Questions Thread

[Parafox]

We have an issue with the cat having pissed on our living room carpet some time ago. We used the usual methods and products to clean up but the smell persists and we're now at the point of contemplating a new carpet!

 

Have any other cat owners had this issue and how did you get rid of the odour?

[Facecloth]

10 hours ago, Parafox said:

We have an issue with the cat having pissed on our living room carpet some time ago. We used the usual methods and products to clean up but the smell persists and we're now at the point of contemplating a new carpet!

 

Have any other cat owners had this issue and how did you get rid of the odour?

This stuff if you haven't already tried it. It's always worked for me.

[FoyleFox]

Has anyone else lost wifi? Ours went about 30 minutes ago. Sky have a nationwide outage but suggestions on twitter that's it's affecting lots of providers. 

[Facecloth]

7 hours ago, FoyleFox said:

Has anyone else lost wifi? Ours went about 30 minutes ago. Sky have a nationwide outage but suggestions on twitter that's it's affecting lots of providers. 

I'm on EE and everything is OK so far.

[Tommy G]

Where is the best place to go on a Thursday in Birmingham? At an event tonight at the Grand hotel, it will finish 11 ish - black tie job, where is best afterwards? 

[SeCrEt FoX]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

Where is the best place to go on a Thursday in Birmingham? At an event tonight at the Grand hotel, it will finish 11 ish - black tie job, where is best afterwards? 

Not sure where in Birmingham it is but you could try here 

[Bordersfox]

We have moved into a house with solar panels, they are ones where the roof space is rented for 25 years by the company that owns the panels.  We get immediate, day usage, they get any stored energy to sell to the grid. 

 

Shite arrangement for many reasons, but we loved the house and it's in an area very few properties become available, so tough sh1t.

 

However, I trust the company that owns the panels about as far as I can spit.  Anyone know how you can monitor the savings your solar panels provide you with this sort of system, can you get something fitted retrospectively for example?  Anyone have experience of these sort of rented panels in that regard? 

 

It's a bigger house that we moved from and I know energy costs have gone up but I'm not convinced it's making a jot of difference to our electricity bills.  

[String fellow]

7 hours ago, Bordersfox said:

We have moved into a house with solar panels, they are ones where the roof space is rented for 25 years by the company that owns the panels.  We get immediate, day usage, they get any stored energy to sell to the grid. 

 

Shite arrangement for many reasons, but we loved the house and it's in an area very few properties become available, so tough sh1t.

 

However, I trust the company that owns the panels about as far as I can spit.  Anyone know how you can monitor the savings your solar panels provide you with this sort of system, can you get something fitted retrospectively for example?  Anyone have experience of these sort of rented panels in that regard? 

 

It's a bigger house that we moved from and I know energy costs have gone up but I'm not convinced it's making a jot of difference to our electricity bills.  

It's a tricky one. Maybe you could switch off the invertor's dc input or its ac ouput and use electricity only from the grid for a month to see how it impacts the bill. However, if the equipment is owned by the company, even that may be impossible, both from a technical and legal standpoint. For what it's worth, if my roof space were locked into a 25yr lease with a solar power company which wasn't entirely trustworthy, I'd be looking at the small print to see if there were any ways to terminate it prematurely, even if it were expensive to do so. There are also conveyancing solicitors who specialise in this type of thing. Another complication could arise if the company itself disappeared within the next 25yrs, and that's another reason why I'd try to extricate myself from the arrangement.    

[Parafox]

8 hours ago, Bordersfox said:

We have moved into a house with solar panels, they are ones where the roof space is rented for 25 years by the company that owns the panels.  We get immediate, day usage, they get any stored energy to sell to the grid. 

 

Shite arrangement for many reasons, but we loved the house and it's in an area very few properties become available, so tough sh1t.

 

However, I trust the company that owns the panels about as far as I can spit.  Anyone know how you can monitor the savings your solar panels provide you with this sort of system, can you get something fitted retrospectively for example?  Anyone have experience of these sort of rented panels in that regard? 

 

It's a bigger house that we moved from and I know energy costs have gone up but I'm not convinced it's making a jot of difference to our electricity bills.  

 

We have solar panels from that like you, provide instant usage and any excess is sold back under the feed in tariff.

 

I have tried to find out how much we use and save and there seems to be no way of knowing. There's no meter recording usage against storage and when I contacted the company to find out how to determine the figures they said the couldn't provide the individual information. And yet they were able to email me a while back to say that our panels weren't producing the expected feed in. They sent an engineer out and he discovered that the electrical exchange unit (or some similar device) wasn't working and he replaced it.

 

How would they know the panels weren't producing yet weren't able to tell me what we'd used and how much had been paid in to the tariff?

 

There seems to be a benefit in so far as our electricity bills have been lower since they were installed but there seems to be no way of accurately determining the savings other than comparing bills from before and after installation but that's a task in itself.

 

The company said that we would have regular maintenance and cleaning of the panels to ensure maximum efficiency. 

 

Apart from the engineer's visit, we have heard nothing for the 8 years we've had them. 

