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Coming from a similar professional background, I think I know where you're going with this but here's my £0.02...... Electrics - All you can do really is a visual of the consumer unit and possibly check the earth bonding, generally speaking anything else is buried in or under building fabric. Don't forget you need a Part P ticket for anything more than changing a socket/switch plate Water - Using your water tank scenario, if you still have a water tank, check overflow for blockages and ballvalve float valve shuts off properly. Check tasp for proper operation and signs of leakage. Unvented cylinders need their safety valves, etc checked annually - you need an unvented ticket for this Soil/Waste - make sure everything drains properly, there's not much more to it than that Heating - Annual boiler service and check controls are functioning correctly. If it's gas you need a ticket (Gas Safe), if it's oil you don't need a ticket IIRC but good luck with that if you haven't had any training. ASHP and electric boilers you would probably need the Part P ticket to cover touching the electrical side Gas - aside from the boiler, you would probably only encounter hobs and cookers and I wouldn't touch 'em with yours let alone mine External water and Drainage - WALK AWAY NOW, THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE APART FROM TRAGEDY AND COST...leave to the specialists With the exception of the last item, all the above could be done by a competent plumbing and heating engineer with the necessary electrical ticket to cover controls wiring. Finally, aiming at the non-DIY but have the necessary cash is why this man is worth circa £70 million..... Pimlico | London's Leading Service & Maintenance Company | 1 Hour Response | 24/7/365 | Pimlico Plumbers WWW.PIMLICOPLUMBERS.COM Pimlico. Emergency Plumbers London. 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week, 365 Days a Year. Plumbers, Heating Engineers, Electricians, Roofers, Carpenters, and Builders all over London. Yeah, I know, it's London and you wouldn't be aiming that high but it was worth a laugh I spent a few years running a maintenance division with a £1.5 million turnover in the1980's so you don't need me to tell you that 99% of all phone calls are people's problems and the remaining 1% is Kayla ringing to say she loves you and can you pick up some milk on the way home!

I can confidently say (without divulging too much, and keep what you know to yourself pls) without a shadow of a doubt that the service I'm developing will be worth a tenner a month many, many times over. I may even charge more for it. It'll likely work in tiers however, like Copper / Bronze / Gold / Platinum kind of thing. I'll also likely take property size and portfolio worth in to consideration.

I don't know if this is the right section but here goes.. I'm currently with Virgin Media and... it works. However, I found out at the weekend that my sister in law is paying ~£14/month less than me for the same package AND they get BT Sport as well! Before I try the old "I'm thinking of leaving" ploy - tried that about 12 months ago and the guy basically said "OK, leave" - I need your advice on two issues... I'd need a new email address. Your VM email address is only kept alive for 90 days. I use this one for my serious stuff like banking, etc so I don't mind paying a small monthly fee (if necessary) for a secure email address that I know will be around for a good few years. I already have Gmail for the normal stuff. Any suggestions? New ISP. Looking around I've read some interesting stuff about it basically being a choice between Virgin and the rest as all other ISP's are based on BT Openreach network and this has gone downhill since it was separated from BT. These comments were in a (rather long) discussion thread somewhere about ping. Without going outside to check (I have man flu) I am within ~150 metres from a green cabinet on a main road in an urban town area. Any suggestions on an alternative ISP? There's only me at home so, if I'm playing CoD I'm not watching YT videos. I'm quite happy paying £35 - £45/month for a package but £62 is a bit steep! Any suggestions? Cheers guys <sniff>, <cough>

Here it is. Assume you're a home owner. Would you pay a tenner a month for a home maintenance and inspection service which would give you one free callout a year, whether it be plumbing or electrical, and also two inspection visits a year where you plumbing and electrical services are lightly inspected for early signs of failure? Cheers ❤️

I kinda already do this, except for more money, with British Gas homecare , which has been well worth it for me. More expensive, but call outs are all free (think one has an excess) but it’s a piece of mind thing. And they replace my pinholing radiators free of charge , so have been pretty good, although lately set or has gone downhill a bit. But I guess the question to Dids is how would you compete against a big corporate like that, cheaper yes but I’m paying for the responsiveness of a big corporate and therefore piece of mind

