Simple living in the country - back to basics

themadvix

Thanks for the warning about house insurance - I'd not really considered that it had gone up, despite knowing that car insurance will (not going to affect me as don't plan on renewing car insurance).

beanielou

Jeez. That’s a big increase. 

Lots of people won’t be able to afford to pay for that. 

teapot2

Wow thats a ridiculous increase on your home insurance, presumably you've not made a claim which seems to trigger increases?  Mine went up in August [not by nearly as much though] so I rang them and had a chat and they knocked a bit off the premium.  

listoflists

Weirdly our house insurance has gone down by about £40 to under £200 so I’ve bitten their hand off before they change their mind… I can’t see any changes in coverage so 🤷‍♀️  Insurance is just bewildering. 

Cheery_Daff

teapot2 said:

Wow thats a ridiculous increase on your home insurance, presumably you've not made a claim which seems to trigger increases?  Mine went up in August [not by nearly as much though] so I rang them and had a chat and they knocked a bit off the premium.  

Nope, no claims, and there's not been any flooding or anything in the area. I certainly won't be paying it - will get on the case with comparison sites and see what I can knock off. 

listoflists said:

Weirdly our house insurance has gone down by about £40 to under £200 so I’ve bitten their hand off before they change their mind… I can’t see any changes in coverage so 🤷‍♀️  Insurance is just bewildering. 

Certainly is! How very odd.

Strangely enough I had a conversation with a friend about insurance for older houses - theirs is about 1860 and they were struggling to get something under £600. I'm actually not sure how old ours is. When we were buying it, I got it into my head that it was 1890, same as our old house - I'm SURE that was written somewhere, although I now have no idea where and haven't gone back to look. Originally there was a house here 500 years ago, but it definitely wasn't this one 😂 And some bits of ours were added in the 1970s, and the 90s, so who knows. I've been using 1890 for insurance purposes, because that's what I thought it was, but maybe I should dig a bit deeper 🙄

Anyway. Cafe breakfast had, milk bought, but then we came straight home because Mr Cheery is feeling proper rough and has gone back to bed 🙄 I'm not currently planning to go out again - will save errands for tomorrow. Started doing job stuff in the cafe so I'll make a cuppa and carry that on. 

redofromstart

Actually age may be the problem here - the date on the front is 18something (that's when it was converted - the original bits are much older) but I have always used that date for the insurance. New quotes are insisting on million pound plus rebuild costs which is also a massive increase.

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, I confess I didn't even read any further to see whether anything else had changed. Will do before I do comparisons though. 

joedenise

I managed to halve our house insurance using a comparison site.  Our usual insurer wanted £360 but changed to another company for £180.  Only difference was rebuilding cost is now £500,000 which would be plenty for our semi detached bungalow rather than £1m which is a ridiculous amount anyway!

Cheery_Daff

That's useful to know, thank you! 

I am on a heating investigation mission 🙄 The heating has been on with the thermostat to 18 degrees all day, yet the thermostat only says 11 degrees, and the greenhouse thermometer has been on the kitchen table, and hasn't got above 12 degrees 🙄

This has been going on for a while... It's not a warm house at the best of times, but usually the thermostat does actually get up to the temperature we've set it for! 

I've repressurised the boiler, turned the radiator temp dial on the boiler to max (at this point the max appears to be 48 degrees, which doesn't sound very 'max' to me). I think the whole house needs rebalancing, but even the hottest 2 radiators nearest the boiler aren't getting as hot as they used to.

Anyway, investigations will continue until the plumber returns from Mexico 😂 And I may get round to rebalancing, although I may not because it's a pain, and I don't think that's the underlying issue.

In the meantime, I have fixed another problem - one of the living room radiators has NEVER worked since we moved in. We asked the original (useless) plumber to have a look,  he said 'it must just not be connected to the system' and we left it at that, because the other radiator worked, and this is the warmest room in the house anyway.

Now though, my quest for warmth has been renewed, so I took to YouTube, and armed with a bit of 3 in 1 oil and a spanner, have managed to introduce warmth into this radiator for the first time in almost 6 years!!

Clearly that's not fixed whatever the underlying issue is, but having a second source of warmth in the living room is excellent, I am delighted 😁 Especially given the mould I found down the back of the chaise earlier 🙄

badmemory

Re the insurance.  I suspect the house insurance may be connected to the age of the property as mine with the same provider actually came down £5 even though I am on a 3 year fix.  My car insurance however doubled.   Age change from 76 to 77 so unlikely to be that, no accidents or incidents.

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