Edited 28 September 2023 by Parafox

[Bordersfox]

45 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

We have solar panels from that like you, provide instant usage and any excess is sold back under the feed in tariff.

 

I have tried to find out how much we use and save and there seems to be no way of knowing. There's no meter recording usage against storage and when I contacted the company to find out how to determine the figures they said the couldn't provide the individual information. And yet they were able to email me a while back to say that our panels weren't producing the expected feed in. They sent an engineer out and he discovered that the electrical exchange unit (or some similar device) wasn't working and he replaced it.

 

How would they know the panels weren't producing yet weren't able to tell me what we'd used and how much had been paid in to the tariff?

 

There seems to be a benefit in so far as our electricity bills have been lower since they were installed but there seems to be no way of accurately determining the savings other than comparing bills from before and after installation but that's a task in itself.

 

The company said that we would have regular maintenance and cleaning of the panels to ensure maximum efficiency. 

 

Apart from the engineer's visit, we have heard nothing for the 8 years we've had them. 

Thanks mate that's really useful, saves me faffing around trying to sort something which is basically not sortable.  Is yours with Shade Greener?

 

So basically, I'll know they aren't working when they want to come and look at them 😂.  

 

The previous owners said they found it reduced their bills but obviously I have nowt to compare it to.  I know from the house purchase they are an absolutely useless bunch of imbeciles generally as we needed to get a deed of variation to the lease to make it Council of Mortgage Lenders compliant.  Took them an age, their solicitor was shambolic and I ended up basically doing her job for her.  The lease itself is very badly drafted as well.  

 

But we took a view as we wanted the house.

 

Will just have to suck it up and assume it's making some difference! 

[Parafox]

54 minutes ago, Bordersfox said:

Thanks mate that's really useful, saves me faffing around trying to sort something which is basically not sortable.  Is yours with Shade Greener?

 

So basically, I'll know they aren't working when they want to come and look at them 😂.  

 

The previous owners said they found it reduced their bills but obviously I have nowt to compare it to.  I know from the house purchase they are an absolutely useless bunch of imbeciles generally as we needed to get a deed of variation to the lease to make it Council of Mortgage Lenders compliant.  Took them an age, their solicitor was shambolic and I ended up basically doing her job for her.  The lease itself is very badly drafted as well.  

 

But we took a view as we wanted the house.

 

Will just have to suck it up and assume it's making some difference! 

 

Yes, Shade Greener. I'd forgotten as I have heard F all from them for years.

 

Also it seems that, when it comes to selling your house, these feed in solar panels can be a real sticking point as they are not owned by the home owner.

 

I have heard of cases where the buyer has asked for them to be removed. And that comes at the sellers expense.

 

It will make a difference but it's impossible to find out what that difference is.

Edited 28 September 2023 by Parafox

[Bordersfox]

23 minutes ago, Parafox said:

 

Yes, Shade Greener. I'd forgotten as I have heard F all from them for years.

 

Also it seems that, when it comes to selling your house, these feed in solar panels can be a real sticking point as they are not owned by the home owner.

 

I have heard of cases where the buyer has asked for them to be removed. And that comes at the sellers expense.

 

It will make a difference but it's impossible to find out what that difference is.

Yeah they're not ideal but they're perfectly acceptable to most lenders.

 

They can't be removed, not under the lease.  So you'd have to make a settlement with Shade Greener, if they were open to that.  

 

However, obviously the lease is running down all of the time, once there's only a few years left on it I doubt many buyers will care.

 

At the end of the lease you do own the panels and equipment.  

[Bordersfox]

@Parafox this just popped up on my phone.  They're listening to us I tell ya.  What I'm most concerned about is what about my recent activity has suggested to them I'm a 90 year old women...

[MPH]

So my question is about mobile phones.

 

we use them all the time. For everything. For calling, for emails, for photos, video messaging, an alarm, a calendar, ect.

 

 

so my question is this.. they are such a massive huge part of our every day life, why is it that they are never in our dreams? I not one single time remember dreaming about having a mobile in my hand or seeing  someone holding a mobile phone… so why is that?

[Bellend Sebastian]

Anyone on here do/know about groundwork?

 

Got a driveway of 45 ish sq metres that needs doing. Seeing wildly varying costs per metre on the old internet for the different types, so not got a clue which options I can afford, if I can afford any of them.

 

Probably go for resin or block if the budget will stretch. Anyone got any idea what the cost per metre is round these parts (Leicester)?

[Chelmofox]

5 hours ago, MPH said:

So my question is about mobile phones.

 

we use them all the time. For everything. For calling, for emails, for photos, video messaging, an alarm, a calendar, ect.

 

 

so my question is this.. they are such a massive huge part of our every day life, why is it that they are never in our dreams? I not one single time remember dreaming about having a mobile in my hand or seeing  someone holding a mobile phone… so why is that?

I think you have triggered in me thoughts about things i have never dreamed of. 

 

Headphones, Kebabs, Cats Eyes, Ballpoint pens, Golf, Pine Needles, USB Sticks, Satsumas

 

The list is almost endless.

