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Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

Yeah I expect just the one pathway entrance for all the properties there. But there appears to be 4, not 3, houses - the passageway with the arch is for both the middle 2 houses to get to their gardens. I would expect the ones far-left and far-right have separate access down the side of the house each.
If we knew where it is we could look at the variously available overhead views and work it out.
If we could be bothered.
If you did want to look it up its 223-215 Lowfield street Dartford.
 
Here’s an around c1940s map view. It shows which houses are joined together.
 

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I notice there are many 'connected' houses' in England - are the apartments upstairs and downstairs for each apartment?
Generally linked houses ( called terraced houses or semi detached houses where only two are attached) are not divided into apartments, but ordinary dwellings. Exceptions tend to be very large properties built in the Victorian or Edwardian period which have been converted into apartments (or flats as they are generally referred to). Modern developments sometimes have what appear to be a row of 2 storey terraced properties but are in fact divided into apartments on each storey. My first house in the north of the UK where they were common was what is referred to as a back to back terrace ie each terrace house had houses built on each side and at the rear as well.
 
If I may be permitted to digress briefly; can I ask what the house on the left is roofed with?
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Does look incredibly smooth roof covering. Could be imitation slates which were popular at one time, very thin but I can't remember what they were made of. Going back a few decades if you had little money in the North of the UK and your roof was leaking or damaged it was common to see a pitched slate roof to be covered in tar like stuff or indeed felted over (never lasted though).
 
Does look incredibly smooth roof covering. Could be imitation slates which were popular at one time, very thin but I can't remember what they were made of. Going back a few decades if you had little money in the North of the UK and your roof was leaking or damaged it was common to see a pitched slate roof to be covered in tar like stuff or indeed felted over (never lasted though).
That's exactly what I was wondering Pete. And the reason I asked @MorningAngel, (digressing the thread- as usual), was because I was thinking about the 'slates' she had seen the roofers throwing in the skip and that they could have been imitation and therefore not worth keeping.
 
Generally linked houses ( called terraced houses or semi detached houses where only two are attached) are not divided into apartments, but ordinary dwellings. Exceptions tend to be very large properties built in the Victorian or Edwardian period which have been converted into apartments (or flats as they are generally referred to). Modern developments sometimes have what appear to be a row of 2 storey terraced properties but are in fact divided into apartments on each storey. My first house in the north of the UK where they were common was what is referred to as a back to back terrace ie each terrace house had houses built on each side and at the rear as well.
A housing type very commonly found in Scotland but which doesn’t seem to have been popular in England is the Local Authority ‘four-in-a-block’ maisonette. It looks like a large detached house but actually is four flats with seperate entrances. You also get even bigger ones with six flats, though these are less common. This type of council house can be found all over Scotland, from Ecclefechan to Lerwick, from sprawling estates in city suburbs to the most rural spots out in the country (I remember seeing ones built for the Forestry Commission in the middle of nowehere west of Inverness) constructed out of local materials and each Burgh Architect had their own little stylish twists on the same basic form. Councils went mad building them in the 1950s and 60s so now, along with the traditional tenement, they’re a quintessentially Scottish type of building.
 
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I worked for a roofing company, and that roof looks to be in shabby condition?
No not really. Certainly not considering that they could be original 1920s slates. They have some moss on them which makes it look worse than it is, but on closer inspection now that I have the address, it looks ok.

It's usually concrete tiles (as opposed to blue slates and clay tiles) that moss sticks to the most, but after a hundred years even slates will have some on.
 
Techy's kicking off because the kitchen sink is blocked with bits of vegetables that he reckons I've dumped in there.

I've done no such thing as I eat all the vegetables I cook. So it's him, or the cats, or a burglar, or the ghost. :pipe:
 
No not really. Certainly not considering that they could be original 1920s slates. They have some moss on them which makes it look worse than it is, but on closer inspection now that I have the address, it looks ok.

It's usually concrete tiles (as opposed to blue slates and clay tiles) that moss sticks to the most, but after a hundred years even slates will have some on.
Nothing wrong with a bit of moss on the roof.
The birds chuck it off anyway, when they're looking for insects.
 
Nothing wrong with a bit of moss on the roof.
The birds chuck it off anyway, when they're looking for insects.
No, but I'll tell you what Myth, the mil/fil have a Kitchen that was added on at some point and is tiled with concrete Marley's (unlike the house which is small, clay tiles). I went up one day to brush the moss off and got three or four bin-bags full (and it's only a small roof).
You would never have realised how much weight that moss was adding to the roof.
 
No, but I'll tell you what Myth, the mil/fil have a Kitchen that was added on at some point and is tiled with concrete Marley's (unlike the house which is small, clay tiles). I went up one day to brush the moss off and got three or four bin-bags full (and it's only a small roof).
You would never have realised how much weight that moss was adding to the roof.
Don’t some designer new houses have moss on the roof on purpose for some sort of green reason? Suppose it’s different it it’s designed for it.
 
