My kid’s moving out! House buying.

[littlespark]

Just gauging the collective intelligence here on perils and pitfalls of renovating a possible house my middle daughter (19yp) wants to buy with her own money. She pays the bills, daddy does all the donkey work.

The market around here is slow at this time, so there’s not a huge choice of properties in driving distance to both our house, and her place of work.

I’ll show you all what we viewed last Friday… and possible plans.




Property is 50 to 60 year old ex-local authority stock. 3 bedroom. Semi detached with cavity walls. Garden of grass to front, hoping to put in a driveway, and all slabbed to back and side areas.



South facing living room. Solid fuel burner that feeds some wet radiators. No mains gas on this street. Other heating is a few night storage heaters and immersion tank. Not sure if it’s one or two immersions… but must heat overnight and has a boost control.

Ceiling appears to have been newly plastered, but that might just be to cover old cracks or whatever.. there’s no evidence of flooding above.

Strange small room past the left of the fireplace. Not really big enough to do anything with.
Was originally a storage room with solid wall here, and access door to outside.



Kitchen needs redone. There’s no door for a start. A lot of the drawers don’t shut and there’s no wall units. There’s a serving hatch into the living room.



Bathroom is pretty good… but no extractor fan. There’s a separate shower cubicle to the right of the picture, where space has been taken from a bedroom to fit it in.




Hallway. Big wasted space under the stairs there. Space for a WC?
The cupboard at the end holds the consumer unit, which is a dual rcd Hager board for 24hr, and an older fuse board for the storage heaters via a mechanical timeclock.

There’s ample space under the timber floor for running new pipes and whatever. Will want to insulate under there as well, but don’t know if it’s best with spray foam, polystyrene blocks of just rock wool held up between the joists.

Another plan would be to take that end wall of the hall away, moving the CU, cutout etc and putting the kitchen under the stairs, and into that small area. Open plan into the living room.

Current kitchen could be split into a WC and utility room.



In summary. Lots to do, many ideas. Wife doesn’t like all that plain wood.
Is rooftop PV doable? Or does one still need to be MCS registered to get any payback?
Get PV, get battery storage.
Daughter might be eligible for green home grants from Scot.gov


What’s your ideas?

 

[Moley]

That looks good enough to move straight into compared to what my daughter has taken on. They don't have a wall left on both floors. The previous owner took a dividing wall down and the RSJ wasn't supported properly so the upstairs floor is at an odd angle. The floor is going to be jacked back into place and new RSJs fitted. You can see light through bits of the roof. Total rewire needed, new central heating etc.

 

[westward10]

I would recommend she finds a decent electrician.