Ferdinand

Part agree. Cold roof should be free. Room in roof not so. Walls Would be 10-20+ per sqm if say 50mm celotex and pb then skim etc, or similar. Eg Celotex PL4050 is 40-50 a sheet, plus delivery to timbuctoo. 10m x 5.5m footprint x 2 x 2 x 2.4 = 150 sqm = 2-5k. Depending who fits. Assuming 2 floors, which may or may not be true.

I am considering "back to plaster", not "back to brick". The other question for an older property is "unknown unknowns". If you suddenly find you need a new roof, or have a bit of rotten wall, or some joists with dry rot, or need a new septic tank which now has to be a poo-plant, that can each add anything from £500 to £8000 on its own, and it might be prudent to assume that you may have 1-5 such events happen. Or not and you get a holiday. ==> big, big contingency. To me eye, the central heating, rewiring, reglazing, and possibly bathroom costs look ambitious, whilst the kitchen may be generous (but I am a bloke and some people spend that x2 on a range.) And you do not have anything in for replumbing, or renovating the fabric to a higher insulation standard, or ventilation. Or external works eg any wall built from stone or brick will be about £100-200+ per sqm if you pay for it. So consider the possibility of 80-100k by the time you have done it, and added shiny bits. Vs what it will be worth also. Also @ProDave has done a number of similar things, and is in Scotland. And a well built old property is very different from a poorly built old property. Ferdinand

Welcome to the club. Can't really comment without loads more detail, but try another way - £500-£600 per square metre, assuming there is nothing big and structural (eg roof, reconfiguring walls etc), Those prices look to me to be perhaps doable for someone experienced who is networked in with good suppliers on a small house (= 2 bed or 2 up 2 down), or some for a self-restorer doing the labour. For a newbie or a 3 bed + house - too optimistic, especially if it is for you; we always overspend on things we love. Also crofts tend to be in the back of beyond, so trades have to travel. Also I usually do brick semis and b7ngalows not crofts. Ferdinand

That would see to argue for a new slab infill to make sure there is no such space. If it is a croft, I will defer to those in Scotland of course. It is genuinely difficult to see what one does with 3ft thick (rubble fill, or solid?) walls, other than seal plus ventilate the inside, and allowing the damp to move outwards. I'm being coy because they are all different. I have a number of places from this period as rentals, and I like them because they are often well-built and predictable, and eg asbestos had not yet been used in buildings. I'd take care eg with Georgian buildings in London because so many of them were thrown-together speculative builds by titled money-grubbers. Quite a few here have restored, and regretted not rebuilding. Now off to ...er .. clear my gutters to make sure it does not leak next winter. F

Sorry - this may not seem helpful. There are quite a wide range of things to know - to do with fabric and structure and preserving them, and where water comes in and out and how it does it. A lot is basics - even as simple as are the airbricks blocked and is the ground level too high. But there is a lot of different things which may or may not apply. It's all the traditional maintenance and renovation stuff, about which there is a library of 840603 books written, then insulate and ventilate in balance - especially if you make it more airtight, and keep it maintained. I think if you look around you will find some renovation blogs which will covers some of the questions each, or perhaps find a 'renovation' book. Or even a course. There may sometimes be something hiding in the detail of Exhibitions. I am not aware of help organisations, unless something like the Historic Houses Association for their smaller house members. If I were buying one (or a big one), and I had questions, I would want a Full Structural at the point I was getting really serious. We actually did that when we *sold* hours, because it was Listed and a right bruiser of a place, to avoid scaring off the customers. Ferdinand

@lizziesunflower fly-trap seems to work. Slightly too many hoverflies for my comfort, mind. £1 not bad for 3 months. Whilst the fruit fly trap seems to suggest either that it is ineffective, or we have no fruit flies. Complete Nellie the Elephant For here.

Umm. Stamp duty? Iirc we move half as much as 25 years ago.

I think one issue here with your new plan is that the central entrance to the en-suite turns your bedrooms into corridors now. Not clear on the utility of making it now have 2 single bedrooms. Wit( the existing circ. space is all in the middle not the edges.