Don’t some designer new houses have moss on the roof on purpose for some sort of green reason? Suppose it’s different it it’s designed for it.
Green roofs. These are fascinating and I'd love to have one on my house. My daughter's new place has an outdoor store with a green roof - it's planted up with a few herbs and lots of sempervivum and sedum and it's absolutely gorgeous. But you have to do them properly, with extra weight support and a membrane layer to allow water to drain properly.
 
Yeah they do - there are modern properties that have deliberately been designed with grass and wild flowers on the roof.
They look great when they're new but because it's difficult to get up there with the mower they very soon look terrible, and then die.
Like these ones that I drive past regularly, next to the A1 at Welwyn.
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Yeah they do - there are modern properties that have deliberately been designed with grass and wild flowers on the roof.
They look great when they're new but because it's difficult to get up with the mower they very soon look terrible, and then die.
Like these ones that I drive past regularly, next to the A1 at Welwyn.
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I was going to say do you have to mow your roof then.
 
This one is strange to me but, apparently Everybody Else in the World Already Knows About it.

It's: lightbulbs that don't switch off.

So I live in shared accommodation subsidised by the school I work for. My bedroom is lit by about five modern lightbulbs arranged into a kind of faux chandelier fashion. All has been well for the last four months from when I moved in there. Then, about a week or two ago, I noticed, in daylight, that the bulbs appeared to be glowing of their own accord, despite the light switch being in the Off position.. At first I thought they were just reflecting the rays of the sun - but on inspection cou;ld see that they were indeed glowing independently of any electrical input.

Since that time the lights in my room have never been properly off. At night they give off a flickering pale light which one could, at a pinch, read by. Luckily, I am not someone who needs absoluite darkness in order to be able to sleep and the light can look sort of pretty if you approach it in the right frame of mind - so it's no big deal.

And I've since asked around and discovered that lightbulbs-that-don't-go off are a Known Thing that everyone seems blase about.

Still though -`kinell! - call me old fashioned, but....

`You young folk aren't going to believe this, but I can remember when if you switched a light off it would stay completely off! Hard to believe, I know, but I swear to you, that's how it was back in the day`
Update on the Case of the Light Bulbs That Keep Glowing When Switched Off.

Well it continued until, eventually I raised it with my school. They have a handyman whose job it is to sort out problems with the teacher's accommodation. There was quite a long interim when nothing seemed to be happening - so I nudged them by reminding them of the possible dangers of thae kind that @Salmonellus alluded to above (post 13. 160).

By this time I was firmly of the opinion that it was an electrical fault - something to do with the wiring - as many have intimated. My flat mate however, insisted that it was a problem with the bulbs - they were old and they just needed replacing with new ones, he said. This didn't seem credible to me - as how can a lightbulb continue to give off light when switched off for a month or more - unless there was some rogue electrical input somewhere along the line?

Anyway, one day, the handyman turned up to my place of work and took off with my keys to the flat for a while. I didn't hear any more about it - but noted that he had removed one of the bulbs, presumably for inspection. Then there was another interlude of nothing happening. (All this time, I had got used to sleeping in a kind of creamy twilight.)

Today, about a week later, he was there again at my school and again borrowed my keys and took off while I did some teaching and whatnot. However, he seemed to return my keys again in a disconcertingly short time. Hadn't he - or a hired electtrician - been doing some heavy rewiring? Had he just given up?

When I got back, this evening, I noted that he had replaced the old light bulbs - weird cylindrical LED type things - with another type of more tradiional light bulb - and, guess what, they turn off when you switch them off!

So it appears it wasn't an issue with the wires after all! Those lightbulbs had been somehow glowing of their own accord for...well nigh a month! (In fact, within that time, I had been away from my flat for nine days in a row - and they were still alight when I returned!)

There must be someone out there who can explain this!
 
Update on the Case of the Light Bulbs That Keep Glowing When Switched Off.

Well it continued until, eventually I raised it with my school. They have a handyman whose job it is to sort out problems with the teacher's accommodation. There was quite a long interim when nothing seemed to be happening - so I nudged them by reminding them of the possible dangers of thae kind that @Salmonellus alluded to above (post 13. 160).

By this time I was firmly of the opinion that it was an electrical fault - something to do with the wiring - as many have intimated. My flat mate however, insisted that it was a problem with the bulbs - they were old and they just needed replacing with new ones, he said. This didn't seem credible to me - as how can a lightbulb continue to give off light when switched off for a month or more - unless there was some rogue electrical input somewhere along the line?

Anyway, one day, the handyman turned up to my place of work and took off with my keys to the flat for a while. I didn't hear any more about it - but noted that he had removed one of the bulbs, presumably for inspection. Then there was another interlude of nothing happening. (All this time, I had got used to sleeping in a kind of creamy twilight.)

Today, about a week later, he was there again at my school and again borrowed my keys and took off while I did some teaching and whatnot. However, he seemed to return my keys again in a disconcertingly short time. Hadn't he - or a hired electtrician - been doing some heavy rewiring? Had he just given up?

