Oxbow16

@OnoffThat's interesting to hear, and I've got a lot to learn on the renovating front. Our budget is nowhere near a knock down and start again level though. Not even close. And on top of that, the history and character of the house is one of the things that drew us to it. Luckily I don't think there is anything hugely remedial that needs doing. Not that the surveyor found at any rate. Plus, only half of the house is old old, and the bigger part of that is the 10m x 4.5m cowshed. The rest of the house is the 1970s and 2001 extensions I mentioned....

Hi Would be interesting to hear a bit more about the damage it got in transit. I appreciate being in transit is a whole different thing than being in the ground, but I did note the Tricel is GRP; albeit their "extra strong" variant. Sorry if that's a bit off topic. We're in the process of choosing a sewage treatment plant. We're on very heavy clay. We did our own percolation test a month or so ago and the first lot of water is still in there. It's barely gone down an inch! Plus we've got a stream, so everything for us points towards a STP going to the stream. With decent draining soil though, I'd definitely still be considering a septic tank with drainage field. Especially a new one which I could look after properly from the start, having now learnt the do's and don'ts. It's the running costs of the sewage treatment plants that puts me off. An average air blower seems to come in at around £80 per year electricity. More if you need a pumped outlet. £100+ for annual servicing. Regular desludging - possibly more so that a STP. And I think it's probably fair to add a replacement air blower price in there too as from what I've been reading there's no accounting for how often they give up and need replacing...

Hmmm What I have found interesting in this recent humid weather.... At one end of the house is the (poorly) converted cowshed barn, which is reading 68% on the hygrometer. Up the other end of the house in the dining room - built in 2001 - I'm getting a reading of 85%!

PS - Procrastination is my middle name.... I'm trying to get it changed by deed poll!

Thanks Mike I'm not sure whether a separate sub-forum would be a good idea or not tbh. I'm too unfamiliar with the site/forums to say. I guess on the one hand, old or new, houses still have the same components to them... But there are all those specific old house topics, usually one way or another centring around breathability! I like to keep all saved articles on my PC into well organised folders, and often I'm faced with the same dilemma there. Lime floors for example - does that go in with all the other floor gumpf I'm reading and saving, or into an "old house renovation" folder. But hey, perhaps I'm too new here to be exposing the full extent of my anality!

Hi all I hope I'm ok to join this forum... I'm certainly no self builder! But we moved into our new house a year and a half ago; it needs a fair bit of work and where possible I would like to get stuck in. To be honest, a lot of it will be beyond my skill set. And where I do think things are within what I can manage, my partner will often inject her high levels of common sense and bring me back to reality All that being said, I like to be involved in things even if it's at the research stage and deciding the best course of action. It was actually sewage treatment plants and the like that brought me here. That's the current pressing need, and whilst looking into what's our best option this site kept coming up. So I've now read more or less every sewage treatment plant thread on here and I'm starting to feel like I know the regular contributors in that sub-forum personally! No doubt as the house renovation continues I'll start to dip into the other areas. We're in the Brecon Beacons... The house is slightly unusual in as much as the original part - we think - is mid eighteenth century. There were then considerable extensions made in the 1970s, and again around 2001. So quite a hotch potch! I'm looking forward to seeing whether there are dedicated sub-forums to renovating old houses as that's where a lot of the advice I'll be needing falls. There are several instances of new(er) building techniques being used where perhaps they shouldn't have been... Concrete render on old solid walls, concrete slab and DPC on an old cowshed floor, that kind of thing. Anyhow, that's all for another week, month, year... For now it's back to the sewers... Many thanks, over and out