If you're a homeowner then definitely so - £120 is a bargain for some peace of mind. I've worked in the property domain for a few years now and one thing that has stunned me is how so many are neglectful of what is their most priceless asset. If you don't stay on top of maintaining your home then it can lead to ongoing problems and far greater bills down the line for things that were so preventable. The more you look after it the more it'll be worth and there's nothing better than a homeowner who has taken the utmost care of their property. Some of the shitty homes and buildings I have been into which have been outright neglected by their owners is truly astonishing and what's worse is their sheer ignorance and blaming external factors. I have even seen someone who had a minor leak which would have cost £200 for an hours work and 16 months down the line they were looking at £8,000 wall, ceiling, floor and electrical damage. That's one example I wont forget. People can spend £150+ on a night out but then have a major inquiry about spending less on important things like this. I know people don't like spending without getting something immediate and tangible in return but just think of this as a branch of insurance. Just make sure any services are reliable and fully legitimate.

I agree with you but as we know, this point is extremely hard for millions and trillions of people to work out. All boils down to Priorities. Money will always revolve around that.

TCB is fantastic Dave, honestly you can save some decent cash with it, and it does work. It might take a few months, but for the sake of a few extra clicks when buying something, that extra cash is always welcome. Here's my referral: TopCashback.co.uk: The UK’s #1 Cashback & Vouchers Site WWW.TOPCASHBACK.CO.UK TopCashback is the most generous free cashback and voucher website. Save money on purchases through thousands of merchants online and in-store. Also, just as an example, here are BT's offers: BT Broadband - New Customers Boxing Day Sale, Discounts & Cashback Offers WWW.TOPCASHBACK.CO.UK Browse top deals on BT Broadband and BT Infinity and get great download speeds. Earn cashback rewards when you buy.

If you gave us a breakdown of the ‘offer’ then we could likely give you a more detailed answer

Thanks for the replies guys and I've made the first step... I'm going to be using these guys https://protonmail.com/ for "proper" emails and I'll keep using my existing Gmail account for everything else. Didds is right, I should have grasped this particular nettle years ago Download speeds is not an issue for me as I'm the only one here, it was ping that was my concern..hopefully I'll be OK as there are about 4 or 5 green cabinets near me Domestic connection is also not a problem as I currently have the VM router set up as a dumb modem. I've got a Buffalo Airstream for WiFi and the house was wired for Cat5E a while back so the PS4 and PC are hard wired I'm not worried about TV packages as I have a decent aerial installation and I'll just fork out for a Freeview video recorder like a Humax or similar @Diddums Topcashback referal - if you send me the link I'll give it a look. Never used anything like that before though Thanks again guys

I agree "for some" usually the lowest paid who funnily enough will probably be the ones that suffer most for not having such a service. However we smoke, drink , drive , have nice things etc can you see where you'd really miss a couple of quid a week? We can go around in circles with this, we had a 9k fix spread between 3 houses a few years back which at the time would have screwed me, I like the peace of mind.

We have a local electrician that runs his own scheme and I have homeserve York's water. Also maybe alot depends on the age of the property and people's own personal DIY skills. I have none I pay professionals 👍

It's not having the issues, it's when you have the issues. Their internet was decent, however when we had an outage dealing with their customer support was about as fun as rolling off a waterfall in a barrel full of scorpions. This was about 10 years ago mind you, they may have improved. Also @Plumbers Crack Birron makes a good point, no matter what internet you have, crap hardware will ruin it. I get by fine with my ISP router but everything's homeplugged to the hilt, the only devices on WiFi are phones, Fire Stick and Chromecast and these seem to work fine. My PS4 & PC are on these bad boys. Cost a pretty penny but they're worth it. Do NOT buy cheap hardware as it'll just add more factors that can go wrong when you have to diagnose a fault, and there is nothing more frustrating that trying to find out why your internet is unreliable when you've got crap hardware messing with the signals.

@Diddums says to avoid TalkTalk yet I've been with them for years and have never had any issues. What I would advise doing is buying your own router when you do decide as the one you'll get from an ISP are always shit. Although you can't do this with Sky as its against their terms of service for some stupid reason.

