Renovating old cottage

[Donnaidh]

Hi folks, I've just bought my first house. I wasn't looking to buy but basically got an offer i couldn't refuse! However the bank balance is low and the work needed is (relatively) high. I'm more than happy doing the labour myself but, as I'm not a builder, I could be doing with some advice on different aspects of it.

 

Basically it's an old cottage with an outbuilding attached to it. At one time half of this outbuilding was attached directly to the house but the door has been blocked up. This part has an old corrugated iron roof which is well corroded and needs replaced. Im planning this as the living room and I'll need to take this part back to the (2ft thick) outer walls and start from scratch, well not quite from scratch as it has 4 stone walls round it!

 

Its single story and a relatively low profile roof (around 1.4m profile) so my plan was to open it up to the rafters (I've got a source of relatively cheap hardwood which I'm hoping to incorporate as the rafters)

I'm basically looking for things I'll need to   look out for, as well as any other advice as maybe it's just not practical for me (trying to keep architects etc out of the costs ?)

 

Would this sound like the right procedure going from the inside out?

 

Rafters, sarking boards, purlings, insulation boards, insulation membrane, osb boards, membrane, vertical batons, horizontal batons, aluminium (?) sheeting.

 

Any tips/ advice most welcome, and anybody flogging cheap building materials in the north of Scotland could make themselves a new friend as there's another couple of internal walls to be shifted around, kitchen to be redesigned and porch to be replaced, all while trying to live in it and hold down a job?.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scottishjohn]

welcome you have  come to the  right place 

a plan of property and building AND PICTURES will help you  all sorts of good advice on ways you could  proceed

 

just to play devils advocate 

have you considered  just flattening it and rebuilding  ,as trying to make an old house up to modern stds is usually a lot more expensive than you first think and never as good  because of compromises old house will cause 

 try to cost it all  out .

i understand the money problems --but maybe a good think about  final result could make you look more long term 

maybe you could build around old house  and then flatten old one  or if you have space in the plot -build new one then flatten old  one?

so you could do it yourself over time ?

i suggest lots of thinking and plotting and planning , maybe a talk with planning /building control about what they will allow ,you will need to involve them anyway if you going to do what you suggest 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by scottishjohn

[newhome]

Welcome. Can't help on the advice front I'm afraid as I'm the one generally needing the advice  but there are loads of knowledgeable people on here and several up your way too so welcome onboard. As above, pictures always help put things into context and will help those who can advise form a decent picture of what the challenge is. 

 

For building materials keep an eye on local ads on Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace. There are always things that come up there and if you only need small amounts (sounds like the outbuilding isn't enormous) you may be able to strike lucky. Just plan ahead and look for what you need early on as there is never what you need at exactly the right time. 

[TT-Smyth]

Any plans / specs or pictures you can share?

[Thedreamer]

Hi @Donnaidh

 

Whereabouts are you?

 

We are in Skye. Used to live in old croft house with solid stone walls was a nightmare in heating, damp etc.

 

As @scottishjohn suggests I would at least consider knocking it down.

 

I would then look at using the original stone walls for the outer skin cladding. The only additional costs would be the superstructure and foundations.

 

Others here who don't go for the full on demolish, strip the roof, sarking and rafters. So you left with just the gable ends and ground floor walls.

 

If you ain't going down the architect route, probably best to speak with a structural engineer. 

[Donnaidh]

Cheers guys, thought I might have landed in the right place!

 

Ok, this one is the cottage and outbuilding. The bit that was joined onto the house stretches from the gable to just to the right of the door, where there is an internal old stone wall.

 

I don't want to demolish this building at all. When I were a lad there were a few old cottages in the village like this but they've all been gentrified these days, I'd like to keep something of the old character of the village. I'm calling it an outbuilding but it's really an old house in itself although no-one has a clue when it was last lived in!!

[Donnaidh]

And this is the floor plan of the property. The blocked up door between the 2 is located at the front corner between "room 2" and the "living room" .

 

Rooms 1 and 2 will be getting merged. The hallway at the entrance will be removed to lengthen the kitchen. I'll need a hallway leading to the door of the outbuilding (through the "living room"), then the living room will be partitioned to create a small office space & 2nd bedroom.

 

Hope that's clear!

[Donnaidh]

Well, that's the idea just now anyway ?

[Tennentslager]

What’s going on with the far end gable... has the roof been replaced with a lower pitch as the gable looks higher.

love it though, looks fantastic 

[Donnaidh]

2 minutes ago, Tennentslager said:

What’s going on with the far end gable... has the roof been replaced with a lower pitch as the gable looks higher.

love it though, looks fantastic 

Yep, looks like it! At one time, long before living memory, there was another cottage on that gable as there's still the remains of a fireplace on the other side

[Ed Davies]

6 hours ago, Donnaidh said:

Would this sound like the right procedure going from the inside out?

 

Rafters, sarking boards, purlings, insulation boards, insulation membrane, osb boards, membrane, vertical batons, horizontal batons, aluminium (?) sheeting.

 

Seems like an awful lot of layers for a small roof. What's “insulation membrane” and what would it achieve at that point? What insulation do you have in mind? Are you planning exposed rafters on the underside? Do you have the height to do that without it looking odd against the gable to the main house? Is the span large enough to need purlins?

