Introduction and Potential Lake District Renovation Project

[memnoch]

Morning All,

 

Still in the ideas / planning / financial posibilities phase on a potential project in the Lake District.

 

Background:

My grandmother will be 100 this year and as much as we wish otherwise will not likely be with us much longer so as part of future planning we're trying to work out what best to do with her property when the time comes.

The house while not huge at 3/4 bedroom has significant value due to the location overlooking Grasmere lake. However, it has had no real improvements in the last 30 years so will be in need of a complete renovation which will likely involve significant costs. As the property will be split between family members I've got to work out if it is possible to get a large enough mortagage to buy out the others, cover the cost of renovations and whether it is finacially prudent.

The side effect of the spectacular location and views is the exceptional access difficulty. The property is right at the end of a shared narrow road on a reasonable incline but finishes up with a sharp 90 degree turn, exceedingly steep 45 incline followed by another 90 degree turn the other direction with an adverse camber into a narrow drive with cattle grid at the entrance. Can get a car up with with some wheel spinning if damp but little chance of getting anything larger up like materials up there.

 

Notes:

Difficult Access

Dug into the fellside so damp / drainage issues

Electric only, no gas or oil

Size - 175 m2 roughly, 2 bedrooms and one bathroom on lower ground floor, living room, kitchen, bathroom, 2 bedrooms on upper ground floor

 

Planned Works:

1) Unfortunately will need to be fairly well gutted, saving anything of merrit (little architectural value)

2) Planning permission for extending windows and solar panels (other houses next door have them so shouldn't be too bad) but world heritage site and national park so likely a pain.

2) Dig out subfloor to depth, back fill with insulation, UFH and screed and add in drainage if needed

3) Insulate suspended floors and plumb for UFH

4) Rewire of entire property. Going to try and move to 3 phase while going through it all to cover future scenarios as there is a sub station at the end of the drive.

5) Pipe for MVHR if possible

6) Replace all windows / external doors with triple glazing

7) insulate and seal internally testing for airtightness

8 )Space heating via wet UFH, ASHP + buffer tank

9) Direct hot water via appropriate tank / sunamp with heated by PV / electrical off peak. Potentially use the ASHP to preheat.

10) Large propensity of power cuts in the area so would like to add an battery bank / inverter setup rather than export excess PV though that would depend on costs / usefullness

11) Rest is just general renovation, kitchen, bathrooms, lighting etc etc

 

Financial

Mortgaging the property is going to likely be expensive has hell, hoping that will be able to get it at a reasonable price as if not then we'll have to sell and will be gone from the family foreaver and my parents and grandparents built / converted it from a small barn. Got to work out if the cost of the mortgage plus the renovations costs  (assuming 200k for a complete renovation to a high standard) is even possible I have a good job as an IT security contractor but assuming the gravy train won't last forever so making the most of it while I can.

 

Currently working all hours and 3 jobs at a time to put enough into savings to make it possible in the future, got around £100k in equity currently and £150k investments, should be able to increase that by around £75-100k a year currently. Though if it's not viable I'll stop killing myself with work and actually enjoy life.

 

Questions:

1) Does the planned works seem roughly correct. Been reading this board for over a year and just finished renovating my current small 3 bed terraced house which has been a learning experience so fairly confident on this one.

2) Am I being overly optimistic on the costs? obviously as a rough ball park figured

3) How much is the acess issue going to affect renovation? at the moment I'm thinking about likelihood of getting a small telehandler that can be sold off afterwards and seeing if the house below will rent a section of area outside their garage (they have two drives for some reason)

 

Thanks all for looking, I've added a few images below to make things a bit clearer.

Ralph

 

Images

The house circa 1980, had a slate new roof since then. Note the little chapel, belonging to the house below indicates the height the driveway climbs at steeply.

 

Aerial View of the Plot. Border in red and the difficult drive section highlighted in yellow.

 

Reason for loving the property so much, a small part of the view  from the sitting room window.

 

[ProDave]

Re the access issues, I would buy a 4WD probably a twin cab pickup and a decent trailer.  Then have a word with the house slightly down the lane that appears to have a large parking area to see if you can negotiate permission for deliveries to be offloaded there and you then shift them up the last bit with your truck and trailer?  Offer ££ for the privilege if necessary.

[Ferdinand]

Gorgeous site.

 

For a renovation your budget sounds realistic-generous to me at approx £1150 per sqm. Though groundworks etc and site improvements are missing.

 

Is there anything you can do to sort out that drive?

 

One of the first questions we ask - have you considered a newbuild? There are many. many advantages.

 

Update: I'm late. I'm late. It's the end of July.

 

Ferdinand