Sorry when I check it’s only 4x , unlocked at level 22

The Expanse is so damn good and it gets better and better every episode and every season. I tell everyone about it. I found it a while back after hearing some astrophysicist on a Joe Rogan podcast and he was drooling over this show. Definitely in my top 5 all time. Some of my others: 24 Band of Brothers Heroes Lost Vikings Family Guy

I'll walk through what I do as it's not very complicated, but gives you a full range of things to do that keep you going to the gym multiple times a week while also giving muscle groups the appropriate time to heal and recover. With weights, the most important thing to do is focus on certain muscle groups that don't overlap on the same day. The next session, focus on entirely different muscle groups. Don't try and do a full workout of all muscle groups in the same day. It takes too long, you'll burn yourself out, and most importantly you won't give enough attention to each muscle group individually because many of the exercises overlap in the muscle groups they use. Just as an example, if you do lots of push-ups and then try to do tricep work like lat pulls or whatever, you won't get anywhere because your triceps are already burnt out because of the pushups. I'm not an expert by any stretch and just to keep things simple, on one day I'll do chest and triceps, and the next session I'll do back and biceps. That separates muscle groups out well for me and if I lift every other day I get plenty of rest. I'll only do 20-30 minutes of weights and then do cardio for 30 minutes and call it a day. I don't do any leg weights because I get all of that from the cardio work. To find the right weights to use, start off with a weight where you can do multiple (3 to 5) comfortable sets of 10-12 reps. First set should be easy, and go up 5 lbs at a time until you can get maybe 6-8 reps on your final set where the last few reps are tough to finish. Go easy for the first 2-3 weeks and when those last sets become too easy - start increasing your first set weight by 5lbs and keep the same cycle. Eventually you'll find something that works but you need lots of reps, and you need a good starting weight. Once you get a lot stronger you can lower the reps and up the weight, but just keep it simple. The main thing is to focus on certain muscle groups at a time, give yourself 2 good days to recover, and then get back to those muscle groups again. My best advice is to only do 20-30 minutes of weights when you're starting out for the first few weeks, and do some cardio each time you go. That mixes things up to keep it fun and cardio is really good for overall health and fitness. Also take L-Arginine immediately after your workout. Can't stress that enough. Starting out you'll be sore as shit, and L-Arginine is the best thing you can take to prevent soreness. It's crazy how well it works. Being sore and working out sucks.

I know it's a popular thing at the moment, but there's no scientific basis for drinking a set amount of water each day. Depending on activity levels, moisture content of your food, etc. there's no such thing as generic advise that's meaningful. Your body isn't stupid, just listen to it and drink when you're thirsty. The "you're already dehydrated by the time you feel thirsty" is nonsense for the vast vast majority of people. Is your urine dark? You aren't drinking enough. Is your urine light or clear? You are. Absent medical conditions and a doctor's advise to the contrary, there is zero reason to make it more complicated then that. Pretty much nobody in the developed world isn't getting enough salt. Use something like myfitnesspal to track your intake for a bit and see what your sodium levels actually are.

Ok here it goes for my list: 1.metro last light 2.outlast 3.soma 4.titanfall 2 5.skyrim 6.R6 siege 7.sherlock Holmes devil's daughter 8.witcher 3 9.destiny 2 10. The forest Well that's about it. . . . Peace. Via the FG App

Oooof... Not easy at all. I know my top two but everything else is pretty much a toss up. 1. Skyrim. (Ps3) 2. The Last Of Us. (ps3) 3. Modern Warfare 3. (ps3) 4. Red dead redemption 2. (Ps4) 5. Horizon Zero Dawn. (ps4) 6. Ark survival evolved. (ps4) 7. Fallout 4. (There's another settlement that needs your assistance!) (ps4) 8. Far Cry 5. (ps4) 9. Heroes of Might & Magic VI. (pc) 10. Borderlands 2. (ps4) Again, other than the top two this list could have been in any random order. There's other games I've played less like DayZ that I would put on here, but I've not invested the time into it YET, to put it on the list. There's also games older than 10 years I'd easily put on the list that I've played the last 10 years 😛

I'm not great when it comes to rating games as it's all subjective, but I'll give this a go. So are we doing game that released from 2010 onwards? These are just going to be listed, not in order until I think about what order to place them. Ori and The Blind Forest The Last of Us Heavy Rain Slay the Spire Skyrim Portal 2 Stardew Valley Sid Meier's Civilization V Spider-Man Grim Dawn