Ferdinand

Or in fact develops eg tinnitus as I have following my nasty flu last winter. I am now in the habit of leaving the warming drawer on by mistake in the kitchen as I can no longer hear eg the hum of that, or things like the extractor or the microwave running.

On management of this project. I don't think a useful answer to "can I finish for 200k" is possible. Firstly because we have no idea what "finished" means - and everytime you think it is finished the winking gargoyle will think of something else that needs to be done, and secondly because the thing is so unique that opinions from third parties on the Internet on that question are mainly worth diddley squat - at least until they have been and looked and have the knowledge to guestimate in the context of Bedfordshire and your particular building. Even on a self-build new house you can make a +/- 50% difference in a lot of areas just by purchasing and careful (or not) choices. It is probably good to break each bit down with estimates, and so create a constructive cost model that you can assign a confidence level to. Then if you need you can profile your costs down. Here is an excellent detailed thread about how one of our members @Visti did that: You will get more directly useful stuff from us on things like what works best for heating systems, how to do particular aspects, and how to get your insulation or your doors for half the normal price. And maybe on overall approach from people who have tackled challenging projects - there are a couple of people who are at bath-chair age or younger but are tackling projects to make my eyes water. I think you have strong financial arsecover in the time you have owned it, and it may be useful to focus on Phases small enough to envision completing so encouraging you at every point, and you can always see progress, and which would each add enough perceived value to give you confidence that the value has increased. The goal should be to move in as quickly as is practicable (yes?), so I would think about what is *necessary* for you to move in, and perhaps talk about 2 initial phases, rather than "finished". If you have reasonable confidence your investment will come back at each stage, you can relax slightly (a Fog Cutter helps). When you come to deal with the Council remember that they cannot set a timescale for *finishing*, so you get to take as long as you like once you have started. If you are somewhat ambiguous you can get a lot of leeway. Phase 1 - Basic Works 1A - Outdoors Driveway and something round the back for parking / storage - garage or a freight container or two, perhaps a secondhand Portakabin for office / site facilities. Drains. Minimal garden - mixed hedge yew / holly / beach, and the rest as a wildflower meadow cut twice a year. Any essential safety building works - that dodgy tower stonework? 1B - Indoors Stuff you need to do before fitting out can start - services, steel frame, stud walls (?), insulation, whatever you do with the floor. Secondary glazing. Other stuff you think. Phase 2 - Making the Indoors Liveable My thoughts - do not touch tower at all, 2 or 3 bedrooms, living kitchen, one bathroom. Create spaces for the rest but leave them empty. Then move in, or after a bit more if you are soft. The experience of frost on the inside of the windows in the morning is a great character builder ?. Make them live in the 1920s for a bit, then they will be grateful when you make the 1950s. Then Phase 3, 4 etc. Notes I think you need to reflect on how you will do things. eg I have some ideas for a totally removable floor that I'll post tomorrow. I think you also need to reflect on ventilation if you are making an ancient "breathing building" more airtight. Is there potential for stack ventilation up the tower stairs - the nice thing about church tower roofs is that they are properly accessible. Ferdinand

Knick-knacks in Thanet? Now I’ve heard everything.... There’s at least one photog who specialises in dispensing with them. ?

Unfortunate comment considering the other thread.

6. PS Taking the EW8 down to the fo7ndatiojs is an alternative to insulating under the floor.

The Worcester Park fire last year (?) was close to the type of construction being discussed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49630496

My further comments. 1 - When you EWI you seal your 2G in, so you need to do that first or make provision for upgrading from the inside later. 2 - It is all about detail, and sweating it. Work your quoters hard with your questions. If one of your suppliers is noticeably more knowledgeable, then it is probably worth paying some extra - I would pay 10-20% extra for a reliable and durable local supplier in whom I had more confidence. 3 - You can save a certain amount by removing some of your fittings yourself that need to go back on top of the EWI. Also consider allocating spots where you are going to put things later (eg external lights) and making sure that the mounting points are sound. 4 - Personally I would put a priority on going for 100mm or 125mm as the extra cost will be relatively small. I would then consider champfering the window reveals as that makes it less 'blocky'. 5 - If you are going for RHI on your heating, do your initial EPC before anything else. Here's why - because it is done on the difference, so if you improve then baseline, you get less. This was a couple of years ago, but I think it still applies - check. Ferdinand

Speak for yourself ?. You could supply complementary shewees.

