Grade 2 listed problems
Discussion
ClaphamGT3 said:
As a chartered building surveyor of nearly 30 years practice who has done a lot of historic/conservation work and owned a number of listed buildings, you need to treat historic buildings as you would treat a classic car; compared to a new build, an older property won't be as efficient, it won't be as cheap to run and it will give more problems than a modern one.
You also need to accept that all but the simplest work to an older property is a voyage of discovery - you just won't know what you're going to find until you open stuff up.
Finally - and this concerns me reading your opening post, you need to remember that historic buildings are organic systems - do one thing and it may have a consequence elsewhere - dpcs, upgraded windows and insulation, introduction of modern, rigid structural elements can all gravely upset the balance of an historic building
I understand, the high maintenance and regular heartbreaks are a small price to pay for the privilege of living in some listed properties. You also need to accept that all but the simplest work to an older property is a voyage of discovery - you just won't know what you're going to find until you open stuff up.
Finally - and this concerns me reading your opening post, you need to remember that historic buildings are organic systems - do one thing and it may have a consequence elsewhere - dpcs, upgraded windows and insulation, introduction of modern, rigid structural elements can all gravely upset the balance of an historic building
When you say it's a voyage of discovery, would it be wise to try and expose all the innards over 5 years or so, or just when things need repair/renovations ?
Would your last point be best discussed with a structural engineer?
That was a very insightful post thank you
Gullwings said:
I understand, the high maintenance and regular heartbreaks are a small price to pay for the privilege of living in some listed properties.
When you say it's a voyage of discovery, would it be wise to try and expose all the innards over 5 years or so, or just when things need repair/renovations ?
Would your last point be best discussed with a structural engineer?
That was a very insightful post thank you
The first thing that I advise clients to do when taking on an historic building is to write a quinquennial plan of work that you will do - not cosmetic stuff or alterations that you may choose to make but repair and maintenance to the fabric of the building. Budget for that plan, with a generous contingency buffer and work through it in a sensible priority order. If the property is big enough, get a good conservation architect or surveyor on board and find a good building contractor who you trust and who really understands historic buildings. Make sure that all of you have - in your case build - a good relationship with your conservation officer. This is critical because, on that cold winter morning when you've got a wall jacked up off the plinth and you're looking at a partially rotted sole plate, you are all going to have to agree how much of it is coming out to be replaced (the CO will want as little as possible, the contractor will advocate the economies of scale in doing the whole wall) and you have to trust the advice you're getting.When you say it's a voyage of discovery, would it be wise to try and expose all the innards over 5 years or so, or just when things need repair/renovations ?
Would your last point be best discussed with a structural engineer?
That was a very insightful post thank you
Finally, in my experience, structural engineers are the last people to have advising you on historic buildings. In all my years I can name perhaps three or four civil or structural engineers who really understand historic buildings. Far better off with an architect or surveyor. If you want to PM me your location, I'm happy to make some recommendations
Gullwings said:
...When you say it's a voyage of discovery, would it be wise to try and expose all the innards over 5 years or so, or just when things need repair/renovations ?
