It all seems too simple

[charlie-ia]

Weve got the surveyors report for our house. Nothing seems too surprising (even to us two cluelesses) and reading on this website it all looks so straightforward to sort out.
Excuse me if this post gets longwinded, im not sure what i want to ask exactly. "If we jump in at the deep end are we going to drown?" is the basic gist i think.
if i try ro summarise the survey, and what i understand to be the solutions, maybe you lot could poke holes in my plan, and scare me with the maximum costs/worse case scenarios?
ok, here goes...!
rural setting, elevated site, expansive views. 1 acre, bordering bog to north Two storey stone built farmhouse, single storey extension to one end(with me so far?)

total floor area 700sq ft
walls generally sound.serious settlement front wall, less serious to rear
(ok, how bad could this be? rebuild the whole wall? or stuff it with newspaper and worry later?)

windows and doors generaly buggered downstairs, rotted upstairs.
iron bars causing damage to window reveals (would this mean new lintels?)

(12 4pane sash windows - rough cost about £200 each?
build our own doors from planks and big bolts like on a castle, painted "irishcottage red" -few quid for wood&a saw, worry about good ones later)

fascia&soffits to be replaced (dont sound too bad to me)
gutters good(hurrah!)

downstairs floor uneven poor quality concrete (like being on a ship!)
rip these up with a pneumatic drill/minidigger (after nibbling gently for a while to see whats there? sounds like spadework-cant cost that much/do that much damage surely. then relay with something breathable. packed earth sounds cheap. is it always suitable?whats the cheapest floor you can have/m2?

walls "drylined after a fashion" +plaster damp.
(hardboard stuff with pictures of planks. take it off&limeplaster.i saw a cost for this on someonelses thread)

walls of extension damp and rough
(this end is banked up, so dig that out, put in french drains.more digging. thats one thing me&him are good at.
how do we know if weve got foundations?dig a test pit? how deep can we dig if we havent got foundations? to the depth of the inside floor sounds sensible to me, but if weve previously removed that to get rid of the concrete...

roof generally sound

there is evidence throughout the house of serious woodworm infestation.all timber should be thouroughly treated
(ive read that if you dry the house properly, that should stop the worms. i dont want to spray, but should i do it? we're not in a position yet to spend a great deal of time in the house to warm it through constantly. due to working in manchester, and the house being in ireland, it may be a couple of years untill its properly dry.)

plumbing basic but serviceable
no heating
rewire (i saw a post for this somewhere too)

septic tank with no percolation(see previous post-again sounds like digging, though i wonder about this being complicated. steep slope, watercourse nearby. Our well is uphill from the house, and the acre slopes down, thin waterlogged soil. Anyone got similar experience?

drainage generally poor with rising damp (cure this, cure the damp. simple. Or is it? the bog up the hill is only 50ft max away. will it be like trying to drain an ocean? will we create a stream that will wash the garden away? weve been a few times but it was always during a storm. I guess with such a slope it will be quite dry in the summer. the stream was away from the house, and the trees and outbuildings sheltered it nicely

this property is in a neglected state, with some evidence of renovatoion works paticularly at first floor.
(done 14 years ago. pretty basic, but we can mostly make do. he says no more about the woodworm. floors seem fairly ok, we didnt jump too hard. to us it sounds like we wont need a new floor. is this a safe assumption?when he said worms throughout the house he would have mentioned if the upstairs was soon to be downstairs wouldnt he?

basic structure reasonably sound, but settlment cracks should recieve attention to prevent worsening
(if we cure the damp& worms, and dont get too carried away digging drains these cracks shouldent get any worse right?)

hope im not asking too much!thanks for your time

 

[biffvernon]

12 4pane sash windows - rough cost about £200 each?

Not if I make them.

 

[charlie-ia]

too little? i dont have any idea what theyre made of. hopefully we can mend most of them, so i was using it as a guess. got a closer number? theyre not very big.

do people normaly invite builders round for a quote before they buy? I dont see how it could be accurate unless you already know what you'd like doing, and i dont see how we could do that without being nearer.

 

[NT]

Weve got the surveyors report for our house. Nothing seems too surprising (even to us two cluelesses) and reading on this website it all looks so straightforward to sort out.
Excuse me if this post gets longwinded, im not sure what i want to ask exactly. "If we jump in at the deep end are we going to drown?" is the basic gist i think.

