A
Anonymous
Guest
As my yesterday's post about COs provoked so much traffic, I thought my reply would be lost amongst the flurry so here it is again...
Thank you for your responses and interest and I apologise for insulting any COs – it wasn’t my intention, just a reflection of how irritated I felt.
The facts then… I am not a pvc double-glazing fan, and that’s why I live in a period property. I may be ignorant, but only of things I don’t know about, not in my manner. I live in a small GII stone-wall thatched cottage, early C18th. Probably hundreds in the country – 2 up, 2 down. The cottage was “improved” in the 60s; suck your teeth; rear 1-storey flat roofed extension to house bathroom and toilet, crittal windows in places where there were no windows originally (side and rear), relocation of the staircase from internal winder to crossing the width of the house and punching out through the original wall into aforesaid extension, an extra doorway also punched out from the kitchen. An ‘improvement’ I suspect to the previous owner, who had an outside loo and probably bathed in front of the fire.
We had several conversations over a period of years with our local COs; initially they were keen to see the current extension gone, but now they are ambivalent.
We have been told to deal with the condensation from the windows in the kitchen in the winter by locking them open a crack. The condensation is so bad it leaves pools of water on the windowsills and is rotting the wooden window frames (c. early C20th from historic photos).
The steam from the kitchen is also causing damage to the original beams, joists, lathe and plaster. In short the cottage has a pretty front face, but very little of the original remains internally or at the rear.
I have a very large garden, plenty of space so any extension would not dominate. Yes, I went for my dream extension, it’s only human to start big and negotiate down but it’s not huge - I am only looking to remove flat roofed 1-storey extension and add 1-storey pitched roof extension with upstairs 3rd bedroom and bathroom & move kitchen into new extension. This would mean taking out current staircase (60s), removing internal wall in current kitchen (60s), blocking up one rear doorway (60s) and cutting into thatch above purlin. Ridge height of new extension would be lower than existing ridge, so in effect it would be hidden. Minimal disruption. It would also move current extension away from boundary line and enable proper maintenance of flank wall currently in poor state.
The feedback? Any extension would need to have a roof of slate or clay tiles, not thatch (they don’t allow extensions to be roofed in thatch – local policy), the walls however could be in stone to match. The pitch of the new extension must not cut into the thatch anywhere (“the original fabric must be retained”) – the cottage was empty for 10 years and our thatcher removed almost all of the thatch on the rear when re-done in the 90s (the slope had been getting shallower and need steepening again). The pitch of the roof had to be between 40-45 degrees to mimic pre-war buildings locally. When I questioned which war was he said WW2. This seems like an arbitrary date-line - this house was built pre-Napoleonic Wars!). Or it could be flat roofed in lead. Dormer windows should be different to the eye-brow type I have, but instead he would prefer to see pre-war design.
In addition he suggested linking the new extension to the existing property via a glass link, cutting into the original stone wall (Grand Designs?). Finally he wouldn’t allow at all an ‘upstairs’ bathroom or bedroom in the new extension.
He said have “respect for the property with non-matching materials”!?
Aren’t buildings organic? Shouldn’t they grow with time? Is it too much to ask that we want to add a sympathetic extension that would also do away with the terrible work of 40 years ago? I found the CO most unhelpful. Comments please.
Thank you for your responses and interest and I apologise for insulting any COs – it wasn’t my intention, just a reflection of how irritated I felt.
The facts then… I am not a pvc double-glazing fan, and that’s why I live in a period property. I may be ignorant, but only of things I don’t know about, not in my manner. I live in a small GII stone-wall thatched cottage, early C18th. Probably hundreds in the country – 2 up, 2 down. The cottage was “improved” in the 60s; suck your teeth; rear 1-storey flat roofed extension to house bathroom and toilet, crittal windows in places where there were no windows originally (side and rear), relocation of the staircase from internal winder to crossing the width of the house and punching out through the original wall into aforesaid extension, an extra doorway also punched out from the kitchen. An ‘improvement’ I suspect to the previous owner, who had an outside loo and probably bathed in front of the fire.
We had several conversations over a period of years with our local COs; initially they were keen to see the current extension gone, but now they are ambivalent.
We have been told to deal with the condensation from the windows in the kitchen in the winter by locking them open a crack. The condensation is so bad it leaves pools of water on the windowsills and is rotting the wooden window frames (c. early C20th from historic photos).
The steam from the kitchen is also causing damage to the original beams, joists, lathe and plaster. In short the cottage has a pretty front face, but very little of the original remains internally or at the rear.
I have a very large garden, plenty of space so any extension would not dominate. Yes, I went for my dream extension, it’s only human to start big and negotiate down but it’s not huge - I am only looking to remove flat roofed 1-storey extension and add 1-storey pitched roof extension with upstairs 3rd bedroom and bathroom & move kitchen into new extension. This would mean taking out current staircase (60s), removing internal wall in current kitchen (60s), blocking up one rear doorway (60s) and cutting into thatch above purlin. Ridge height of new extension would be lower than existing ridge, so in effect it would be hidden. Minimal disruption. It would also move current extension away from boundary line and enable proper maintenance of flank wall currently in poor state.
The feedback? Any extension would need to have a roof of slate or clay tiles, not thatch (they don’t allow extensions to be roofed in thatch – local policy), the walls however could be in stone to match. The pitch of the new extension must not cut into the thatch anywhere (“the original fabric must be retained”) – the cottage was empty for 10 years and our thatcher removed almost all of the thatch on the rear when re-done in the 90s (the slope had been getting shallower and need steepening again). The pitch of the roof had to be between 40-45 degrees to mimic pre-war buildings locally. When I questioned which war was he said WW2. This seems like an arbitrary date-line - this house was built pre-Napoleonic Wars!). Or it could be flat roofed in lead. Dormer windows should be different to the eye-brow type I have, but instead he would prefer to see pre-war design.
In addition he suggested linking the new extension to the existing property via a glass link, cutting into the original stone wall (Grand Designs?). Finally he wouldn’t allow at all an ‘upstairs’ bathroom or bedroom in the new extension.
He said have “respect for the property with non-matching materials”!?
Aren’t buildings organic? Shouldn’t they grow with time? Is it too much to ask that we want to add a sympathetic extension that would also do away with the terrible work of 40 years ago? I found the CO most unhelpful. Comments please.