From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

rtandon27

The cost of doors can be extorionate!  I wanted a cottage stable door for our back one, as the former residents of this house made off with the cat flap and left us with a gapping hole covered with make-due wood!  The one I was eyeing up was about 1500 before installation costs were factored in!  I ended up buying a 15 GBP replacement cat flap that can be permenantly locked shut & OH replaced it while I was at work!  It will do for now, and the heat that stays in the house rather than escaping is noticable!

Greying_Pilgrim

Reporting in with 'Gnomework' for Miss Vix's class 😉 

I plucked up the courage and have rung company No.2 for a windows quote.  Again they are a family run firm, been around in this locale for donkeys years.  Again, I have seen this firm doing work locally - I think I mentioned I'd seen them on here.  What is apparent is that it's been a fortnight, or a week's wait before the firm can come out to see you to quote (which means they're busy 👏), so I need to get my arriss into gear and get another couple of contenders booked in, otherwise it'll be Christmas before we've all the quotes.  

Thanks for the encouragement/kick up the bahookey, as I don't like doing this sort of thing, and will find everything and anything to procrastinate to avoid picking up the phone.  

However, whilst prices have risen, this is the first time we're trying to get something that is pretty uniform in construction (an A+ rated window should mean the same thing, where ever you source it), and the gap it's got to fit into is a conventional 'industry standard' opening, within an 'industry standard' constructed house.  So in some ways, there should be marginally less room for sucked through teeth, "weeeelllllllllll's".  I hope 🤞

rt I lived with a locked cat flap in the previous house for a good 10 years+ before I got the money to change the door (a horrid wooden thing that warped and stuck with the slightest change in the weather), so I feel your pain!

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

On a roll now, going for a gold star from Teacher.  Have booked firm number 3 - a smaller outfit, but owner operated and again, local.  They seem to have good reviews from the online review gatherers.  The owner does the quotes, so I feel slightly more comfortable with that set up.  I'm not too sure about firm No. 2 - there is a possibility for a sales team there, but we will see.  It's not a deal breaker, talking with a sales agent, it depends on how well they know their product/process at the end of the day.

Will have a look around to see if there is another company that I could contact for a quote.  I don't want gazillions, but we've had trades in the past where folk have come out, looked at the work, taken notes and you've never heard from them again, so worth perhaps having 3 + 1 in reserve?  

Greying X

Baileys_Babe

Well done GP on organising getting window quotes 👏

rtandon27

woohoo GP - Inertia in action!!!!

Cheery_Daff

Well done indeed,  you are an example to us all!

Greying_Pilgrim

Ha ha - you are kind Cheery, but i suspect there are a long line of MFW'rs who are far more on the ball than me in getting stuff done in terms of trades/renovation/construction.  Dearest redo, Watty, dfw123, ed, newgirly ... the list is endless, and I'm firmly at the bottom of the pile 😁

Anyhoo, fingers crossed that these 2 firms turn up as booked, and at least provide quotes.  I did ring a fourth firm this afternoon.  It was a leftfield, idea.  The firm are local-ish, but not in Greying Town, IYSWIM.  I called, and the phone rang for rather too long, and then it stopped - as though an answerphone was kicking in, but there was silence.  Now, I could have done an online contact form, but I'm thinking to myself, perhaps there's a hint there, and let it go.  I couldn't find much out about the firm online (I've known 'of' them for donkeys years), and of the reviews I could find, there was nothing beyond February 2024, and it seemed to be a few (positive) reviews, repeated multiple times (on a third party site, so not exactly the window firms fault), but I think I will let that one slide.  Although they do UPVC, I think they are more inclined to do wood frames, and orangeries, and fit out older properties/listed homes or barn conversions - they are probably a different focus to what we actually require here.

Funnily enough a window firm turned up to a house down the way this afternoon.  I would put it as a 'one man and a van' type outfit (nothing wrong with that, if the work is good).  They have been at the house multiple times in the past year.  I can't quite work out, if the household are having work done piecemeal, or perhaps around other construction work - I'm not 100% sure which house the van was at.  But it could also be that the guy is coming back to correct stuff.  Trouble is, I don't know the householders, or anyone (well) either side, so I can't make tentative enquiries.  I have already come across one local firm (been operating for years) that had mixed reviews, but the bad ones were pretty damming, so that's a hard no.  

LG got invited out on a playdate, so it's just 2 old codgers for tea.  I'm baking some potatoes and I'll decide whether to pair them with pizza from the freezer, or some sort of curry,  What a pity we haven't got something lurking in the freezer that LG isn't keen on.  Ah well, best laid plans.....

Greying X

Greying_Pilgrim

Tea done and dusted.  In the end I went with baked tatties (in the microwave) with the remnants of last night's pumpkin lentil stew.  Luckily, DH is pretty flexible about what he eats, as long as there is something to eat 😁  The tatties were from the MrL bag, and I can report that 'MP1' tatties are lovely.  They taste of tattie and in the microwave, floufed up lovely.   

I had thought there were a couple of fakey magnummies left in the freezer, but apparently I was wrong and DH & LG finished them off last week.  We'll perhaps have some yoghurt later when the traveller returns.  Both DH and I are silly sausages and miss LG like mad when they are out of the house without us.  

We're enjoying the WRWC tho.  What a good game.  Canada have started well, but I can't see New Zealand simply rolling over and letting the lead grow.  

DH is off out to work tomorrow morning 🙄It will depend on the weather as to whether LG and I tat about, possibly into Greying Town, or whether we stay home.  There is plenty to do, whatever the weather.  LG was moaning that homework expectations have ramped up, and co-incidently, a couple of parents were discussing workloads/testing and homework in the queue today.  I'm pretty sure the school has slid down the rankings and the new-ish broom at the helm doesn't much like it.  There has been no accounting for the changing social and economic factors facing the families at the school, and the fact that simply shunting the workload onto the home 'after hours' is a recipe for disaster.  LG is already complaining of workloads (and they have justification), but I would just love to know (but would never be able to find out), what LG's peers are handing in, as completed homework.  For a wide-variety of reasons, there are children that will not be completing all the tasks set.  Why should LG have to do it, if others get away with doing nowt/little.  

Anyhoo, it's Friday night, and Canada have turned up to win.  

Ta for popping in.  Appreciated.

Greying X

rtandon27

Greying_Pilgrim said:

...Anyhoo, it's Friday night, and Canada have turned up to win...

...and then some!!!!!!!

...I don't usually watch sports but this is up there with a certain Olympic hockey match when lots of swearing could be heard and it was not OH - lol

Greying_Pilgrim

rt - the team's performance is all the more spiffy because they crowd-funded themselves to be able to give such a polished performance.  Whoever wins, this is a stunning game of rugger!

Greying X