Not sure if thread is going anywhere in particular, but Parker-Morris standards allowed studio flats of 29-32 sqm (depending on whether 1961 /1967 version). For a pied a terre or singleton that may well be fine. Some of the "lets be like Parker-Morris and avoid modern shoeboxes" brigade come unstuck on that one. The London Spac standards (which iirc are going national) entirely seem to duck studios. There is also a problem with trying to adjust standards too quickly. Back when Landlord Licensing came in in 2011 in Southwark the pillocks who run the Council thought ... abracadabra lets make all renting rooms in HMOs at least 10 sqm to solve overcrowding .... which would immediately have outlawed a huge number of rooms in their Borough and have made thousands homeless. It took some concerted interventions by LLs before they backed down. (*) Also this, which had survived from the 1990 version when they had never heard of fixed shower screens or plastic coated shower panels. The document is quite funny. http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s55660/Background document Existing HMO STANDARDS.pdf There are plenty of examples of similar stupidities still happening. Most recently that I know Nottingham tried to impose a requirement to serve an EPC on tenants for a type of property where an EPC does not even exist under EPC law - tossers ?. So as I remarked above there needs to be a lot more detail here. When they trip over their own feet they land on you. The problem is that they write stupid regulations, then enforce to the letter of the regs, and local councils are in some things unchallengeable in practice. Ferdinand * Don't get the Southwark pillocks muddled up with the Lambeth pillocks who gave a whole street to squatters because they forgot what the Council owned, or the various multifarious other pillocks running Local Councils. Or indeed the Coventry pillocks who have just argued that Landlord Licences do not increase rents by comparing with a single year in Nottingham when licensing charges did not significantly apply. Or the Newham pillocks who argued that Private Rentals increase ASB, then discovered after the fact that the number was higher mainly because they had underestimated the numbers of Private Rentals by 20% - never mind, by then the untrue stats had achieved the desired outcome. HL Mencken: "H.L. Mencken — 'The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, just simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.'"

This idea occurred in a novel from 1961 called A Fall of Moonduat by Clarke, on a moon base. He used the whole wall and 6 switchable pictures. I think it works well, though variation needed as you way ... unless the gimmick takes over. Ferdinand

No. Not currently viable - even at optimal prices. Jeremy is in a far better position to use batteries and benefit from them, so I will not be looking at it seriously until after he has done the hard work ?. I also do not have his dodgy power supply. Civilisation starts in the Midlands. For me, viability is one of the keys guiding sustainability. I recall some very stupid green campaigners demanding that 40p per unit solar pv subsidies be maintained "to support solar", when in reality the same amount of money could support twice as much eco-benefit by halving the subsidy as technology has improved. All it would have achieved would be more 100m fortunes held by rent-a-roof solar types. But then many green politicos always were spectacularly gormless imo. (I should point out that there are also many whirring away in the eco-engine room, doing brilliant stuff.) I cannot use an electric car yet, which would be part of the benefit, as I need to tow a couple of tons from time to time. No electric cars are serious tow-wagons yet in sensible price-ranges. Next step would be to build a car-port on the S side and move some of my panels to there, and then perhaps an ASHP when the current boiler dies. Currently accessibility has the priority.

In general that may be a good thing for many. Then after working out the financial and personal cost, they will have looked the monster in the eye and they can decide sensibly whether to run the gauntlet.

They seem to also be in 2m and 3m, but potentially extra could be used in my design to soften the fence post frame ... maybe. or I could find some 3.6m fenceposts. This is the current general idea I am ruminating about.

Where is the room for the 24 hour on call dog-butler? (Update. Got it ... that’s the Master Bedroom)

Thanks all. Basic garden mods done now. Will need to think for a couple of days. Builder-handyman booked in again for next weekend. Since this is a toddler play area 3m x 3m made out of bolted 3m fence posts sounds attractive, then a single piece of fake grass. Need to reflect on interior structure. I know of a pile of unused 6x4 rubber gym floor mats purchased for the gym in error. 12x8 will use let me use 4 of those as a resilient underlay kneelable layer washable with a hose. Hmmm. F

With a babby and family and decent schools in the area, the name of the game will be to keep them until the sproglet goes to secondary school ... I hope. Depends on potential multiplication of sproglets *.. In that light, the modest extra maintenance / investment of a few hundred to avoid future voids is small. And I had promised to sort out the back garden anyway to be more reflecting of the quality of the house. Ferdinand Sproglets not froglets ?.