That was a very insightful post thank you
It depends on what you can live with and your level of resolve. When I bought mine, I was a single bloke and thought nothing of climbing over a landing full of chipped off artex/plaster to stand in a wobbly bath and have a luke warm shower before a days work in the office, when I met the misuss, our tolerance levels were somewhat different. That was a very insightful post thank you
I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the s
t out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
| Our Survey Says... | Cost Bracket | Urgency | Our Owner Did... | Date Done | Actual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knackered DPC | £1000 | Do Now | No DPC, traced leaking downpipes saturating underground and broken drains | +1 Month | DIY / £200 |
| Chimney Pisses water in | £1000 | Do Now | Got chimney capped/pointed | + 1 Month | £800 |
| Bees Nest in loft | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Asbestos Roof panels chucked down side of garage | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Rebuild brick outbuilding, include for new floor, walls, roof, door and doorframe. | <£1000 | Not Urgent | It fell down | Never | £0 |
| Woodworm! Everywhere, omg - well holes, anyway | £1000-£4000 | Urgent | ^^ Fixed damp, dried out, lifted floor, hoovered up, sprayed treatments | +1 Month | DIY - £100 |
| More than 5 years since installation last tested, obvious dodgy wiring - plugs in en-suite, etc. - Inspect and correct | £4000+ | Urgent | Paid for a test, DIY fixed list of most issues, paid for second test and new consumer unit | +2 Month | £800 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Install specialist tanking to prevent ongoing penetrating damp to cellar walls and floor. | £4000+ | Urgent | did some reading, dug out the blocked up cellar vents and let the building breathe instead of tanking. | +2 Month | DIY - £20 |
| Remove rotten door and window frames. Repair/replace corroded metal bars and grill to cellar windows. | <£1000 | Urgent | Cut out the rotten bit of door frame, still half a doorframe there to this day - so what? |
+2 Month | DIY £0 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Repair joint to front section of gutter - Refix PVC gutter to rear corner of roof | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew balls, bought ladder, fixed gutter, did small poo in pants | +2 Month | DIY £100 |
| Replace rotten timber gutter | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew brain, paid a man to go dick about on his own ladders | +2 Month | £300 |
| Arrang for quotation to repair/repoint extensive pointing/plant damage and spalled brickwork | £1000=£4000 | Not Urgent | Paid for work | +5 years | £3000 |
| Provide belcast bead, repair/renew cracked and missing render to right hand side elevation. | <£1000 | Do Now | Finally got round to knocking it off the list during lockdown | +9 Years | DIY - SDS drill and some lime & sand to repoint £50 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Carry out minor repairs for developing decay to sliding sash windows. | <£1000 | Do Now | Tarted up DIY but developing decay was actually extensive - Windows all repaired/renovated | +5 Years | £4500 |
| Arrange for quotation to: fix cracked glass above front door | <£1000 | Do Now | Sellotape | +1 Month | <£1 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Renew missing and rotten sections of soffit and purlin. Renew rotten bargeboard to rear | £1000-£4000 | Do Now | Paid people | +1 Month | £3500 |
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
Vanity Projects said:
It depends on what you can live with and your level of resolve. When I bought mine, I was a single bloke and thought nothing of climbing over a landing full of chipped off artex/plaster to stand in a wobbly bath and have a luke warm shower before a days work in the office, when I met the misuss, our tolerance levels were somewhat different.
I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the st out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.
3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the s
t out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
| Our Survey Says... | Cost Bracket | Urgency | Our Owner Did... | Date Done | Actual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knackered DPC | £1000 | Do Now | No DPC, traced leaking downpipes saturating underground and broken drains | +1 Month | DIY / £200 |
| Chimney Pisses water in | £1000 | Do Now | Got chimney capped/pointed | + 1 Month | £800 |
| Bees Nest in loft | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Asbestos Roof panels chucked down side of garage | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Rebuild brick outbuilding, include for new floor, walls, roof, door and doorframe. | <£1000 | Not Urgent | It fell down | Never | £0 |
| Woodworm! Everywhere, omg - well holes, anyway | £1000-£4000 | Urgent | ^^ Fixed damp, dried out, lifted floor, hoovered up, sprayed treatments | +1 Month | DIY - £100 |
| More than 5 years since installation last tested, obvious dodgy wiring - plugs in en-suite, etc. - Inspect and correct | £4000+ | Urgent | Paid for a test, DIY fixed list of most issues, paid for second test and new consumer unit | +2 Month | £800 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Install specialist tanking to prevent ongoing penetrating damp to cellar walls and floor. | £4000+ | Urgent | did some reading, dug out the blocked up cellar vents and let the building breathe instead of tanking. | +2 Month | DIY - £20 |
| Remove rotten door and window frames. Repair/replace corroded metal bars and grill to cellar windows. | <£1000 | Urgent | Cut out the rotten bit of door frame, still half a doorframe there to this day - so what? |
+2 Month | DIY £0 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Repair joint to front section of gutter - Refix PVC gutter to rear corner of roof | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew balls, bought ladder, fixed gutter, did small poo in pants | +2 Month | DIY £100 |
| Replace rotten timber gutter | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew brain, paid a man to go dick about on his own ladders | +2 Month | £300 |
| Arrang for quotation to repair/repoint extensive pointing/plant damage and spalled brickwork | £1000=£4000 | Not Urgent | Paid for work | +5 years | £3000 |
| Provide belcast bead, repair/renew cracked and missing render to right hand side elevation. | <£1000 | Do Now | Finally got round to knocking it off the list during lockdown | +9 Years | DIY - SDS drill and some lime & sand to repoint £50 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Carry out minor repairs for developing decay to sliding sash windows. | <£1000 | Do Now | Tarted up DIY but developing decay was actually extensive - Windows all repaired/renovated | +5 Years | £4500 |
| Arrange for quotation to: fix cracked glass above front door | <£1000 | Do Now | Sellotape | +1 Month | <£1 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Renew missing and rotten sections of soffit and purlin. Renew rotten bargeboard to rear | £1000-£4000 | Do Now | Paid people | +1 Month | £3500 |
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
bennno said:
Vanity Projects said:
It depends on what you can live with and your level of resolve. When I bought mine, I was a single bloke and thought nothing of climbing over a landing full of chipped off artex/plaster to stand in a wobbly bath and have a luke warm shower before a days work in the office, when I met the misuss, our tolerance levels were somewhat different.
