Leaderboard

Thabk you so much. Your post has been so helpful Ferdinand. I am afraid I was the idiot who fell in love and bought the house! It had already gone to auction twice at £120k and not sold. I then offered £80k and they took it to auction a third time to try to get a better deal. Needless to say nobody else was smitten with the decrepit ruin so it was mine. I didn't buy the house to make money and had never intended to sell it. I wanted to be its custodian (previous family had done no modernisation in about 70 years). Even derelict, it was my dream home and I was prepared to live through a decade of hardship to achieve it. I have done three Scottish winters with no heating. I was planning to die in this house - though perhaps not throught death by collapsing staircases or chunks of lath plaster ceilings ?

Now we have planning in place, and a design we are happy with, time to get started. We are certain we cannot employ a main contractor to do the build - at 280m2, the MC estimates are in the £400k range. We need to keep it closer to £250k. Demolishing the existing was the first challenge. After a few calls, it soon became apparent that this would not be cheap. £10-£20k from the main demo companies. Lowest offer was £4 for a reclamation company to come in, demolish by hand and take all the natural slate, timbers and Belfast red clay bricks. There's upwards of £15k worth of material there, so jog on!!!! So, I started the laborious process of demolishing the house in September 2019. As it was a single story bungalow, it seemed like a doable job, esp as the walls were red brick with weak lime mortar. Wall render, radiators, floor boards, insulation, kitchen, plumbing, ceilings. The biggest challenge and worst job was the loft insulation. Somebody in their wisdom chose to use 100s of bags of loose EPS balls. Absolutely nightmare. Couldn't sweep them up, couldn't vacuum, couldn't let them mix with the rest of the materials. In the end, we ended up punching through ceilings, and using a leaf blower to pile all the beads up, then stuff in to numerous 90l wheelie bin bags, and off to the dump. Horrible job! Ceiling down, beads separated using leaf blower. Walls stripped, floors lifted. Joists and floor boards being kept for future use on outbuldings, furniture etc. Roof stripped of natural slate tiles. Mostly done from inside the attic, with slates lowered down on pallets on a telehandler. Walls were demolished by hand, with a little help from my pregnant partner and our "site car" VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4 All in demolition including putting in a wider access road and stoning the front of the house, £3k. Next: ground works. VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4 VID-20200328-WA0006.mp4

Some good replies already. I'd reiterate the point of whether you'll enjoy the journey of renovation or not. It's a viable choice to choose to spend more than it's worth on paper if it provides you with a hobby you enjoy. If you see it as being trapped in a nightmare then that's the opposite. Are you currently essentially debt free? It's easy to focus on how much you've already sunk in to it but try to focus on what's ahead. If you can genuinely get a return on the future investment then it is a reasonable idea. Alternatively, if you can cut your losses then that could be the right decision. It's difficult to know from a forum if this is one of the low points on a bumpy but fruitful journey or if this is the gradual realisation of a large mistake. I'm feeling the latter. You may have done so already, but play out some 'what if' scenarios and honestly (to yourself) research them. What if you just walked away, what if there were more unforseen costs, etc. If you're feeling trapped in a nightmare try to keep your spirits up. Happiness lies ahead you just need to plot your path through these troubled waters.

