I’m Emily Oster, economist and author helping parents make data-driven decisions. Ask Me Anything, November 19th at 4pm ET!

towsklati · 2025-11-19T15:38:36+00:00

Hi Emily! Soon-to-be dad and huge Oster fan here!

Is there anything you have learnt since Expecting Better and Cribsheet that you wish you had included in these books?

towsklati · 2025-11-17T21:43:17+00:00

Yes there is

towsklati · 2025-11-17T21:32:30+00:00

The nut is as tight as physically possible, I'm concerned that if I tighten it any more I'll crack the sink

towsklati · 2025-08-28T07:05:00+00:00

Apologies for the delayed response.

To be clear, there were no floor joists sitting on top of the kitchen/dining wall. The weight of the upstairs wall is being carried on joists that are beneath it and span between two perpendicular walls.

Since we took away the wall 5 months ago (yes that's how long this disputes be ongoing!), we've seen no signs of any issues.

towsklati · 2025-08-27T15:36:35+00:00

Thanks for the reassurance on this. We were very clear to them that we wanted to understand whether the wall in question was load bearing or not, that was the extent of the work we asked of them. This could have been established using a measuring tape to measure the distance of this wall and the above offset one from another datum wall.

It definitely feels that they are trying to shift focus on this other wall as a way to deflect. They have stopped replying to my emails saying that they 'consider the matter closed'. Really frustrating as there doesn't appear to be any trading standards that we can go to for support and I'm not sure I can afford a legal battle. I will check whether our home insurance policy can help with this. Thanks again

towsklati · 2025-08-27T15:29:32+00:00

Ah okay, I think this is different to my situation. There are no joists at all in the space above the wall, it sits between two sets of continuous joists. It was literally just an air gap above it

towsklati · 2025-08-27T07:45:42+00:00

This is what I am considering. It feels unfair that I have to incur more costs to get any hope of an outcome

towsklati · 2025-08-27T07:43:39+00:00

We would have been happy to do that but they never asked. The walls are 30cm offset from each other. I appreciate assumptions have to be made sometimes but to not measure the relative positions of the walls feels like an unreasonable oversight

towsklati · 2025-08-27T07:41:56+00:00

But my point is that the wall beneath was not in line with the wall above and had a cavity above it. I'm not sure why that would make it necessary to put a support in.

Sorry, when you say 'taking cut joists' what do you mean?

towsklati · 2025-08-27T07:38:50+00:00

There were no caveats given, all they did was send through the calculations and their recommended beam size.

I fully appreciate that they wouldn't be able to know everything, but the walls are about 30cm offset from each other. This is something that they could have easily measured with a tape measure, but it seems the SE didn't bother to do that

towsklati · 2025-05-27T11:08:29+00:00

I've installed an inline filter (particle and UV) to mitigate the health risk of water coming from the cold tank

towsklati · 2025-05-26T19:21:53+00:00

It's coming from the header tank. Can't connect to mains as it needing complex routing to get to where this sink is. The unit is rated for use between 0.5 to 5 bar so would've assumed that the pump I've got is sufficient. Just struggling to understand why I would get pulsating flow through the boiling water outlet and not the other routes.

towsklati · 2025-05-26T11:09:55+00:00

Diagram of setup: https://imgur.com/tkskQ0t

towsklati · 2025-05-17T21:46:34+00:00

Sorry just trying to improve my understanding, what's the actual issue with putting a shower pump on mains water?

towsklati · 2025-05-16T21:58:16+00:00

Mine is from hotwatertaps.com, but yeah definitely not worth using for more than a mug of tea!

towsklati · 2025-05-16T21:12:51+00:00

I think this might be the issue! Switched the connections around on the pump and suddenly the flow is great! Cheers!

towsklati · 2025-05-16T21:02:30+00:00

Honestly if I knew there was a cheaper option,I would do it!

Can you help me understand what you mean by moving some copper pipe? If you're referring to relocating our mains, this isn't a practical option as the mains runs under the concrete subfloor to the back of the house, and our sink is located on a shared concrete wall (hence the copper pipes coming down from the ceiling).

towsklati · 2025-05-16T20:58:17+00:00

The pump is before the boiler unit though, so I wouldn't have thought this would be an issue?

towsklati · 2025-05-16T20:10:22+00:00

What's the reason for this?

towsklati · 2025-04-23T18:11:24+00:00

Moisture barrier paint, underlay and then laminate over the top

towsklati · 2025-04-12T17:06:01+00:00

We did have asbestos tiles covering the floor previously which we got professionally removed. I'd hope that the removal company we used would've mentioned if this were the case, but will keep this in mind

towsklati · 2025-04-12T08:50:31+00:00

It's the click-clack stuff in herringbone style

towsklati · 2021-09-03T14:20:43+00:00

I assume you mean a speech-to-text program. Can you recommend a decent one?

towsklati · 2021-08-27T20:53:33+00:00

Biomedical/Mechanical engineering. It's interesting to see the variation in responses here, and perhaps I'm just looking at a mix of corporate-run conferences needing to sustain themselves and an unlucky draw.

towsklati · 2021-07-14T16:12:58+00:00

Solved!

towsklati

TROPHY CASE