when I try to check the credit card amount, it says "unavailable" so I have no idea where we're up to. Very annoying.

Still not received any cashback and £70 is still showing as £60.

Next week is the double up nectar thing at Saino's so I'm planning to use the whole £20 and go up to £40 so we can buy a new phone (I miss so many calls as only have one upstairs) and maybe a filter coffee machine for OH. I barely notice my nectar points as we only get them on petrol, but I may as well use them.

I need to start seriously thinking about the learning to drive fund now. My Mum is paying for the provisional license for me for my birthday (in Jan) and in my own personal savings I have £240 so far. Weirdly, a lot of websites don't have their prices anymore so you have to give them all of your details just for a quote. It seems that a non-discounted rate is about £20-£25 an hour. Once I've done enough lessons that I'm fairly confident, the plan is to get learner driver insurance (12 weeks is £215) and practice with my husband. I know I'll have to use some of the joint savings, but I think it's worth it.

in_need_of_direction

Only if your relationship is strong enough!

amycool

You're not the first to say that! He has so far taught me to swim and ride a bike, but I can imagine this will take far longer and be more stressful. He's far more patient than me. There's no way it could work the other way round!

amycool

£1.16 has just been requested from TCB. I always used to choose amazon vouchers as you got more, but then I'd end up buying things from there just for the sake of it.

Meter readings

Electric - 27
Gas - 7
Water - 1

That pesky dehumidifier. It's on right now, which brings us to the horrifically boring tale of the...

Damp patch news

After my uncomfortable trip to the loft to investigate, today I took some photos inside the chimney and in the loft.

I then did yet more research on line and came to a few possible conclusions:
a) there are hygroscopic salts in the chimney, which are seeping through the bricks and drawing water in from the atmosphere. Inside the chimney it's covered in sparkly bits, which I must assume are salts and not diamonds. If only.
b) Now we have a ruddy great hole in the ceiling, the damp cold (but still warmer than the loft) air from the room is going up there and probably condensing, making the problem worse.
c) The wettest bit of wooden beam is sat on a piece of wood which forms a cupboard, which is turn is against the damp wall. The top of the cupboard is sodden (according to the damp meter). So possibly, rather than water leaking from the roof and tracking to this piece of wood (it's only wet in that one spot), it possibly seeping from the bricks, into the wood and up? Seems far-fetched but the room isn't used much and is north-facing so is often cold and humidity is often high in there.

From what I've read, one must remove the plaster (already removed most of it), let the bricks dry out, then treat the bricks with something that combats the effect of the salts. The problem is that the humidity outside is very high, which means the humidity inside is very high, and it's virtually impossible to dry out. My solution for today (which no doubt won't work) is to crank the heat up in that room whilst putting the dehumidifier on full. It started off at 72% (horrendous, I know) and an hour later it's now at 55%. I'm wondering whether it makes sense to somehow cover up the hole. I'll keep checking it and hopefully it'll keep going down. My other thought is whether it would be possible to clean out the chimney and take out the metal flue, that no doubt encourages condensation. There's no access to the bottom of the chimney as an extension has enclosed it so I doubt there would be a way to clean it without dropping everything to the ground and causing another problem downstairs.

Bah. Stupid house.


In getting fatter news, I've cut down on the chocolate/biscuits/cake this week and done 3 hours of vigorous exercise (running and weights) plus walked to and from work. I have put half a pound on. :rotfl:I'm going to tell myself it's pure muscle.

amycool

Just been playing around with the RBS mortgage overpayment calculator and it's more accurate for lump sum payments. I had been guessing how my overpayments were affecting my end date but I now know I was right! I'm currently 4 months ahead of schedule, which is pretty nice to know as we're only 3 months in. I'm hoping to overpay £600 at the end of the month (assuming nothing unexpected happens) but then I saw that if I go up to £700 it'll knock 2 months off! I shall try to refrain. So many big expenses for the next year so I also need to keep adding to the house and driving fund.

The surprise might be that my OH's travel pass ran out this month so it's feasible that he'll have his last travel loan repayment plus his petrol and single train fare costs. The yearly pass works out cheaper on paper, but once you take off holidays and working from home sometimes, it would have cost about the same to get single fares. It also leaves more flexibility so he can drive in if he has meetings.

The heating has been on in the damp room all day (really rubbish radiator in there - it took until about 4pm to reach 18 degrees!) plus the dehumidifer and I'm trying not to worry about the cost of it. We really need to leave it on 24hrs a day if we're going to dry out the bricks but neither of us can stand the noise from the dehumidifier or the heating. It's nice to see the damp readings coming down a bit but the sludgy wet soot inside is still wet. I think the metal tube flue will need to come out too as the cold metal must lead to condensation.

Anyway, must try not to get too anxious about it all. It's only money...:)

amycool

It has been a spendy weekend.

We were both sick of not having a bedside cabinet and I haven't managed to find my perfect cabinets for a price we can afford second-hand, so I gave in and bought some boring ones from the same place we got the TV stand. £41 each for real wood isn't bad, but they're quite basic. I guess in the future we might find something nicer and then we can give ours to charity.

Then we went to Dunelm for storage and I somehow managed to pick up 2 big plastic containers that had a crack in. Didn't realise until we got home and it would cost more in petrol to go and back and exchange them. Oh well, they still make the cupboards look a lot tidier. Also bought pegs, a cutlery tray, a picture frame and a few other bits and bobs.

Very unlike me, I then suggested we get a drink and share a cake! Nearly £6! I felt we needed it though as we've been a bit stressed lately and it was nice to sit and relax.

I've e-mailed 3 independent damp surveyors today to see how much it will cost to find a solution to our problem. The heating and dehumidifier have been on for days now and it certainly looks dryer, but the readings are still much higher than normal and the soot inside still feels very wet. I stuck the hoover up there today! Managed to remove some of it from the lower part but couldn't reach all the way up. It makes me feel quite anxious and annoyed that the money could have been overpaying, but I can't change the situation. Hoping to get some replies today.

I feel underprepared for Christmas! I have precisely nothing to put in our advent calendar and I still haven't finished buying all of the presents (got 98% of the way and then just sort of stopped!). This time last year we had a whole box of goodies.

Anyway, let's make a plan:

• Collect prescription
• Pick up menus for work christmas meal
• Ironing
• Edit OH's work
• Write some Christmas Cards
• Finish shopping