Category: General

Combined heat and power at Graylingwell Park
Interesting article detailing the combined heat and power system at this new build development in Chichester

The system is alarmed so if there’s a fault it’s reported quickly. This is important – there are existing centralised boiler systems which rely on residents reporting the lack of hot water or heating before boilers are inspected.
The system uses highly insulated underground pipes to get around the estate. It’ll be interesting to see when it’s all occupied whether you can see where the pipes are when it snows!

Do you have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home? They’re not expensive and could save your life.

Carbon Monoxide Detector

The best selling detector at Amazon is the Kidde 900-0233 BSI Battery Carbon Monoxide Alarm and it’s £14.01 which is only a small amount to pay for peace of mind and could save your life.

Carbon monoxide doesn’t smell, it’s invisible and it can kill!

The Kidde KS901 unit flashes its green LED every 30 seconds when no hazardous levels of CO are detected.

In a CO emergency, the red LED pulses and an 85 db horn sounds at specific intervals until the CO threat is eliminated.

Powered by AA batteries, the KS901 is able to provide continuous monitoring of CO levels, even during power outages. Plus the unit has an alarm that tells you when the batteries need to be replaced. For peace of mind, a test / reset button allows you to test that alarm is functioning properly. Plus, the KS901 is equipped with a peak-level memory that keeps track of the maximum CO level detected between resets. The KS901 is covered with a five-year manufacturer’s limited warranty and replacement is recommended after seven years.

If you rent then your landlord might provide one – if they don’t then treat yourself to one. You can take it with you when you move!
If you own your own home then you should get one yourself.

If you’ve just bought a house then get one now! It should be on your list of things to do when you move in! Change the locals, check smoke alarms and install a carbon monoxide detector.

Heather Mills house is for sale
9 bedroom house for sale in Robertsbridge, East Sussex
£3,900,000

This house has been empty since 1979 and the owner was given a grant of £55000 to do it up!

Sounds like council tax payers in Brighton have every right to be annoyed by this as the council wants to get a second compulsory purchase order

BBC news story

The work was never completed and the council is now attempting to obtain another CPO.

View Larger Map

To be honest from the outside it doesn’t look too bad, the front garden looks like it’s been looked after

A report out by a charity today suggests that old people should move into smaller houses to free up the larger houses for young families.

The Intergenerational Foundation calls for tax breaks to encourage downsizing and help free up some of the estimated 25 million unused bedrooms in England.

BBC article

The report, entitled Hoarding of Housing, said that 37% of homes in England – about eight million – were under-occupied – meaning they had at least two unused bedrooms. This is up from 20% four decades ago.

I know several houses locally that are under occupied with 2 spare bedrooms. Should these people be encouraged to downsize? Is it easy to get rid of a lifetimes worth of clutter to actaully be able to fit into a smaller house?
Would the answer be for more people to have lodgers? Would that solve the crisis? After all the government has changed the housing benefit rules so that undr 35s can only have a shared room allowance now – something that used to be reserved for under 25s.
Would people be healthier with more company? There have been some reports that loneliness can lead to mental decline.
With heating bills constantly on the up, having another person in to share the bills would also help. Perhaps this would be one way of resolving both a housing shortage?
With the average age of first time buyers reaching 40 you can almost imagine that there are many families where people are still living at home rather than venturing out in to the world of lodgings.
I’m not sure the report is helpful to anyone. Yes there are a lot of empty rooms in the Uk that could be better used, but who has the right to force anyone to downsize or take on a lodger?

This is an interesting tale…
A Polish Catholic priest could be exhumed from his resting place to solve a property dispute over the sale of the £16.5million house that inspired Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows.

The property has other issues like rows about ROWs – rights of way –

So should you bury someone in your garden? There are rules but it is possible. See this article on Garden law about burying someone in your own garden
I wouldn’t.

Sarah Beeny has said she might sell Rise Hall after this planning row.

This article also states that “Humberside Fire And Rescue Service has placed a fire prevention notice on the building prohibiting its use as a public venue.”

I’ve written about Rise Hall previously

It’s underground. The story is on the daily mail – they have lots of pictures
Introducing… the earth-scraper: Architects design 65-storey building which plunges 300 metres below ground

The traditional reasons for people having to sell have been death, divorce or debt. You can probably throw in desire as a fourth one but it’s much less of a strong motivator sometime.

Of course they’re not the only reasons: people often say they want to downsize (Yes another D in the house selling list) but this is often something they dream of in a rather unrealistic way.
Wanting to sell your 3 bedroom house to go and buy a smaller place only works if the smaller places are significantly cheaper or you move to a cheaper area.
If we’re sticking with looking for D reasons then dementia would be one you could add to the list along with disease. We can throw in disability too. If you can’t get up the stairs anymore then you might want to consider selling up to somewhere without stairs.
Are there any more D reasons for moving?

Shelter have released a report saying that rents are unaffordable in many parts of the country.
Their report is here

* Many rural areas are bearing the brunt of high rent rates and low earnings, with rents more affordable in Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham than in north Devon, north Dorset or Herefordshire.
* London boroughs are the most expensive in England, with the average rent for a two bedroom home in the capital (£1,360) almost two and a half times the average in the rest of the country (£568).
* The least affordable local authority area outside London is Oxford, where typical rents account for 55% of average earnings.

Shelter thinks that families shouldn’t spend more than 35% of their income on rent.

Local housing allowance levels are said to be to blame for the increase in rents. If landlords can get more from tenants on benefits then rents overall will rise. Rents need to come down to be genuinely affordable.
People who can’t afford to pay the rent if they work will see no point in working. To be a sustainable economy the UK needs to be able to have people in work and able to support themselves.

For shelter’s idea to work (excluding any tax credits which younger childless single people wouldn’t be able to get) then on minimum wage for a 35 hour week – a weekly income of £212.8, shouldn’t have to pay more than 35% of that in rent which means you wouldn’t want to spend more than £74.48 on rent.

This works out at (x52/12) a monthly rent of £322.75

A search on rightmove in my area shows that the cheapest 1 bedroom property is £395 a month.

Which shows that housing is very unaffordable in my area for almost everyone.

LHA has been changed for under 35s so they have to share a property now rather than having a flat or house to themself.

Whilst I applaud shelter’s ideas of building more houses to solve this problem, in reality it won’t. House builders throw in some “affordable” housing – which usually isn’t actually affordable, but this just shows that the rest is even more unaffordable.