A few further comments in random order. I am assuming that your engagement with this building is long term - either decades or 'will only leave in your coffin' (my dad's statement about his small manor house they renovated and lived in from 197x to 2009). 1. Aha. So your architect management was inspired by Sir Henry Wootton on Ambassadors ? "Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendum rei publicæ causâ." 2. I think you need to think about which layers do not contain likely archaeology, which probably means bones or former graves/architecture. My surmise is that you should be safe with accretion since the graveyard closed in 1900, since by definition no one has been buried since then - assuming Bedfordshire has had no reversed version of Burke and Hare inserting bodies in churchyards in the dead of night. I would say that that means you should be safe to dig perhaps 12-18" down around the walls for 12-24" out. Your call if you feel a need to talk to someone first. You may find that that alone will dry your walls over a couple of years. It might be tempting to go for a paved path at the new level so you can just sweep it. It could be a good idea to see if you can get a local Archaeology Department to use your ground for letting their students practise with Ground Penetrating Radar in exchange for cups of tea and a copy of the result, or an email / short report / memo report (they also need to practice writing erports...). It may be that they will be able to discern disturbed layers / areas, which would help you tell where it is safe to dig, and that such an opinion would get it past the Conservation Officer without a full pro report if you need to show them. Get the relationship right and maintained, and you may be able to get informal opinions on the phone or two para emails for free forever just because someone is interested. You would benefit from 20 such relationships - pros who become friends; you need to find ones who are as eccentric as you are. 3. I think your garage also needs to be secure storage and a workshop, with or without the car in there. Think carefully. One thing you are relatively short of is outbuildings. This is important. 4 - To keep costs down you need to decide which serious bits of kit you buy rather than hire. I would suggest a scaffold tower high enough to do the entire inside safely, perhaps scaffolding, and some tools. 5 - I would also think about transporting things. My technique is to have a car that can tow 2 tons, and a trailer that is the maximum length allowed into the local tip without a householder being charged. 6 - It might also be worth developing one or two specialist skills to conservation quality yourself - work out an interest, and which one will be most use. Lime pointing and repairing your leaded glazing, perhaps? Try more than a couple and you may not get the depth of skill necessary. 7. Medieval and later stone churches are really forgiving if you work with the building, and you can spend years and years needing to do nothing if they are basically sound. Then every so often a gargoyle winks and something needs 25k or 50k spending on it in the next 5-10 years. There is a lot to learn from the way the CofE manages its buildings - they have a proper professional inspection every 5 years which generates a list of works, which allows planning usually via a dedicated fund in the accounts and sometimes appeals etc. Most have very long term relationships with architects. You could find out more about that by chatting to a local churchwarden or 2 (not usually the Vicar), or reading up on their resource books. The buildings panjandrum in the Diocese is the Archdeacon (known as the Archdemon to their friends), not the Bishop or Chancellor. There is also a huge range of resources on the ChurchCare website, especially the advice and guidance sheets. https://www.churchofengland.org/more/church-resources/churchcare 8. Glad to see that you are taking a thoughtful approach to adding bits to the building. Excellent. 9. Gutters - do you actually need gutters? If gargoyles and waterspouts were good enough for 400 years, what has changed? 10. A lot of churches put their secondary glazing outside, as it is aimed at protecting stained glass windows. I agree you are probably better inside - though perhaps a heat model would be a good idea to understand it well. One of members developed a good one here: 11. I think one big expense I see appearing at some point will be repairs to those weathering window frames. 12. Have you considered how you will manage casual visitors? eg couples married there 40 years ago wanting a photo in the porch? In such a prominent position you *will* get them. What about having a small display board by the gate making it clear that it is now a private house, but sharing a bit of historical detail? Then maybe a display in what will be your porch with any artefacts you have found, and a bit more info - so if you ever decide to do eg Church Open Day or the National Garden Scheme you can satisfy the interest whilst keeping your private space private. My preference is to manage visitors gently rather than totally exclude, as it can be very enriching. At our house we had all sorts of people who had lived there, or knew people, or doing family research at the rate of a couple a year. 13. Similarly for the garden - needs some thought for what you will do to keep your eg private sunbathing or child playing space. One useful possibility could be a hedge (hedges not regulated - fences are) round inside the wall. A hornbeam, yew or beech hedge would work wonders for private space. 14. Does it need to make money? Depending on what you do, you could use the garden + porch as a location for local wedding photogs. Relatively unintrusive and could bring in say £100-200 a number of times a year to pay for projects. 15. If you want historical information, parish registers and things are normally in the public domain somewhere. Perhaps County Archives or scanned by the Mormon Church. 16. If you do put wool insulation in, ask about what happens if it gets an infestation. 17. Are you in a position - not having started - to get indemnity policies now? eg insure against dry rot. Once you know what is there you can't insure against it. Could be good value. 18. I slightly think you are doing your budget process backwards. You've already committed, and what you gotta do, you gotta do. What you can control is more about when you do it, which bits you can delay or avoid doing, and cost control of that. I would suggest thinking about the selection of bits of project you need in order to be able to get in, focus on cost-efficiency on appropriate quality work and accept that the rest will happen in due course. 19. I think the mains not a composting loo is probably the way to go. 20. I would suggest a habit of being nosey about converted churches, where you can learn a huge amount by just knocking on doors when you drive past it. Perhaps have some photos of yours on your iPad, but people love talking about them. Or visit ones for sale. Also develop an eye for detail of alterations to older churches - huge numbers had loos and kitchens added very well for the millenium, and I find them the most interesting category of listed buildings as the only ones that have been allowed to continue evolving since 1950. 21. You may never have to pay in full for a holiday again. You'll be able to do exchanges for Gin Palaces in Florida and Villas in Venice. The Yanks for one would love it. 22. Grants. Grade 2* may mean that you have more prospect than others - eg for conservation on your medieval chancel arch etc. You will not likely get things to make your life better - though perhaps there may be stuff under the latest govt eco scheme etc or RHI. Enjoy. Ferdinand

