Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

Soooo, the flat above us has sprung a leak.

It's 10pm and they aren't home. Any tips? We've stuck a note through their door, do we just wait for them to come home?

I guess we can't call our own landlord/letting agent as we don't have their number/they are not open respectively. Even then, it's not like they have anything to do with the flat above us so far as we know.

It's tripped our breaker switch and we don't have any lighting. Not a major issue because we have lamps on a different breaker, just no ceiling lights.

It's not leaking heavily yet. It was coming out of a wall light fitting in the bathroom which tripped the breaker initially. An hour or 2 later, it's made a damp patch on the wall in our bedroom (opposite side to that wall light) and small drips have appeared on the bathroom ceiling and on the door frame of our boiler cupboard - it's obviously leaking through the walls and ceiling from the adjacent bathroom/boiler cupboard upstairs

Is it just a waiting game or does anyone know of anything we can do in the meantime?

Update: they've come home and turned their water off so hopefully it all dries out and we can have our lights back tomorrow!

@ralphdibny I would definitely contact your landlord to let them know, as they will need to see about who is paying for repairing any damage done.

@JohnnyShoulder cheers, have just submitted something through the letting agents online repair portal to keep them updated on the situation!

Jesus I come on here to avoid work, thought I was looking at my inbox for a minute!!

@RogerRoger cheers, yeah I'll see what they say! It doesn't look too bad but obviously got no idea what it looks like inside the walls/ceiling. Luckily because the power tripped, we were alerted immediately and could mop up and clean stuff so shouldn't have too much staining at least.

@kyleforrester87 you coming round to have a butchers? 😆🤣

@ralphdibny Just fire her up, if she holds she's good, if she trips get the hairdryer out - it's all an electrician will do lol

These things often look worse than they are, good time of year to have a leak ultimately, and it getting through a light fitting is better than it soaking into walls and ceilings.

@kyleforrester87

Cheers, well I've got the dehumidifiers running at the moment. Will probably check it again later.

Thankfully doesn't look too bad anyway, just no lights. But the plugs still working so we can light it up with lamps at least!

@ralphdibny We had a leak from the upstairs bathroom but luckily that mostly came through a light fitting. There was an amazing amount of water from what was a very small leak but it had all gathered in the glass shade below and then eventually got too heavy and smashed down on floor. As most of the water had gone that way it was just a case of drying everything out and then doing a bit of patching up of the paintwork and buying a new light fitting. You can always use a dehumidifier if you've got one as that will speed up the drying process.

Edit: ignore the dehumidifier bit as it's a bit redundant now based on your previous post 😂

@render that's a point actually, I should probably check the main light fitting in the bathroom at some point. Just a bit of a waiting game at the moment so I have time.

Thankfully cosmetic damage doesn't look too bad, the paintwork in this flat wasn't in the best of conditions when we moved in anyway!

Haha yeah both my partner and I had dehumidifiers cos she had damp in her old apartment and my bedroom at my parents place was very mouldy at one point. Now we use them to dry our clothes. Very handy pieces of kit!

@LieutenantFatman It's perfectly alright old chap, I don't visit too often myself nowadays either. Good to hear about the tabletop games. No to Elden Ring, a sweet farming spot got locked off to me and that's normally how I complete these games - I am planning on playing Demon's Souls Remake at Christmas though. What are you playing?

I'm looking to reduce my monthly outgoings further (I've already reduced my monthly payments for my electric and broadband), and as I've paid off my mobile phone now, that I was next on my hit list.

I usually upgrade, but as my phone is not broken or anything, I thought I'd go with a sim only package this time to save on some cash.

So I'm checking the app for my current provider to see what deals they have. It details that my monthly data usage is around 2.5gb. Of course, they recommend me a package with 30gb data allowance! 🙄

They obviously do have packages which suit me better, but I've shopped around a bit and have found a better deal. I've been thinking of changing for some time now, as the internet when I'm not home is not reliable. There have been at times at work when I get no internet connection even though the 4/5G symbol is up on my phone. I talked to a few people at work, and they have said they have similar issues on the same network as me. So I think now is a good time to change as any. Bit of a shame, as I've been with the same provider for about 20 years now.

@JohnnyShoulder They will lose zero sleep over you changing provider though. I can't think of many companies now where you are actually rewarded for staying with them; most of the time it's the other way around if anything. Plus it's now incredibly easy to swap and keep your old number too.

I pay £9 a month for my phone through BT with just 2GB of data which is way more than I normally need as I rarely do much using just 5G.

@Thrillho I use my phone a fair bit at work, but it is mostly stuff like listening to the radio, coming on here or a quick game of Marvel Snap on a break.

@JohnnyShoulder what SIM card you looking at?

I do Giffgaff for £10/month and it has 20gb data (I think that's a "free upgrade" after staying with them for like 3 months or something) and while I don't ever come close to 20gb, it's such a low fee that it's good to have around if I go somewhere with no wi fi access or if my own internet drops out

@Kidfried There is a new conquest mode that has been added, but I've been pretty hopeless with it recently after a good run whe it first got introduced. And they have added new weekend objectives and ways to get different versions of cards. The only problem is I find now is that I have way too many cards to upgrade (about 90), so it become slightly overwhelming in that respect.

@ralphdibny I'm probably going to go for EE as I know they have good track record in my area. It is not just about finding the cheapest deal for me, as I will have already reduced my monthly bill significantly, and my current provider has some really good deals they can offer me.

@JohnnyShoulder fair enough! I found a map ages ago that detailed the coverage of the 3 or 4 main providers in the UK that all the other networks piggybacked off of. I can't seem to find that map now but I did find this infographic on which that details who piggybacks off of who

Might be a bit outdated because obviously virgin and O2 have merged now so I don't believe virgin Sims actually exist any more in practise. Could be wrong though.

But yeah, if you have good coverage from EE in your area, might be worth checking deals from the providers under it in that infographic as the service should in theory should be basically the same.

I can't remember exactly but I feel like I remember reading that there is no serviceable difference between using the main provider or a piggyback provider. The main provider just sells spare capacity on their network to a piggyback provider so it should be the same like 99% of the time. I think the only time it wouldn't be is if there was a ridiculously high surge in capacity usage, in which case the main provider's customers would take priority. But in practise that either never happens or almost never happens.

Could be talking out my rear end here though because it's been a good few years since I did all this research for my own benefit! So I could be a little bit behind the times!

Edit: looking at that infographic I am kind of surprised that Vodafone has piggybackers because I kind of remember them being their own thing back when I did my own research. A bit like virgin is with their broadband.

The infographic can't be too out of date though because it details Voxi which is a fairly new player that I've seen advertised lately.

I think there are some funny rules that apply to Lebara and Lyca as well because I am under the impression that they market themselves toward customers that do a lot of international calls so I never really considered them and got into the nitty gritty of how they differ from other providers

@ralphdibny Ah, cheers for that, very useful to know!

I with 02 currently, so anything under them is a no go. A fair few people I've spoken that live round by me have said they have similar complaints as me with 02. Similarly, a few people in the area have said how impressed they've been with EE.

One hell of a Wimbledon final!

@nessisonett I'm not usually fan of tennis, but got stuck watching it with my parents! Was a really entertaining match!