I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the st out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.
3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the s
t out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
| Our Survey Says... | Cost Bracket | Urgency | Our Owner Did... | Date Done | Actual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knackered DPC | £1000 | Do Now | No DPC, traced leaking downpipes saturating underground and broken drains | +1 Month | DIY / £200 |
| Chimney Pisses water in | £1000 | Do Now | Got chimney capped/pointed | + 1 Month | £800 |
| Bees Nest in loft | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Asbestos Roof panels chucked down side of garage | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Rebuild brick outbuilding, include for new floor, walls, roof, door and doorframe. | <£1000 | Not Urgent | It fell down | Never | £0 |
| Woodworm! Everywhere, omg - well holes, anyway | £1000-£4000 | Urgent | ^^ Fixed damp, dried out, lifted floor, hoovered up, sprayed treatments | +1 Month | DIY - £100 |
| More than 5 years since installation last tested, obvious dodgy wiring - plugs in en-suite, etc. - Inspect and correct | £4000+ | Urgent | Paid for a test, DIY fixed list of most issues, paid for second test and new consumer unit | +2 Month | £800 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Install specialist tanking to prevent ongoing penetrating damp to cellar walls and floor. | £4000+ | Urgent | did some reading, dug out the blocked up cellar vents and let the building breathe instead of tanking. | +2 Month | DIY - £20 |
| Remove rotten door and window frames. Repair/replace corroded metal bars and grill to cellar windows. | <£1000 | Urgent | Cut out the rotten bit of door frame, still half a doorframe there to this day - so what? |
+2 Month | DIY £0 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Repair joint to front section of gutter - Refix PVC gutter to rear corner of roof | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew balls, bought ladder, fixed gutter, did small poo in pants | +2 Month | DIY £100 |
| Replace rotten timber gutter | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew brain, paid a man to go dick about on his own ladders | +2 Month | £300 |
| Arrang for quotation to repair/repoint extensive pointing/plant damage and spalled brickwork | £1000=£4000 | Not Urgent | Paid for work | +5 years | £3000 |
| Provide belcast bead, repair/renew cracked and missing render to right hand side elevation. | <£1000 | Do Now | Finally got round to knocking it off the list during lockdown | +9 Years | DIY - SDS drill and some lime & sand to repoint £50 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Carry out minor repairs for developing decay to sliding sash windows. | <£1000 | Do Now | Tarted up DIY but developing decay was actually extensive - Windows all repaired/renovated | +5 Years | £4500 |
| Arrange for quotation to: fix cracked glass above front door | <£1000 | Do Now | Sellotape | +1 Month | <£1 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Renew missing and rotten sections of soffit and purlin. Renew rotten bargeboard to rear | £1000-£4000 | Do Now | Paid people | +1 Month | £3500 |
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Ha, not quite...he was listing a crack in a single pane of glass in a four pane fanlight, point being his view of immediate repair and what was actually necessary/priority are not to be taken as gospel.The entire door was replaced properly years down the line when we’d got many other jobs ticked off the list.
New front solid wood door cost us £1500 but we only got that done last year and was still a semi-cosmetic decision.
As gt3 said, listed is best looked at over 5 years or as a long haul project.
Vanity Projects said:
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Ha, not quite...he was listing a crack in a single pane of glass in a four pane fanlight, point being his view of immediate repair and what was actually necessary/priority are not to be taken as gospel.The entire door was replaced properly years down the line when we’d got many other jobs ticked off the list.