Welcome @Imogen - what an interesting person to take this on ?. For your questions: If you want a mortgage, and I don't see why you shouldn't get one ... there is equity in the house and your job is well-paid and as secure as it gets, I think you may need to talk to either a Building Society or similar that gives autonomy to the local management, or to a specialist broker. You could perhaps expect to pay £500-600 as a fee on top, but they should have sight of the whole market. One suggestion I would make it to look at the 60% LTV point, which is where you will get a better interest rate. For a broker, perhaps try asking the Scottish HHA https://www.scotlandsheritage.org.uk/partners/historic-houses-association/, or asking on a property forum (I am a member at propertytribes.com - though this is more developer / landlord they have brokers as site sponsors etc and are reputable). For a mortgage you need cooking, looing and bathing facilities, and probably heating. There are things you can perhaps do to start dry rot treatment - such as dismantling all the floors. You could also perhaps phase it if you can quarantine an area that you do not need for a few years to help with budget and do it later - but you know best about that. One possibility is if some work is not needed - is there a need to replace *all* the windows? Can some be refurbished? Aside :Can you get a reduced VAT rate for repairs to a listed building? As everyone else has, I'll give a view to try and help you reflect. When I was 10 my parents took on a listed building that had been empty for several years (5000 sqft small manor on 7 acres) at the age of 40 both, and that had some dry rot and woodworm. The difference was that dad was an architect and had the skills / knowledge to DIY most of it, and how to find people for the rest. One learning point is that projects can take a long time, and if you can find a way to live with it that can work. We had buckets to catch water during rain for three or four years, as the roof had last been maintained by the Victorians and there were no fewer than seven separate gables (one of which fell off whilst mum was sunbathing one day in 1976) - so it took time. They were still doing things three decades later. I think your choice comes down to desired lifestyle, whether this is the project to deliver it, and whether you want to pay the price in terms of time and work, or if pulling out and perhaps trying again later is a better option? One thing to consider is your assessment of what will happen to the market / value for this house after COVID. Are the SG going to clobber it to recover money spent etc? To pull out you would probably need to take it to auction, so I would at least get an evaluation so that you are well informed. The advantage of an auction is that you can give limited information and let buyers explore the dry rot issue. My guestimate is that they will tell you an expected sale price of between 80k and 140k with potential for "fall in love" value on top, based on finished price - estimated money to spend. It is important to think about sunk costs (which you will not recover) and base any decision on the future not wounds from the past. The size of any sunk costs when you are deciding is a distraction. To my eye you may get away with enough to buy another house to lick your wounds for a period, and a small mortgage. I've been listening to Kenny Rogers writing this reply. In a lot of situations he lists the options surprisingly well. I hope you'll forgive 3 minutes of corned beef. In your situation I think I would be inclined eat the loss, fold, and walkaway if an exit is available which leaves you on your feet - is the phrase "bloody but unbowed"? We occasionally have people come along who take a long look at projects then take a decision to spend their 5 years doing something else. That is a real option. in my thinking the clincher is that the options are to plough through a high risk path for a number of years to perhaps (assuming no more black holes) emerge with a breakeven value vs money spent and a 150k mortgage, or to withdraw to a less risky option with perhaps a smaller mortgage and come back later if you wish. In financial terms to me the lower risk option is *probably* to cut your losses. Do you love this house and this *potential* lifestyle to go through this and face those risks? Or not? If you decide to keep it then clearly there are options like renting out to 2 lodgers to bring in say £700 a month and so on, and different questions come into view that we can help with here. All the best. Ferdinand

So, progress has continued and after months of walking round looking at drawings I can actually see proper rooms which is all very exciting. My necessity of carrying lip gloss everywhere has been replaced with a tape measure which is now a handbag essential! I've become almost obsessive checking sizes of rooms, window openings and that potential bathroom purchases will fit. My tape measure had that much use it finally broke! One stand out moment was the steels for the 5.5 metre Internorm doors (modelled by the wife) and the corner window. This will be the kitchen dining room and look out up to the canal so will be one of my favourite places. The inside of the bungalow looks like a group of lads have had the worst house party ever and the chimney, naff red fireplace (see previous forum post), 70s bathroom and bedroom have all gone along with some of the windows, though neither of quite made it out of the house yet so it's just piles of rubble. In the absence of a chimney we have gained an impromptu skylight with view of the wasps nest. Internorm did their technical survey earlier this week and we just need to iron out the measurements of the 'triangle bits' above the huge sliders and hopefully will have our window order placed on Tuesday. The lead times mean potentially the windows will pretty much be the last things to go in which to be isn't a bad thing, less chance they will get damaged. Here is some pics. We are spending a rainy Saturday afternoon arguing about knobs.

Hi there Four and half years ago we made the shortest possible move, hired a man but no van and moved next door. Partly a bigger house but with the bonus of a huge outbuilding at the rear of a courtyard garden spanning both our house and next door (ours is a semi). The outbuilding is a former stable block possibly with hayloft but has been knocked about a bit and has had the second floor height raised. Sadly not many original features but a few I'm hoping to reuse. We have planning for a 2 bed flat upstairs with workshop, studio and garden room with veranda downstairs. Trying to do as much as I can myself and have given myself a done by the time I'm 50 deadline (4 years to go). Main advice I'll be needing is on use of corrugated metal roof with velux, flue pipes and possibly solar! Also hoping to have a go at tanking with cavity drain. It'll need to be electric heating system as no gas supply. Currently bricking up the many gaps and then it's onto new lintels, padstones etc as specd by SE. Enjoyed reading some of the threads already. Good to know there's help out there!

