1930's whole house renovation

[PeteTheSwede]

Hi all,

 

Pleased to join this group. Have bought a tatty 1930's detached house in Berkshire, and about to start looking for architects to help with a whole house renovation. Probably looking to strip back the whole place and am looking for advice on how far to push my low energy/Enerphit ambitions for this place. Looking for a local architect who has relevant experience is the first task.

 

Have no previous renovation experience so the whole thing is quite daunting.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

Edited December 21, 2016 by PeteTheSwede

[TheMitchells]

Hi Peter, welcome to BuildHub.  I am doing a renovation too (see the blogs - Scooby Cottage) but we are planning on selling so we arent doing too much in the way of insulating and installing expensive items that we would do for ourselves.  Is your renovation for you and for long term benefit as that makes quite a difference in what you may decide to do or not?  I dont see any benefit in doing too much for our project as there is little payback at the moment - not enough people appreciate low energy/Enerphit to pay extra for it. 

Looking forward to hearing about the plans!

[TheMitchells]

This site may be of use for you and Oxford isnt too far away from Berkshire so some of the contacts may be useful. 

http://oxfordgreenhouse.co.uk/

This was a full renovation and I think they were taking it to Enerphit level.

[PeteTheSwede]

This house is a long term family home for me and family, so my perspective is slightly different to yours. Happy to invest on making a decent, comfortable house without immediate focus on return. That said, I will need advice on where it is sensible to draw the line given the current state/fabric of the building.

[ProDave]

i used to live in a 1930's semi in Oxfordshire. While I did a lot of work to it, and extended it to double it's size, I didn't address the basic fundamental problems with the design like solid 9" walls.  I guess if like most 1930's builds it is rendered on the outside, then external wall insulation and a new coat of render is probably the easiest way to tackle that part.  Floor and roof are a lot easier to insulate.

 

Probably best now to start topics in the relevant sections of the forum to discuss each aspect of the improvements you want to make.

 

Oh and welcome to the forum.

 

[PeteTheSwede]

Thanks - it has cavity insulation (80mm?) and not currently rendered, but I think external insulation and render is indeed the way forward for the walls.

 

Pete

[Roger440]

2 hours ago, PeteTheSwede said:

Thanks - it has cavity insulation (80mm?) and not currently rendered, but I think external insulation and render is indeed the way forward for the walls.

 

Pete

Are you sure about that?

 

Welcome by the way

[TheMitchells]

Have a look at Beattie Passiv as they have an excellent system that is like a tea cozy - they come and drop it over the house with new roof and it gives a fab warm house - one of the managers lives in Woodstock and has done it to his house.  we went and had a look and would certainly be considering this for any future renovation that we planned to live in.  Just another idea for you to mull over.

http://www.beattiepassive.com/

[Ferdinand]

1 hour ago, TheMitchells said:

Have a look at Beattie Passiv as they have an excellent system that is like a tea cozy - they come and drop it over the house with new roof and it gives a fab warm house - one of the managers lives in Woodstock and has done it to his house.  we went and had a look and would certainly be considering this for any future renovation that we planned to live in.  Just another idea for you to mull over.

http://www.beattiepassive.com/

 

Can you give me an approximate cost range for this type of solution.

 

Just an example of a type of house and a ballpark would be useful.

 

Say a square 3 bed detached. Are we talking 40k, 60k, 100k etc?

 

Cheers

 

Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

Aha. £550 per sqm estimate here.

 

http://www.theenergycollective.com/david-k-thorpe/2376889/an-off-site-pre-fab-approach-to-passivhaus-deep-retrofit-2

[TheMitchells]

I think the Woodstock house cost around 100k for the whole renovation but that did include a new extension and replaced windows too.  if you contact Paul Williamson at Beattie, he seemed happy for people to visit.  He did his around 10 years ago now and would do things differently now.  They used his house to learn about the system and see how it could be imporved.

And they do have a stall at the Swindon Renovation centre and are often there to chat to.