New front solid wood door cost us £1500 but we only got that done last year and was still a semi-cosmetic decision.
As gt3 said, listed is best looked at over 5 years or as a long haul project.
bennno said:
seiben said:
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Suggest you take a read of VP's project thread before being too dismissive of his work 
When we moved into ours, there was a rotten window with half a pane of broken glass in it. The owner's repair consisted of screwing a sheet of perspex over the entire window and sealing it with Blutac around the perimeter. Job done in his eyes!Lord Flashheart said:
bennno said:
seiben said:
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Suggest you take a read of VP's project thread before being too dismissive of his work When we moved into ours, there was a rotten window with half a pane of broken glass in it. The owner's repair consisted of screwing a sheet of perspex over the entire window and sealing it with Blutac around the perimeter. Job done in his eyes!bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Sometimes you do need to buy a bit of time to get to lower priority jobs. That said I did look at one place that had sellotaped windows where they wanted property pr0n prices. Owner genuinely didn’t see a problem with us needing to replace several panes (“only a small job” - yeah, like “aircon just needs re-gas”!). Other times you’ll see modern approaches suggested for older buildings that fail to take into account construction differences (e.g. the tanking vs ventilation point), which is why you need to be careful who to listen to when considering work. Sometimes though you get hit with costs you can’t really avoid. Example: a previous owner replaced an internal door hinge with a plastic one (the other one may be original). It failed a couple of weeks ago. Not going to replace with another plastic one. Best match to the original one will be approx £100 for one hinge. Needs to be done, and when it is nobody will even notice it, but if you’d told me prior to owning listed that I’d spend hours searching and eventually be ok with paying £100 for a door hinge so that I could preserve another hinge I’d have thought you were mad!
LooneyTunes said:
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
Sometimes you do need to buy a bit of time to get to lower priority jobs. That said I did look at one place that had sellotaped windows where they wanted property pr0n prices. Owner genuinely didn’t see a problem with us needing to replace several panes (“only a small job” - yeah, like “aircon just needs re-gas”!). Other times you’ll see modern approaches suggested for older buildings that fail to take into account construction differences (e.g. the tanking vs ventilation point), which is why you need to be careful who to listen to when considering work. Sometimes though you get hit with costs you can’t really avoid. Example: a previous owner replaced an internal door hinge with a plastic one (the other one may be original). It failed a couple of weeks ago. Not going to replace with another plastic one. Best match to the original one will be approx £100 for one hinge. Needs to be done, and when it is nobody will even notice it, but if you’d told me prior to owning listed that I’d spend hours searching and eventually be ok with paying £100 for a door hinge so that I could preserve another hinge I’d have thought you were mad!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/9123757078/ref=cm_sw_r...
I bought these after buying this:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...
Luckily it's Not listed and is 150 yards outside conservation zone.
I bought these after buying this:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...
Luckily it's Not listed and is 150 yards outside conservation zone.
LooneyTunes said:
Being pedantic, are they really YOUR estate agent (I.e. a home search agency) or working for the seller? If the latter it’s in their interests to play down the concerns...
(Await all usual stuff about how EAs only work for themselves)
The vendors choose them, but is it the buyers that are waving the actual money around. (Await all usual stuff about how EAs only work for themselves)
Vanity Projects said:
It depends on what you can live with and your level of resolve. When I bought mine, I was a single bloke and thought nothing of climbing over a landing full of chipped off artex/plaster to stand in a wobbly bath and have a luke warm shower before a days work in the office, when I met the misuss, our tolerance levels were somewhat different.
I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the st out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.
3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
That is an EXCELLENT list - including showing where to know your limits and when to pay the man with big ladders!!I'd suggest aim for the big stuff first in manageable chunks if you're going to - For a few of reasons.
1. It's a financial strain doing the work, nothing is standard, (this is the voyagre of discovery bit) there's no such thing as a five minute job as there will be hundreds of years of bodges, you'll learn about black/red wiring, lead pipes, asbestos, artex and all sort of fun in between.
2. It's a mental/phsycial strain doing the work - IF you have a day job, coming home and picking up the tools to knock the s
t out of a wall or hammer up some new laths gets increasingly harder to do the longer the jobs go on.3. If you find it isn't for you, selling the house with every room half done will knock a ton off the escape value if you need it.