She loves you .... Yeh Yeh Yeh (sorry - too much gin in my blueberries) (Update: Cameron Newham project link: https://www.parishchurches.org/)

You're a guy who likes a challenge, yes? Sorry if I am repeating stuff you have covered. I think we would need to know more about where you are with planning for detailed comment, as there seems to be no-PP post-2015, which means that if that is so you need to repeat the whole thing, including the Bat and Tree reports, and possibly the Archaeology one, too. Guestimating, that would be up to 5-10k for the Planning App if it all has to be redone. It would be useful to know how big the floor area is. As a Grade 2* listed church, it is one of the top 6% of listed buildings, and one of the more (ie in the middle between most and least ? ) important church buildings. There's a lot of detailed stuff mentioned in the listing (below), with a lot of bits going back to Medieval (you won't be able to lay a finger on any of that). You will have close supervision by conservation officers, as well as Bat Men, Tree Officers and Archie the Ologist. I think for work on the most important building in the village, in the High Street where everyone can see it, with a diverted public footpath round the edge of your site, you will be doing it by the book - though you can probably create a less expensive version of the book than otherwise by adjusting the scope of your work. I think the Heritage Report which is part of the Design and Access from 2015 is important. I think you have some tension between the statement therein not to divide up the interior vs your proposal for a mezzanine (are you even allowed to bolt it to a Grade 2* listed wall - I have no idea?). Also if I am correct it says that the roof needs work, but also gives hope that you can change some of the 19C and early 20C accretions. It says that the building was unsafe and in need of urgent repair - that counter to your suggestion that the roof is usable, and the 2015 scheme involves raising the roof. One problem is that if any one of these type of issues explodes in your face, it can be a 50k hole in your budget overnight (KEY ISSUE - Risk Assessment up front). Little villages routinely raise 6 figures for repairing the structural elements of church buildings eg roof or chancel or porch. You need to have confidence that the once-a-century need will not land on your watch. Was this building ever on the Buildings at Risk register? An FOI to English Heritage for all their information may be very fruitful. Is there any risk of disturbing skeletons and bodies? That could be painful, though the churchyard being closed since 1900 may help. One technique I have seen used is to fill in discovered voids with sand rather than doing archaeology. So what to do? Suggestions All those drains through the churchyard and the French Drain look bloody expensive for archaeology. The quotes may sound expensive; unfortunately it is. It will have to be done if the ground is disturbed, so scope out the need if you can. Need to focus on minimising archaeology. if the interior floor was disturbed by Victorians or 20C people, then I would consider running drains and pipes etc under the floor or a raised floor rather than digging up a medieval churchyard - unless you can show it is previously disturbed. There may be a lot of value for you in running things under the path. Or perhaps there is a plague pit and voids underneath? We found one in a church in Nottingham where I was once on the Church Council while reordering - would have required us to find somewhere for an extra 4 months for a congregation of 500, so we filled it with sand and put the new floor in with cantilevers, rather than let Archie back. Do you have good advisers to argue your side? Thinking of eg the architect who used to do Quinquiennial Inspections when it was a church, or the one who worked on the 