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I'm afraid I havent yet checked, maybe i'll have a peek when there is opportunity. But that is very good advice! I'll keep that in mind.

Ola! I will try do do as much as I can, I recently did a flip where I did the entire refurb myself (other than plastering and painting) so I do have some experience But the structural stuff like removal of the walls, RSJ installation, balcony frame fabrication to the contractors.

"Smart" water meter - gives me hourly total usage so not difficult to pin down a very accurate usage for anything at all - just make sure what ever you want to measure is done in the hour and try not to use other things during that hour note down the activity and the hour when it happened and a day later you can see exactly what the water usage is You can fit an aerator or flow restrictor above the shower head and reduce the water consumption without really impacting the feel of the shower We have large (ish) rainfall style shower heads so normally rubbish with a gravity feed hence booster pump on H & C supply but they are still less than 8 l/min - guessing cos never actually measured that.......

That's a pretty basic setup these days, do you know how much, if any, insulation there is in the cavity? Given insulation is one of the cheapest improvements you can make to a house with a return on investment much better than solar or similar, I would definitely spend time looking at this first. If money was tight I'd rather have a well insulated reasonably air tight house with appropriate ventilation than a cold draughty house with solar panels. Insulation is also one of those things that is much easier/cheaper to do at build time (or when you are doing a major refurbishment) vs trying to fix later.

Fable is causing me to accelerate my requests! Mikes in; fully lit by environment and driven with IK. Scatter props like rocks, tree branches etc Trees with shadows. Full grass. All affected by wind/rain/snow Mikes eyes light at night so he can see where he is going. Some simpler creatures going in e.g. butterflies and fish. For the most part 60 FPS! - took sometime to get to that.

That's an impressive collection of stats. How did you go about gathering them? This is incredibly efficient. I'm sure you've noticed from other threads but I do like a good shower and I estimate I spend 5-10 mins per shower. I just went to check and my shower is 14 lpm (I would have guessed less) so a ten minute shower is 140 litres, not far off two of your baths!

Ola, Hayden. Let it all out mate, plenty of good folk / great advice available here. The vision looks nice, are you DIY’ing it all? There’s a lot to do!

Floor sockets are a very finite thing, so if an extension lead will suffice “may not even be used” then give it the 2 fingers.

Ah this is first floor so timber but good tip for someone else. Not too fussed about liquid damage as its in an obscure spot and may not even be used.,

Most of a normal summer we don’t run out of water for the garden (plants, fruit trees and veg patch) with 1100 litres of rainwater storage This summer has been very dry so washing machine water, washing up water and bath water harvesting has been in full swing washing machine each cycle is 6 litres from the wash cycle and 24 litres from the rinse cycles (wash water for shrubs and rinse water for veg) - we do 5 wash loads a week so a reasonable qty. washing up water goes on the cherry tree and surrounding shrubs Mrs BC likes a bath once a week and thats normally 80 litres and that gets mixed with Wash cycle water. showers are normally 30 litres each so 120 litres a day max - I’ve never bothered to try and harvest that water we aren’t harvesting as such just minimising mains water usage on the garden which normally is none I think I’ll add a mini (500 litre IBC) as that could go behind the shed and act as a buffer for dry periods

Great points! Im definitely going to create a floor plan to get a idea of the space (floorplanner.com is great for that). Im also planning on utilising AI rendered mockups to visualise different specs and get it to generate different interior design ideas. The idea of being semi-off-grid is very appealing so would love to get solar panels and energy storage system. Its a double brick construction so Im not too concerned about insulation at this stage. "wrap around balcony and glass balustrading can eat through a lot of cash" - Don't i know it! A company quoted me 67k for the wrap around balcony after i showed them this rendering im never paying close to that. If it comes to it, I may just settle for a terrace instead of a wrap-around.

Just seconding this. Never done this but all my research has said you absolutely need to test every load if you want a good result. (Not just SCC but concrete* in general). The load gets rejected if it doesn't pass, don't allow water to be added. The drivers and companies are all used to this and it shouldn't be a problem to do as the first thing you do when the truck arrives. Edit: * For anything important

I’ve never used it as nobody does it close enough to me. but when I was doing the research everybody did like a reverse slump, it spreads out on a board and you measure the diameter of the spread.

You may find it useful to get some measured plans of the existing building and site and any proposed new layout. That will make it easier to specify what you want. Do you want to improve insulation, ventilation, heating, hot water, solar, cooling etc? These are worth considering early on. £250k sounds a healthy budget but windows and external doors, kitchens, landscaping, automatic gates, wrap around balcony and glass balustrading can eat through a lot of cash.