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
| Our Survey Says... | Cost Bracket | Urgency | Our Owner Did... | Date Done | Actual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knackered DPC | £1000 | Do Now | No DPC, traced leaking downpipes saturating underground and broken drains | +1 Month | DIY / £200 |
| Chimney Pisses water in | £1000 | Do Now | Got chimney capped/pointed | + 1 Month | £800 |
| Bees Nest in loft | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Asbestos Roof panels chucked down side of garage | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Rebuild brick outbuilding, include for new floor, walls, roof, door and doorframe. | <£1000 | Not Urgent | It fell down | Never | £0 |
| Woodworm! Everywhere, omg - well holes, anyway | £1000-£4000 | Urgent | ^^ Fixed damp, dried out, lifted floor, hoovered up, sprayed treatments | +1 Month | DIY - £100 |
| More than 5 years since installation last tested, obvious dodgy wiring - plugs in en-suite, etc. - Inspect and correct | £4000+ | Urgent | Paid for a test, DIY fixed list of most issues, paid for second test and new consumer unit | +2 Month | £800 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Install specialist tanking to prevent ongoing penetrating damp to cellar walls and floor. | £4000+ | Urgent | did some reading, dug out the blocked up cellar vents and let the building breathe instead of tanking. | +2 Month | DIY - £20 |
| Remove rotten door and window frames. Repair/replace corroded metal bars and grill to cellar windows. | <£1000 | Urgent | Cut out the rotten bit of door frame, still half a doorframe there to this day - so what? |
+2 Month | DIY £0 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Repair joint to front section of gutter - Refix PVC gutter to rear corner of roof | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew balls, bought ladder, fixed gutter, did small poo in pants | +2 Month | DIY £100 |
| Replace rotten timber gutter | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew brain, paid a man to go dick about on his own ladders | +2 Month | £300 |
| Arrang for quotation to repair/repoint extensive pointing/plant damage and spalled brickwork | £1000=£4000 | Not Urgent | Paid for work | +5 years | £3000 |
| Provide belcast bead, repair/renew cracked and missing render to right hand side elevation. | <£1000 | Do Now | Finally got round to knocking it off the list during lockdown | +9 Years | DIY - SDS drill and some lime & sand to repoint £50 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Carry out minor repairs for developing decay to sliding sash windows. | <£1000 | Do Now | Tarted up DIY but developing decay was actually extensive - Windows all repaired/renovated | +5 Years | £4500 |
| Arrange for quotation to: fix cracked glass above front door | <£1000 | Do Now | Sellotape | +1 Month | <£1 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Renew missing and rotten sections of soffit and purlin. Renew rotten bargeboard to rear | £1000-£4000 | Do Now | Paid people | +1 Month | £3500 |
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
IMHO, a listed building can be a money pit, but you can mitigate the depth of the pit by "making do and mending" along the way. Ours has a more modern extension at the back that has needed attention to windows and roofing - both could be multi-thousand pound tasks......but both were mended very satisfactorily at a much lower cost. The main fabric of the house, however, has broadly been sound - those older building have had time to settle in okay!
bennno said:
Some high quality repairs there no doubt, sellotaping broken windows. Guess the bodge and leave it approach is ok if you don’t ever plan to resell.
It's an example of turning an urgent job into a non urgent one, particularly if you are doing stuff yourself and time and money are constraints. We have a non listed old property, and have lots of temporary fixes. Some of these are due to time, some are due to waiting for the right thing to appear - we spend a lot of time scouring used selling sites.
We have spent a fair bit with professionals, but trying to do a lot ourselves too.
OP, it does sound like the house has been 'rolled in glitter'. The sellers will know this better than anyone, so won't be surprised when you go back to them. Any items you declare to them, they should then declare on the sellers information pack going forwards....
Don't discount the disruption of building work in addition to the cost (and unknown costs).
Vanity Projects said:
By way of example - I've dug out my full surveyors report from pre-purchase and here's a snapshot of what I did and when.
Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
Blimey this is absolute gold. I've started up a table with the same headings and will work with the surveyor to categorise items in terms of urgency. It makes the whole process much easier to digest instead of one big tsunami of information!!Survey was August 2011...Note the presence of words such as May, Could be, potentially, etc.
| Our Survey Says... | Cost Bracket | Urgency | Our Owner Did... | Date Done | Actual Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knackered DPC | £1000 | Do Now | No DPC, traced leaking downpipes saturating underground and broken drains | +1 Month | DIY / £200 |
| Chimney Pisses water in | £1000 | Do Now | Got chimney capped/pointed | + 1 Month | £800 |
| Bees Nest in loft | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Asbestos Roof panels chucked down side of garage | <£1000 | Do Now | Left it alone | Never | £0 |
| Rebuild brick outbuilding, include for new floor, walls, roof, door and doorframe. | <£1000 | Not Urgent | It fell down | Never | £0 |
| Woodworm! Everywhere, omg - well holes, anyway | £1000-£4000 | Urgent | ^^ Fixed damp, dried out, lifted floor, hoovered up, sprayed treatments | +1 Month | DIY - £100 |
| More than 5 years since installation last tested, obvious dodgy wiring - plugs in en-suite, etc. - Inspect and correct | £4000+ | Urgent | Paid for a test, DIY fixed list of most issues, paid for second test and new consumer unit | +2 Month | £800 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Install specialist tanking to prevent ongoing penetrating damp to cellar walls and floor. | £4000+ | Urgent | did some reading, dug out the blocked up cellar vents and let the building breathe instead of tanking. | +2 Month | DIY - £20 |
| Remove rotten door and window frames. Repair/replace corroded metal bars and grill to cellar windows. | <£1000 | Urgent | Cut out the rotten bit of door frame, still half a doorframe there to this day - so what? |
+2 Month | DIY £0 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Repair joint to front section of gutter - Refix PVC gutter to rear corner of roof | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew balls, bought ladder, fixed gutter, did small poo in pants | +2 Month | DIY £100 |
| Replace rotten timber gutter | <£1000 | Urgent | Grew brain, paid a man to go dick about on his own ladders | +2 Month | £300 |
| Arrang for quotation to repair/repoint extensive pointing/plant damage and spalled brickwork | £1000=£4000 | Not Urgent | Paid for work | +5 years | £3000 |
| Provide belcast bead, repair/renew cracked and missing render to right hand side elevation. | <£1000 | Do Now | Finally got round to knocking it off the list during lockdown | +9 Years | DIY - SDS drill and some lime & sand to repoint £50 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Carry out minor repairs for developing decay to sliding sash windows. | <£1000 | Do Now | Tarted up DIY but developing decay was actually extensive - Windows all repaired/renovated | +5 Years | £4500 |
| Arrange for quotation to: fix cracked glass above front door | <£1000 | Do Now | Sellotape | +1 Month | <£1 |
| Arrange for quotation to: Renew missing and rotten sections of soffit and purlin. Renew rotten bargeboard to rear | £1000-£4000 | Do Now | Paid people | +1 Month | £3500 |
Plus lots of other stuff.
On the surveyors estimates it totalled about £85,000 of stuff in 2011 prices but tbh a lot of that was redecoration costs, and wide margin of error stuff like rewires but nothing brings the cost down like doing it yourself in general. If you get invested in the property, you'll want to do things yourself to get it 'right' for the house and your skills will develpo over time.
Hopefully the above snippet gives you some idea and hope.
Do you have any building experience? This is my second house and my experience thus far includes changing a light bulb and tightening up a toilet... And assembling garden furniture
At the point I bought the house I had no building experience. It was the first house I’d ever bought and one thing to factor in is to budget for adding tools as you go, £200 here for a mitre saw, £150 for an SDS drill and a £200 for a pair of drivers, etc soon add up!
Mine needed a lot of work and I figured I could learn as I went, what was the worst that could happen?
I picked some easy jobs first to get comfortable and then as my confidence grew, I got more adventurous like plumbing the central heating and fitting the new bathroom, etc.
What I always maintained was that the final finish if I couldn’t do it to a good standard would be a proper trade as that’s what people see. So plastering and tiling was done by trades. But most other stuff, fitting kitchens, repairing stud walls, etc was all done by me.
Mine needed a lot of work and I figured I could learn as I went, what was the worst that could happen?
I picked some easy jobs first to get comfortable and then as my confidence grew, I got more adventurous like plumbing the central heating and fitting the new bathroom, etc.
What I always maintained was that the final finish if I couldn’t do it to a good standard would be a proper trade as that’s what people see. So plastering and tiling was done by trades. But most other stuff, fitting kitchens, repairing stud walls, etc was all done by me.
Edited by Vanity Projects on Tuesday 7th July 12:43
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