What would the folks of ph deem an acceptable commute?

[tuscaneer]

I'm currently living with a 14 mile each way commute to work but am looking to move house.
My current journey is nothing early in the morning but getting out of the city in the afternoon is a bit of a pain.
I'm looking to move house this year and with the route out if Liverpool going in a less congested way I'm finding myself looking g at a potential commute of 40 miles each way.

What do you guys have to put up with as a commute? ? Would 40 miles end up driving me round the bend?

Opinions gratefully received! ! Over to you

[tuscaneer]

Cheers for the replies so far chaps....yeah, time rather than mileage is more pertinent I agree. Work is my own business and I have dedicated the last decade to growing and improving something I started from nothing so you could say work is very important !!

At the moment I am living outside Liverpool in a very traffic heavy direction and a 15 miler can take best part of an hour if I time leaving work a bit wrong. !!but getting in of a morning only takes 20 mins.

I'm basically looking at coming out of the city via the tunnel and getting away down the relatively low traffic m53. What this means is that I can theoretically be in the Cheshire villages round south Manchester in .... I think.....45_50 minutes. As I have been looking on right move it has occurred to me I can basically also get to Chester and surrounding villages in a similar time.
The options-if I can put up with 40 miles and best part of 50 minutes-are wide open and living in the Cheshire golden triangle COULD be an option.

I just don't want to get 6 months in and dread leaving the house every day

[tuscaneer]

Cheers for all the replies people!! A lot of interesting and varied opinions! !

The Motorola post was very inriguing. ...I wasn't aware people analyzed this stuff so much!!

The post from the guy going from wallasey to Northwich. ...cheers for that mate...A very similar potential journey length and direction so good info.

I think the post about what you are moving from-to was very valid. If I was moving to an identical house just 25 miles further from work I might get piss ed off I agree!!......I'm thinking along the same lines as you and a move to a bigger pad with land and village lifestyle would be great for the wife and kids...it's just a case of moving schools which is a pain but the rewards outweigh the problems I feel.

[tuscaneer]

GreatGranny said:

OP, why all the way to South Manchester?
Some nice areas south of Warrington, Stockton Heath, Appleton, Lymm, etc..
Also some nice villages east of Warrington which are close to the M62 or east lancs road.

to be honest with you I've looked at everywhere from the England/ wales border to north of warrington and included parts of the Wirral in my search so far!

Stockton heath, grappenhall , stretton etc. are all at the top of my search tree so obviously as you creep further down the m56 the search also ends up including hale barns, dunham massey area , Bowden and Altrincham. Lymm is a lovely village too and I've had a little look in the surrounding area there too.

I like it round delamere forest as well, you've got loads of little villages like tarporley and so on............I just can't find the right house yet!!

Edited by tuscaneer on Monday 5th January 08:32

[tuscaneer]

80 minutes......that's a bit ripe for me!! but then my working day is 11-12 hours a day without the commute!

[tuscaneer]

Silverbullet767 said:

I do 170 miles each way. I rent a place at my work and go home at the weekends, so I only do there and back once a week.

Still a killer commute though!

now that is something I couldn't do!! i'm lucky in the fact that we are based entirely in the north west so there really isn't any need to move any further out.170 miles is like me working here and living in Bristol!! nutter!

[tuscaneer]

update........after all my searching the right house was under my nose.......4 miles from work and what a joy!!! i'm in work in the morning in a few minutes and going home only takes 10 - 15 minutes.
the commute at the old place was getting worse and in the end going home was taking 1 hour 15 minutes a night....thanks for everyone's input!

[tuscaneer]

toon10 said:

That's great news. I'm 3 miles from work but I'm moving next month and I'll also have a 4 mile commute. I think I can just about manage the work life balance with the extra mile

oh i know, it's phenominal!!... i can't believe i was looking at properties 40 miles away with a 12-13 hour working day to boot!!!

[tuscaneer]

Issi said:

I met a chap a while back who used to commute from Swansea to Minehead every day for an 0800 start.
Bonkers!

now that is utter madness...i know someone who commutes from north yorkshire to warrington....not fun in traffic i suspect!

[tuscaneer]

it seems this thread is full of sensible , easy commuters and total nutcases in equal measure!

Edited by tuscaneer on Friday 4th September 08:35

[tuscaneer]

SystemParanoia said:

spent the last 3 years doing a 35mile commute. 50mins - 1hr
The pay i got for this length commute just did not make any sense at all

It was costing me most of my disposable income just fuelling the car and in reality i was working to cover the cost of working. brilliant!
At first i chose to cycle to give myself financial freedom from the pumps.. but it was costing me 1.5hrs each way commute time.

so ive walked out of that job and now work 6.8 mile away.
I still cycle and it takes 30mins.. if i drove it would take 20

I will never work far away again unless someone offers me a hell of alot more money

35 miles sounds harsh!!.... i'll tell you what's barmy....for the first year i had my donkey i commuted in it....never mind piling on empty, stty miles sat in traffic .....the fuel bills were horrendous returning about 10 mpg was costing me about a hundred quid a week just to get to work and back