Does Anyone Here Live In A Watermill?

[Doofus]

and are they cold?

[Byker28i]

I have an ex work colleague, retired to one in Derbyshire somewhere. Generates a lot of power from it running.

[Snow and Rocks]

Impossible question to answer as it depends entirely on how good a job someone has done of insulating it.

My folks live in one and it's usually swelteringly warm but my dad went to town on the insulation when he converted it in the early 90s.

[Terminator X]

I worked on a refurb of one perhaps 10 years ago - all the timber will likely be rotten to the core because of the dampness / water. If buying then allow some funds to deal with that imho.

TX.

[brake fader]

Windy Miller

[ATG]

Interesting question. There are watermills and watermills. Insightful, eh? E.g. there's a watermill converted to a house near us that is about 100m from a small river, so really it is just a normal house. One upon a time its wheel would have been fed from a leat. I guess they wanted to position the mill just above the meadow so it wouldn't get flooded. At the other end of the spectrum, the converted mills in a Cotswold valley where I used to live straddled the stream on the valley floor, so you'd have a small river running under your sitting room.

[Rusty Old-Banger]

A friend lived in one. The water runs through the middle of the house - it spans the watercourse equally. It's not cold, but there is permanent noise from the water.

[Lotobear]

I once carried out a full structural survey of a working watermill (flower mill) - took me 3 full days. The millers house was attached - it wasn't cold but the whole place used to shake violently when the mill was working which was pretty much all the time during the day. Despite that the structures were very sound and free from significant cracking - the lime mortar construction probably helped with that

[Doofus]

Thanks all. It's stone, not timber, the wheel isn't functioning, and the river runs beneath the house.

My concern was whether that creates a permanent cold spot.

[.:ian:.]

Theres three ex mills near me, one is very nice, but the combo of thatched roof and straddling a river means I couldn't stomach living there. Insurance is probably eye watering.
One is in a bad state, looks cold and damp theres a constant whirring, like a ventilation fan or dehumidifier going all the time.
The last one is converted to flats, it has a roaring race next to it, great if you like roaring water, probably perfect if you have tinnitus




Not many pictures of this one, it's not very photogenic

[rdjohn]

We had a converted water mill cottage in Southern Spain. Gorgeous in summer and a real PITA in winter.

The river was a quiet stream during summer, 2.5m below ground level. but after a substantial downpour was very close to topping out. With a huge downpour, the road produced massive runoff and when that happened S41T rose up from our drains, through the floors. Somewhat unpleasant.

Being a Civil engineer, I had always said I would never live next to a river, just too risky. SWIMBO says, but its so lovely in summer, what could possibly go wrong?

After the third time, we sold to some unsuspecting Brits. The locals were wise to it.

[Doofus]

rdjohn said:

We had a converted water mill cottage in Southern Spain. Gorgeous in summer and a real PITA in winter.

The river was a quiet stream during summer, 2.5m below ground level. but after a substantial downpour was very close to topping out. With a huge downpour, the road produced massive runoff and when that happened S41T rose up from our drains, through the floors. Somewhat unpleasant.

Being a Civil engineer, I had always said I would never live next to a river, just too risky. SWIMBO says, but its so lovely in summer, what could possibly go wrong?

After the third time, we sold to some unsuspecting Brits. The locals were wise to it.

Interesting, thank you. This one appears to be a small river...

[Simpo Two]

Doofus said:

Thanks all. It's stone, not timber, the wheel isn't functioning, and the river runs beneath the house.

My concern was whether that creates a permanent cold spot.

Maybe go back with an IR camera?

[RC1807]

brake fader said:

Windy Miller

Not Water Miller though….

[anonymous-user]

Doofus said:

Thanks all. It's stone, not timber, the wheel isn't functioning, and the river runs beneath the house.

My concern was whether that creates a permanent cold spot.

The building will have timbers in it, floors/lintels/beams etc

My father owned an unconverted mill, it was wet very wet and I've seen since that to make a building theretgey have taken the old structure down and have rebuilt an modern imitation. This was a mill with the proper race and a wheel hung on the back. The big wheel didn't turn but a smaller wheel at 90 degrees to the mill did work but finding people make it generate power 20 years ago was tricky,maybe easier now but seemed a neish market.

My partner and I went to view a converted mill of similar arrangement to above, again it was wet. They had a dehumidifier on 24/7 because the expensive piano the owner had couldn't handle the environment without it.

Lastly we viewed another house that had a culvert underneath to which agent was keen to stress the culvert had been redone to engineers spec with build regs sign off after the dining room floor collapsed into said culvert.

With a water side property I'd be very aware of what your taking on, lovely if made right, nightmare if not