Cheapest flat white door you can get that doesn’t feel flimsy is a standard FD30 ply panel fire door. Get the chippy to knock them into the holes then take them out and lay flat and give them a sand over, two coats of decent undercoat and then two top coats using a roller. The downside is that it will look industrial and show marks etc. Have a look at the Howdens doors catalogue

+1. Most mains around here are from a 3/8" tapping, but the flow rates are ridiculous. The flow rate at the street needs to be preserved, so you only need to fit larger pipe than normal if the distance that the water is to be conveyed is abnormally long. At 40m I doubt that there is much need to go to 32mm, unless the pressure and flow at the street is ?. However, I would never be an advocate of fitting less than 32mm because of the point @Temp makes, and that is that you are not guaranteed to still be receiving the same supply static & dynamic flow rates as first deemed. Putting in a bigger pipe now, uplift in cost of doing this would be the same as a pint and a kebab, is good insurance. NOTE : Not all kebabs are equal.

I think the Ivar set and 3rd party manifolds mate together, but IIRC you have to ditch the red and blue isolation valves due to the conflicting male / female 1" BSP fittings. Order what you need and do a 'dry run' to see what does / doesn't marry up. In the past, where it's been a 'hybrid' arrangement, I just added standard gate valves before the primary plumbing hits the pump / blending set. Best to check compatibility and go from there.

when i can get the water tested and if it comes back treatable --then yes it is the cheapest and simplest answer seems this - https://www.freeflush.co.uk/collections/drinking-water-filters/products/hydroinfinity-integrated-drinking-water-treatment-console and a storage tank plumbed so it is flushed continually by stream the water course has to be repaired anyway no matter what. I splashed out on a water diviner today to see what the chances are for a well and he found a good source . so it will now come down to numbers once I get the water test enviromental health are not doing that at this time due to ---you guessed it --corvid 19 Its hard to get exact figures -so many variables well --which I will try to itemise better -depending on depth could be similar to bringing mains up from road - but that depends of SW price to give me supply the quarry site could just pump it from the lake -dependant on water test -but as there are already quite a few wells on same hillside i think the water test will come back good or from mains The Glebe is the same -difference is they won,t need a BIG pump station due to not being as high up I have a tame dyker --but the retaining wall is nearly 1m thick he is making unconvicing noises at this time . maybe I make the wall lower and make a bigger slant on the banking the water pipe is in , which goes to the channel I think the channel will become a pond eventually anyway

I personally feel it will be a mistake to not have a door that needs painting, if in 5 years time they have picked up marks from the hoover and other every day chores it’s a simply job to flat them down and roller on a top coat. If you go for something fancy you will find they look tired but cannot be tidied up, so you leave them and they get worse until you replace them again.

doors usually come stained or painted unless they are plastic!

What's your budget? Are we in £25 doors or more like £75? Are you committed to white? (Have you tried getting posher doors at a discount?)

I have seen plenty worse, but that is not good. All junction boxes that are hidden should be maintenance free which means Wago or similar and must be inside a junction box rather than just open connections. You will need to leave gaps around the downlights, which is one reason I personally hate them in a ceiling with a cold loft space above it.

I have 2 runs at ~25m . I’ve doubled up and have 4 vents with them all for the same large kitchen living area. I didn’t really have any other choice due to the restrictions of my house. Fingers crossed it won’t work the unit too hard.

I only ran single runs even to the longest run which is about 18m, I did this after reading about others and how in reality the flow rates were set below recommended levels .

I used double runs for all of mine, including the really short ones. Why? Because I thought that was what you were supposed to do. The Architectural Technician that detailed the house drew up the MVHR system plan with it all shown as twin runs. I then bought the kit from BPC and installed it myself, with a few changes to the details of the runs. BPC never said anything. All the celing outlets came ported for 2 pipes, so it all just seemed logical and correct. It was only AFTER doing this I started to read most people only used one run of pipe on anything but the very longest runs.