 

But now I am genuinely doubting what i am dreaming about it. You've sent me into a spin.

[FoyleFox]

11 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Anyone on here do/know about groundwork?

 

Got a driveway of 45 ish sq metres that needs doing. Seeing wildly varying costs per metre on the old internet for the different types, so not got a clue which options I can afford, if I can afford any of them.

 

Probably go for resin or block if the budget will stretch. Anyone got any idea what the cost per metre is round these parts (Leicester)?

We had quotes for ours a couple of months ago. For block or tarmac with block edges. Our quotes did include some landscaping i.e. creating 3 new large flowerbeds and replacing 2 steps. 

The prices ranged from £130 to £180m²

You'll pay a lot more for resin. 

 

Edited to add. Work should start on Tuesday. I'll let you have the details, if we're happy and assuming you're Leicester based. 

Edited 30 September 2023 by FoyleFox

[MPH]

36 minutes ago, Chelmofox said:

I think you have triggered in me thoughts about things i have never dreamed of. 

 

Headphones, Kebabs, Cats Eyes, Ballpoint pens, Golf, Pine Needles, USB Sticks, Satsumas

 

The list is almost endless.

 

But now I am genuinely doubting what i am dreaming about it. You've sent me into a spin.

 

im going to try very hard to dream of mobile phones tonight!

 

[Bellend Sebastian]

27 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

We had quotes for ours a couple of months ago. For block or tarmac with block edges. Our quotes did include some landscaping i.e. creating 3 new large flowerbeds and replacing 2 steps. 

The prices ranged from £130 to £180m²

You'll pay a lot more for resin. 

 

Edited to add. Work should start on Tuesday. I'll let you have the details, if we're happy and assuming your Leicester based. 

Nice one, thanks.

 

That's a lot more than the online guides suggested, but as my folks were quoted similar for a cash job I thought they were on the optimistic side.

 

I'm thinking block now, if the budget will stretch to it. I think the resin ones look great but I'm a bit worried about what you do if they get messed up e.g. by driving my ridiculously heavy electric car onto it repeatedly

[FoyleFox]

9 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Nice one, thanks.

 

That's a lot more than the online guides suggested, but as my folks were quoted similar for a cash job I thought they were on the optimistic side.

 

I'm thinking block now, if the budget will stretch to it. I think the resin ones look great but I'm a bit worried about what you do if they get messed up e.g. by driving my ridiculously heavy electric car onto it repeatedly

I don't think the online guide prices have been updated for a while. We had a similar project at the old house about 8 years ago and, if I recall the costs were about £80m². That was just tarmac and block edges. As with everything recently, costs have escalated. We asked about resin for that and the costs were at least double then! 

 

I've just divided our overall quote by the m². If it was just for an actual drive and no other groundwork I'd hope the cost would be a bit less for you. We must have about £1k in there just for new top soil! And meters of edging kerbs for said flowerbeds. We're literally ripping up the whole of the frontage of the house, the whole area is currently an awful gravel thing and starting again. 

[Sly]

13 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Anyone on here do/know about groundwork?

 

Got a driveway of 45 ish sq metres that needs doing. Seeing wildly varying costs per metre on the old internet for the different types, so not got a clue which options I can afford, if I can afford any of them.

 

Probably go for resin or block if the budget will stretch. Anyone got any idea what the cost per metre is round these parts (Leicester)?

Have a word with Allroads +44 1530 242284

 

They’re a LCFC community parter. Tell them you want that special discount! 

[Chelmofox]

12 hours ago, MPH said:

 

im going to try very hard to dream of mobile phones tonight!

 

I tried. Ended up dreaming about Maya Jama again.

[Bellend Sebastian]

1 hour ago, Sly said:

Have a word with Allroads +44 1530 242284

 

They’re a LCFC community parter. Tell them you want that special discount! 

Amazing! I'll give anything a go!

[FoyleFox]

@Bellend Sebastian I asked our chap for a rough cost, 45sqm of block paving. £6-7K depending on blocks chosen etc. I was going to ask if you'd considered tarmac as our price per sqm is less than that, but I think our cost is reduced as we're having about 100+sqm of it, and it costs less in bulk.

[Bellend Sebastian]

1 hour ago, FoyleFox said:

@Bellend Sebastian I asked our chap for a rough cost, 45sqm of block paving. £6-7K depending on blocks chosen etc. I was going to ask if you'd considered tarmac as our price per sqm is less than that, but I think our cost is reduced as we're having about 100+sqm of it, and it costs less in bulk.

That's very kind of you to go to that trouble, thank you.

 

I was sort of fearing it would be that much but that doesn't make it a no-goer. It's a lot of cash isn't it? That's broadly in line with what my folks have been quoted for theirs which, although I've not measured it, is roughly the same area I'd have thought.

 

I'd heard that the cost of tarmac has increased even more than the others so is not the cheaper go to it once was. Are there any other colours in that other than the traditional black? My neighbour had hers done in black tarmac and although they've done a good job it looks a bit plain, but that's probably because it's literally nothing but tarmac, nothing breaking it up at all