So they are here. Below the No 4 has a non-locking mechanism by dint of a rivet, whilst the No 6 has a locking ring. The paring knife is the smallest in my kitchen knife set for comparison. That is a ProCook X50 range knife. Unfortunately that lockng ring *will* be coming off, because in the eyes of the law as currently interpreted and enforced putting it puts the knife in the same category as a Bowie or a sheath knife. Dr Ferdinand Jekyll - a bloke with a small pocket-knife, suddenly becomes to Mr Ferdinand Hyde - a bloke with a small locking pocket-knife potentially planning to cut the throats of the entire community. I will not be relying on police discretion in these circs. The fault is that the intent of Parliament that people with small folding pocket knives was that locking should be fine for safety reasons, but one Case seems to have misinterpreted the intention of Parliament, and the Gadarene Rush of enforcement, any enforcement, has made that absurdity a key plank in current campaigns. Of course, the policeman will usually enforce the letter of what they have been told in their enforcement policies. It concerns me that both of these are small enough to be finger knives for my hand and difficult to grip - may be alright for a lady, a child, a smaller bloke or Donald Trump. Therefore I am left with a more dangerous-to-me utility knife than would otherwise be the case. It will mean extra care when cleaning, and never applying finger pressure to the back of the blade when it can potentially make it close. Such is law; such is life. At last until rationality is reasserted. The chinks of light I have are that A Wright of Sheffield suggest that I can fit one of their smaller blades to a larger handle, or to also have something with a better grip.

This week I have had a chap tidying up a back garden for a tenant. Untidy version below. Pretty much haunching in edgings and gravel, and a plan to put down some artificial grass for the new sproglet to play on in due course who is now a few weeks old. Fake grass is going at the far side where the flat part of the pea shingle is. Prev. Tenant had laid pea shingle on their own initiative on polythene stuff (gah!). My base sheet is heavy duty weed membrane. My question is around the base needed for the artificial grass, and how to fix it down. Will pea shingle be adequate, or do I really have to go for sand? Is there some kind of underlay required? And given that it is for a play area, are those hairpin type fixings acceptable if properly and fully inserted? That is what I have used for weed membranes, but I the would welcome some feedback. Cheers Ferdinand

Looks good. Two questions. 1 - How are those seals along the back of the pool fastened down? Gravity? 2 - Did you consider raised pools? I quite like them with a wall at seat height. F

9.98kWp. E and W facing, Shaded, Solaredge.

In that case consider how you enjoy the setting sun with the glass of brandy you have obtained from your St Bernard. Learher chairs in the study is one way, or a sheltered terrace, outside the entrance, or extend your sitting area at the E end beyond the S side of the house, or something in the back garden. F

Welcome. There is no such think as a stupid question.

Decision time. Toss a coin, go with Heads .

Make your stairs into a dogleg round the shower, gain 1-1.5m at the top, use either winders or a half landing, insert your downstairs cloakroom outside the utility under the stairs and the bit of extra landing we have just created. Pinch point is ceiling at dogleg, but you should get 2-3 steps or could put cupboard up into corner of bedroom to conceal more. May complicate possible stairlift requirement if it applies. Whilst we are at it, it is always a benefit ti make the stairs 37-38 degrees rather than 42 if you have space. If you have a muddy St Bernard that needs showerflinging, perhaps look at a door from utility to shower? Would need rearrangement but prob. doable. Whb opposite door to hall, shower other end, loo backing on to utility. Are the bifold at E or W end? Not sure that bifold will do your airtightness much service in 10 years time. Are those S facing roof windows an overheat risk in the bedrooms? Window on N Side of void to allow stack ventilation out of the sun? Really not sure whether that will offer much over the S side ones over the landing that you can actually reach, as it would be a bugger to get to for cleaning and maintenance. If you wanted a more standalone grannexe in the future the utility could be split into a kitchen and a corridor / smaller utility. External shower for muddy St Bernard or get Cat. Looking pretty good. F

Could we have North and a site plan, please? And welcome.