Isn't this "deposit" a total Red Herring in this discussion? Your "deposit" is eg the other 40% when you take out a 60% mortgage, n'est-ce-pas? And you don't need cash to buy that because you already have it. The advantage of that loan is that it provides by shuffle more working capital. Depends how much headroom you need combined with how the costs compare to any mortgage. Essentially it provides water under the boat to stop you grounding - the question is whether a) you need the water, and b) there is a better way of providing it.

If your Council has the CIL charging scheme/policy in place, you wouldn’t just be able to add a third storey without notifying them. If the Council withdraw your PD rights for loft conversions, then to add on the third storey will require PP. If the overall height of the building is not changing, then just submit an application for a 2.5/3-storey dwelling. The only time these additional floors can pose issues with Planning is overlooking or meeting the off-street parking requirements of which I don’t think the latter is a problem here? 3-storey houses require a protected staircase (or an alternative means of escape). The protected stair is the most common. The top floor needs to lead to a final exit door at ground floor with all those walls and doors forming the landings/halls achieving 30min. fire resistance. It doesn’t matter if you have a spiral but providing it doesn’t lead into or via a habitable room but is part of this protected corridor, then fine. Your architect should know all the rules and regulations.

But your issue as I said was the window positioning here means for the roof to be useable you need to look at how the trusses are built up. Also moving the floors down means the windows go up in relation to your floor levels that can cause problems with the windows being too high for use as means of escape. Why can you not just apply for what you want and compromise if it doesn’t look likely to get passed ..?? Moving windows downward in a principle elevation is not a non material amendment ..!!

I have lived to regret this sentence on a few occasions in my life ......... i now preach “assume nothing “ cpd.

taking what @PeterW is saying as correct , and its sounds right maybe you should put some more rubber roofing on the legs of the decking boards so they cannot over time damage the roof by movement of the decking or another layer laid loose over the first one under where decking is I seriously doubt rubber roofing was ever meant to be a surface to take lots of traffic or physical abrasion to repeat from another of my posts :- a local hotel had a roof covering like this next to the beer garden and crows were bringing food up from the tables to the roof and pecking at it -- to a point where they punctured it if crows can puncture it then things on it could also cause punctures the roof was redone with GRP

OK so first off, that is a cover over the edge of the rubber roof - you need to take the deck board up, check the board hasn't damaged the rubber too, and take the trim off. Once you have done that, make sure the rubber roof is firmly bonded to the bricks. There are various products you can use for this, Sikaflex EBT+ is as good as the rest and you need a decent bead of it behind the top edge of the membrane so any water that gets behind the flashing cannot get through. Then refit the plastic cover. Rake out the joint and brush it clean, then a good thick bead of lead sealant or EBT+ into the gap and push the trim in. Wedge it downward and then point the gap between the wedges with more sealant and finish it flush. Leave it to dry, pull out the wedges and point the gaps. Leave it 24 hours before you try a water test !

Yes. Be persistent. Determinedly persistent. As above, rule nothing out. Who can you talk to? Network, with the emphasis on work. Someone somewhere at sometime has faced a challenge similar to yours. Find that person. Make your own luck.

The meter size is different from the pipe size. They are a screw in type and the size refers to the aperture of the meter inlet - they are volumetric meters and that's the size of the "piston". A QN15 meter will have more than enough of a flow rate. This is most likely what they'll install: https://www.bes.co.uk/elster-v210-manifold-cold-water-meter-20887/?ref=gs&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9b_4BRCMARIsADMUIyrPhohVX2wW1nmtA8L3ftTB-hIIvB6-AJQoX2eg2uiJ_KpB-Ib0IDIaAreuEALw_wcB It's the only sized meter we'd ever install on a 25mm or 32mm service. The pressure loss is minimal and the more important factor is the diameter and length of the service pipe. You should install 32mm pipe all the way to your internal stopcock.

I am designing the upstands for my rooflights now too. Mine are from a different company but are also triple glazed and are passive-house certified. I also have a PIR roof of similar thickness. This is the upstand detail that I am following but my timber-frame designer and architect are converting it into something buildable offsite by my timber-frame manufacturer:

Local college that does horticulture. Students always need projects to do.