2015 application. This is important, and needs to consider your proposals - are you allowed, for example, to stick insulation between the beams of an ancient roof? Are you familiar with how church buildings work - consider taking up churchcrawling, perhaps especially the Churches Conservation Trust buildings. I think you need to consider yourself in attitude the custodian - almost long-term janitor - of the building, and make everything reversible if you can. Doing nothing where it is not necessary is an important technique, and beware of ologists and officers who want to spend your money on their enthusiasms. You should be able to find a lot of info about the interior and the fabric, perhaps from the Ecclesiological Society or former church warden etc, or perhaps the "Church Recorders" from the Arts Society have done this one at some point since 1971. If all else fails Cameron Newham has had a 20 year project to record photographic surveys of every building mentioned in Pevsner, and especially rural churches, and has now done about 70-80% or rural parish churches and his photo archive is getting on for a million - he will talk to you but will probably want money if you want photos. I think he did Bedfordshire quite early, so you may be lucky. Or find someone who crawled it whilst it was still a church; just find a group and ask the question or email bedfordshireparishchurches.co.uk . I very much like the suggestion in the heritage statement about re-rendering the walls that were stripped back to stone due to former fashion, though some "freeze it in aspic when it was listed" people may have a blue fit (probably a good thing for their mental attitude). I am not at all sure that UFH will work in this sort of space. Take great care with ducting fat and stuff out of your kitchen. Much potential to damage the old fabric. I think the key is exploring the cost and risk of each element before you do anything substantial. I can't overstate that. (Update: should have mentioned that some parts of the listing will be out of date by now, but I think eg the bellframe and bell are stil there - or were in 2015.) Really, really wishing you all the best. Ferdinand -------------------------------------------- TL 13NW GRAVENHURST HIGH STREET 4/65 Upper Gravenhurst 23.1.61 Parish Church of Saint Giles GV II* Parish church, originally a chantry chapel. C12, C15 and c.l900, the latter work by Sir Arthur Blomfield (Beds. Times and Independant, 14th March l902). Coursed ironstone rubble witn ashlar dressings. Chancel, N vestry/organ chamber, nave, S porch, W tower. Chancel: c.1900, replacing a brick structure. 3-light E window, 3-light and 2-light S windows in C15 style. Embattled parapet. C12 round-headed chancel arch with zigzag carving to W side, the paired columns and scalloped capitals being c.l900 replacements for Jacobean wood columns. Flanking round arches also c.1900. N vestry/organ chamber: c.1900. 3-light and single-light windows to N in C15 style. Plain parapet. Nave: C12, with some C15 reworking. C15 2-light windows to E bay of N and S elevations. Blocked round-headed doorway to N. C15 S doorway with 4- centred head. Embattled parapet, patched with red brick to N elevation. S porch: c.1900 replacing a brick structure. Pointed arched doorway, single lights to sides, plain parapet. W tower: late C15. 3 stages. Diagonal buttresses to NW and SW angles. Semi-octagonal stair turret projects from lower stages of S elevation. W elevation has 4-centred 3-light window to lower stage. Bell stage has 2-light pointed arched window to each side. Embattled parapet. Pointed tower arch. Interior: Plain 12-sided font, Cl5, reworked C19. C15 nave roof has moulded beams and braces, carved bosses, and angels holding shields and musical instruments, some parts of roof retaining traces of painted decoration. Other fittings C19. Listing NGR: TL1130535987