When I got back, this evening, I noted that he had replaced the old light bulbs - weird cylindrical LED type things - with another type of more tradiional light bulb - and, guess what, they turn off when you switch them off!

So it appears it wasn't an issue with the wires after all! Those lightbulbs had been somehow glowing of their own accord for...well nigh a month! (In fact, within that time, I had been away from my flat for nine days in a row - and they were still alight when I returned!)

There must be someone out there who can explain this!
Out of interest, were they these sort?;
 

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I guess there could be a situation happening there in which some nearby wiring which is 'live' with power flowing in it, is causing some kind of inductive effect causing the bulbs to glow - those 'power saving' bulbs only need a small amount of current to work, and that could be just enough if some high-power electrickery is at work nearby.
 
I guess there could be a situation happening there in which some nearby wiring which is 'live' with power flowing in it, is causing some kind of inductive effect causing the bulbs to glow - those 'power saving' bulbs only need a small amount of current to work, and that could be just enough if some high-power electrickery is at work nearby.
I once saw someone holding a fluorescent tube directly under a live 25kV railway overhead power line, which would light up when held parallel to it. Inductance is an interesting phenomenon!
 
I once saw someone holding a fluorescent tube directly under a live 25kV railway overhead power line, which would light up when held parallel to it. Inductance is an interesting phenomenon!
That's risky! :omg:
 
People just do not realise how strong some electrical and magnetic forces can be.
I've seen people using those extension cable reels without fully unwinding them and being surprised when they go to move them and find they are red hot.
Top tip - if you ever use one of these (or similar) for an extended period of time (more than 10 minutes) please remember to unwind it fully, or use a shorter one that is suitable for the job.
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Update on the Case of the Light Bulbs That Keep Glowing When Switched Off.

Well it continued until, eventually I raised it with my school. They have a handyman whose job it is to sort out problems with the teacher's accommodation. There was quite a long interim when nothing seemed to be happening - so I nudged them by reminding them of the possible dangers of thae kind that @Salmonellus alluded to above (post 13. 160).

By this time I was firmly of the opinion that it was an electrical fault - something to do with the wiring - as many have intimated. My flat mate however, insisted that it was a problem with the bulbs - they were old and they just needed replacing with new ones, he said. This didn't seem credible to me - as how can a lightbulb continue to give off light when switched off for a month or more - unless there was some rogue electrical input somewhere along the line?

Anyway, one day, the handyman turned up to my place of work and took off with my keys to the flat for a while. I didn't hear any more about it - but noted that he had removed one of the bulbs, presumably for inspection. Then there was another interlude of nothing happening. (All this time, I had got used to sleeping in a kind of creamy twilight.)

Today, about a week later, he was there again at my school and again borrowed my keys and took off while I did some teaching and whatnot. However, he seemed to return my keys again in a disconcertingly short time. Hadn't he - or a hired electtrician - been doing some heavy rewiring? Had he just given up?

When I got back, this evening, I noted that he had replaced the old light bulbs - weird cylindrical LED type things - with another type of more tradiional light bulb - and, guess what, they turn off when you switch them off!

So it appears it wasn't an issue with the wires after all! Those lightbulbs had been somehow glowing of their own accord for...well nigh a month! (In fact, within that time, I had been away from my flat for nine days in a row - and they were still alight when I returned!)

There must be someone out there who can explain this!
Like I said elsewhere, it's almost certainly some other 'live' wire coupling inductively to the 'live ' wire of the bulb's wiring. Even when the light switch is open/off, enough energy will couple to the 'live' wire of the bulb and as the 'neutral' wire is still connected, this tiny current can run through the bulb.

Or it's aliens or a poltergeist. One of those.
 
People just do not realise how strong some electrical and magnetic forces can be.
I've seen people using those extension cable reels without fully unwinding them and being surprised when they go to move them and find they are red hot.
Top tip - if you ever use one of these (or similar) for an extended period of time (more than 10 minutes) please remember to unwind it fully, or use a shorter one that is suitable for the job.
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That's good advice, although it's straight resistive heating, exacerbated by the 'skin effect'.
 
A housing type very commonly found in Scotland but which doesn’t seem to have been popular in England is the Local Authority ‘four-in-a-block’ maisonette. It looks like a large detached house but actually is four flats with seperate entrances. You also get even bigger ones with six flats, though these are less common. This type of council house can be found all over Scotland, from Ecclefechan to Lerwick, from sprawling estates in city suburbs to the most rural spots out in the country (I remember seeing ones built for the Forestry Commission in the middle of nowehere west of Inverness) constructed out of local materials and each Burgh Architect had their own little stylish twists on the same basic form. Councils went mad building them in the 1950s and 60s so now, along with the traditional tenement, they’re a quintessentially Scottish type of building.
Interesting. On new developments in the North West of the UK the type of dwellings you mention are becoming more common. I hazard a guess that these are "social housing" which developers are required to construct as part of local authority planning permission. Some developers apparently get away without building such social housing by paying the equivalent cost to the local authority (a bribe by another name).
 
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