 

If you want some sort of warm roof, how about: rafters with insulation between, OSB?, insulation, sarking?, vertical battens, horizontal battens, metal sheeting. Probably only need one out of OSB or sarking.

[scottishjohn]

12 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Rafters, sarking boards, purlings, insulation boards, insulation membrane, osb boards, membrane, vertical batons, horizontal batons, aluminium (?) sheeting.

the span on that cottage would lend itself to SIPS roof ,then you would have high ceiling living space--

I am guessing the floor will need a new  concrete one,time to go UFH ?,so by the time you done top and bottom -all you are not doing is the walls 

your 600m  thick walls have same insulation value ,or less then than a 300mm insulated wood frame --so the new house would give more space internally on same foot print

then cover it with stone facia --it will look the same 

you going to want to change windows at some point --so again -you can see why i,m suggesting you think hard before doing anything

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by scottishjohn

[Cpd]

Been there done / doing that.....3 times.....never again I keep saying..... for me it’s so frustrating not having the money to knock down and start again, I know you want to keep the “look” and do the right thing but having done 3 renovations of buildings very much like yours I am now fully convinced that in the end it cost me to much time and money and I would have been better of starting from as close to scratch as possible. The effort involved to get these old buildings up to spec while trying to work around all the damp and rot is mind boggling...... however it’s your life and your money (I hope) and in the end all we can do is warn you to be carful and consider other options, we want you to succeed! It looks like a great place and a great project and I look forward to following your progress and will put in my tuppence worth when I can. Col 

(pic) of one of the 3 money pits I am currently still trying to get under control.....jaded... noooooooo  

[Donnaidh]

17 hours ago, scottishjohn said:

the span on that cottage would lend itself to SIPS roof ,then you would have high ceiling living space--

I am guessing the floor will need a new  concrete one,time to go UFH ?,so by the time you done top and bottom -all you are not doing is the walls 

your 600m  thick walls have same insulation value ,or less then than a 300mm insulated wood frame --so the new house would give more space internally on same foot print

then cover it with stone facia --it will look the same 

you going to want to change windows at some point --so again -you can see why i,m suggesting you think hard before doing anything

 

 

 

Sorry not had time to reply to this. I know I've got to think hard, trouble is when I start thinking too hard I tend to overcomplicate matters!! I'll try to reply in more detail when I get a chance tonight but these sip panels look the business and would save a lot of time/ heartache without costing the earth.

 

Yes I was looking to have the open rafters but when I sat down and drew a cross section of what seems to be required I realised it seemed to be getting a bit out of control!

 

Have you much experience of installing the sips panels?

 

There is a concrete floor in this part of the building. I was thinking it would need a timber floor installed on top of it (with dpm/ insulation etc. Is there any particular reason it would need a new concrete floor installed if the condition of it appears ok?

 

Thanks again

[Cpd]

3 hours ago, Donnaidh said:

There is a concrete floor in this part of the building. I was thinking it would need a timber floor installed on top of it (with dpm/ insulation etc. Is there any particular reason it would need a new concrete floor installed if the condition of it appears ok?

 

Depends on various factors, if you have the spare head room then building on top of existing floor may be possible, remember you want as much insulation as possible in the floor and then possibly  screed with ufh pipes in it and then final floor coverings it all ads up very quickly and suddenly all your windows and doors are to low...... you also need to be sure you have good drainage in the wet season.... again it would probably be easier to rip up the old floor, dig down to footing depth instal any required drainage  and start a new floor build up. I am going to do this in my shed, it’s got an old concrete floor that I am going to rip up and redo. The house also had a shite concrete floor but due to factors outside my control i will be just bodging this up for the time being.......  

[Donnaidh]

Fair enough but I'm hoping this won't be required as I'm not joking when I say it's a tight budget ?.

 

I'll not know for sure what's happening here until I knock through the old doorway and see what level the floor of the house is compared to the blocked off part.

 

Head room shouldn't be a problem, the walls are 8ft+ and it's going to be a vaulted ceiling but I hear what you're saying about the level of the  windows/ doors.

 

As for the UFH, it sounds good, but, well, see previous comments re budget!! I'll check it out though. Cheers again 

[ProDave]

Hi @Donnaidh and welcome to the forum.  I too am in Easter Ross so you can't be far away.

 

You have what I think is known as a Butt & Ben, the lower half would have been used for animals, mosty.  Most people refurbish these by putting a new roof of box profile steel sheeting which is not that expensive and easy to fit DIY.

 

A lot of these old buildings don't have much in the way of foundations.  If you are thinking of under floor heating you will be needing to raise the floor level to add insulation underneath.  I would be very careful of trying to dig out and lower the floor to do that as I know someone who did and found there was nothing under the walls.

[PeterW]

5 hours ago, Donnaidh said:

I'll not know for sure what's happening here until I knock through the old doorway and see what level the floor of the house is compared to the blocked off part.

 

You can do that now with a water level - two meter rules, a couple of lengths of clear pipe, a hose and some food dye. Works over as long as your hose and you can check via other doors or even windows.