Where to?

Yes it has been neglected. The ivy has attacked the property pretty badly!This view it's more towards the back of the house and the entrance is higher up towards the right (the driveway is steep). Its definitely a unique layout and part of the reason we fell in love with it. Regarding what needs doing -blimey, how long do you have? The major/structural works include: - knocking down walls between kitchen and dining room (will leave the steel installation and plastering to pro's but can do the fireboarding of the RSJ's myself) - installing a new steel wrap-around balcony with gall balustrades (I can do things like installing the composite decking but the actual fabrication and installation of the frame will need to be outsourced. - Replacing the existing entrance gates (as the entrance is too narrow), with a sliding gate. Ill have to see how much of this I can do myself! Other than that, the whole house needs refurb - new kitchen (might use DIYKitchens for this if they have decent quality worktops), new windows, new external sliding doors, new front door, flooring, lights, plastering in some rooms. The garden needs major refreshing too as we plan to have a outdoor kitchen and vegetable garden. Also plan to turn that garage you see into a gym. WE already have a separate detached garage up the driveway. We've budgeted £250k but i know in the current climate, that may not be enough.

Welcome to the forum. That's what I like, optimism.

The drought has also had me thinking about this and I've been playing around with a pump and diverted shower water. Setup - cheap submersible pump, a long length of hose, and an large old plastic dustbin at the bottom of the garden, next to the greenhouse. I diverted the shower water outlet to a holding tank where the shower drain exits the house, put the pump in there and attached the hosepipe. Simples. Results/comments I thought showers were good for using less water but was surprised at how much still gets dumped each time. I know a shower uses less water than having a bath but it still seems a lot. Two showers and the old plastic dustbin is full. Even using natural shampoos/soaps the soapiness of the water seems strong and there's a lot of scum. Makes me unsure about putting it on the lawn/shrubs - never mind anywhere near vegetables (which apparently you can do with some caveats/caution). This seems like a huge waste of water with few secondary uses unless put through some sort of filter/centrifuge system to clear out teh gunk. We will be setting up a proper rainwater recovery system on our outbuilding using some IBCs, but this was an interesting experiment to keep me occupied for a few days. Also got me thinking about rainwater recovery being the wet equivalent of solar power - the time you really need it is when there isn't much around!

Hello Hayden and welcome. The house looks a bit neglected. It is quite unusual being 3 storey with the integral double garage. What changes are you considering?

It's true that buildings without a DPC rely on moisture evaporating from the wall. However some height difference is needed between external ground level and internal floor level, so that enough moisture has evaporated before it reaches that floor level. If the floor is timber, then you also need ventilation beneath the floor, from one side to the other, to prevent excessive moisture build-up. If there's now a concrete floor with a DPM, that will block the evaporation towards the inside - in which case, unless the wall can evaporate the extra moisture to the outside, it's likely to cause problems on the inside above floor level, making that height difference even more important. In other words, sandstone can only deal it in the right conditions. So definitely a good idea to do some remedial works as suggested above.

Hi! All the best. I'm currently undertaking a full refurb of our new forever home. Ive had experience of doing a refurb as I recently did a flip but bit daunted by the scale of the job. I'm planning on taking it easy, enjoying the process and the house, even if it means it will take 2 years Regards Hayden

Hi everyone! I just wanted to introduce myself, I'm Hayden. Myself and my wife have recently purchased our dream house, which is in need of a lot of TLC, and it's going to be massive DIY undertaking. I'm really excited to join this buildhub community and will input where I can. If people are interested, I will be happy to share my progress as I go along. Happy building!

Done that, using a 3m drywall stud which is nicely straight and is stiff enough. 2mm under the straightedge is generally the worst so that is not significant. 2 areas of about .5m2 are a little worse so I'm going to try the old fashioned 'rub it with a brick' first. I'm still keen to find how thick the adhesive is generally applied. Also any recommendations on brands for primer. As often, the wickes price sets a target.. less 10% and including vat. And of course I am open to being told that I'm wrong on any of the above.

That's the theory. But most warehouse floors are left as they are. And structures likewise. So I think it's overstated, unless the laitance ("fat" to concretors) is very severely overworked and is a paste of very wet gypsum. Even then I am not convinced it's an issue in a domestic situation.

I have a hinge jig, but the slots are a bit larger than the hinge and The hinge positions have conspired against me