Yes you will be able to find matching ducts. There are other possibilities such as offset air bricks that move the one on the face of the wall up by one to three courses. This post from me last week discusses a sort-of related issue:

Yes you are mad ?. (Will try and do a bit more later) Isn't that a quote from Mrs Icarus? ? We probably need to bring Sisyphus and Prometheus in as well, but I'll start thinking constructive thoughts.

Presumably pruning it out of your tree will direct more energy into growing flowers on his side, so you'll be making his garden even lovelier. ?

So why the flapping fandango don't you install it now? Or make an inclined plane out of that *GKD)~%! walk-on glazing?

I have a somewhat vigorous mature Clematis and Wisteria, rambling over a frame dividing the leisure garden from the kitchen garden. This is an exchange from during lock-down with a friend, but I would welcome any further comments before I tackle this. These are a few "high summer" dripping wet piccies from this morning: o This is the type of frame that is under all that greenery; a 2m tall horse fence. And these are the replies from a friend who posts as "Cyclefree" over on http://www.politicalbetting.com/ Thanks in advance for any comments.

if you get a topographical, tell them to include all boundary features and to go enough beyond the plot area where you will need the information eg to mark all the relevant features of the road and splays where you may need to know these. F

Can you get a Secondhand one from ASDA? Or various politicians?

Welcome. Do not believe a word of it ... buttercup is a Duracell Bunny. In between sleeps.

I suppose that Plan W is to make like the Dutch and mount a big hook and beam out of a roof timber.

Air bricks should be clear for a suspended floor - unless you have done something which removes the need for cross ventilation such as sealing it all and filling the entire void with insulation (which is a different ballgame aimed at doing different things). They need to be 150mm above the outside ground level to keep water out. When I had a problem was because somebody had topped up the concrete drive to the level of the bottom of the air brick. So I fitted one of these to raise the outside above the driveway surface: https://www.toolstation.com/9-x-3-telescopic-vent/p38967 Where the cavity insulation blocks an air brick you take it out and fit a sleeve: https://www.bes.co.uk/air-920x-set-terracotta-white-7656/ Where possible you can lower the outside ground level, by simply digging a trench or creating the French Drain mentioned, which will take the water away to a soakaway you dig somewhere. Once you have solved the issue then the water should go away slowly or quickly, but pumping it out may be useful if you have Lake Windermere down there rather than a puddle, or if it lets you see where it comes back in from. Think of the different things you can do as a toolkit, and look at the different bits of your circs and see which one will work where, or how much you need to do. If you floor or joists is rotten in places then tackle that after sorting the damp. HTH Ferdinand

Presumably with that driveway you have an innovative solution to fire protection / suppression ie sprinklers, which will be a few k extra. I don't think that meets the conditions wrt distance from road and fire engine access (iirc 2.75m absolute min width or all the building within 45m of the roadway where the engine can go).

I would probably consider a permanent framework disguised as a pergola for fitting a portable electric winch, or permanent mounting points for a temporary system that can be recreated in half an hour. An external domestic lift does seem to be a good option, but @pocster will not get one for tuppence. Actually I suppose a further option is to repurpose a set of wheel ramps used for loading vehicles onto trailers as the inclined plane, which are only £100 or so. There's a set available for free in Italy somewhere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2oEVBSedjE

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My point would be to check that your chosen blocks will be frost tolerant in the way you plan to use them. I think blocks are more resilient than bricks (where you need engineering not facing bricks for a wall to prevent spalling over time), but worth a check. This is what happens to brick walls not done properly with the correct bricks.