If you know roughly what it'll cost, and have a rough idea of how long it'll take, then you know if you can afford that... only you know how much you can put into it.

walls generally sound.serious settlement front wall, less serious to rear
(ok, how bad could this be? rebuild the whole wall? or stuff it with newspaper and worry later?)

best case: lime mortar in the cracks, it doesnt move, job done.

worst case: monitor for a year, it moves, underpin whole property, and if wall has moved so far its no longer stable, rebuild it. What did the survey say?

Worst case is all diyable if necessary, though certainly its not for beginners.

windows and doors generaly buggered downstairs, rotted upstairs.
iron bars causing damage to window reveals (would this mean new lintels?)

What iron bars? To keep thiefs out? Or you mean steel lintels all rotted? Or are they badly rusted metal framed windows?

(12 4pane sash windows - rough cost about £200 each?

More if new, less if old ones. Last ones I saw were £70 a go, glazed, but most folk report seeing higher prices than that.

build our own doors from planks and big bolts like on a castle, painted "irishcottage red"

Better to go to travesty perkins and get decent ones, or wickes for cheap knotty pine, unless plank doors really suit the property. Plank doors arent a cheap option, unless you've got a felled tree to hand.

-few quid for wood&a saw, worry about good ones later)

A cheap mitre saw is under £30, but if you want consistently clean joints you need to spend £100+. Cheapies can make decent cuts but theyre a total pain, as everything bends, so wonky cuts are easy, clean ones difficult.

Wood's more than a few quid. Got a fallen tree onsite?

Since you'll be using a lot of wood and it sounds like you're trying to keep costs down, theres a bloke on ebay selling lots of mixed size oak for just over £2 a cubic foot, and it dont come any cheaper than that.

fascia&soffits to be replaced (dont sound too bad to me)

no

downstairs floor uneven poor quality concrete (like being on a ship!)
rip these up with a pneumatic drill/minidigger (after nibbling gently for a while to see whats there? sounds like spadework-cant cost that much/do that much damage surely.

Just hard slave work with a sledge hammer. Cost £20. dont forget an iron bar, lifting slightly cracked crete is easier than pounding it into submission.

then relay with something breathable. packed earth sounds cheap. is it always suitable?whats the cheapest floor you can have/m2?

Cheapest would be to just remove anything loose, patch if necessary, and pour levelling compound onto it.

Other minimum cost options include road base, papercrete,
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Papercrete
earthcrete, and so on. First question though is what does the building need.

Underfloor insulation is a wise idea too. limited info here:
http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Insulation

walls "drylined after a fashion" +plaster damp.
(hardboard stuff with pictures of planks. take it off&limeplaster.i saw a cost for this on someonelses thread)

Be doing it yourself?

how do we know if weve got foundations?dig a test pit?

yup

how deep can we dig if we havent got foundations?

The law prevents you from going far enough down for it to be considered mining, I forget the depth but something like 1km or so.

All you need dig is down and very slightly under the edge at one point. No sense continuing.

there is evidence throughout the house of serious woodworm infestation

You can dry it immediately with a humidistatic dehumidifier. Should be no need for chemical treatment then.

no heating

perhaps http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Solar_Thermal

rewire (i saw a post for this somewhere too)

this one is good: http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Rewiring_Tips

drainage generally poor with rising damp (cure this, cure the damp. simple. Or is it?

Very few damp cases diagnosed as rising really are. Normally theyre condensation and/or penetrating damp.

floors seem fairly ok, we didnt jump too hard. to us it sounds like we wont need a new floor. is this a safe assumption?

no such animal. What info do you have to base your conclusions on?

when he said worms throughout the house he would have mentioned if the upstairs was soon to be downstairs wouldnt he?

would he? How would a surveyor know? or are there no ceilings? If the property's riddled with worm, the floor structure is likely to be infected too. And maybe some joist rot. In most cases such things can be repaired if the problem exists, personally I'd either want to know or else budget for the risk. New floor structure is a diy job if you so choose, its not rocket science.

basic structure reasonably sound, but settlment cracks should recieve attention to prevent worsening
(if we cure the damp& worms, and dont get too carried away digging drains these cracks shouldent get any worse right?)

how do we know? Has it been monitored or repaired? How big are they?


I get the feeling this is the first time you've done something like this, and are taking what sounds like a big project on. Thing is, if youre willing to do your own work, learn along the way, learn how to keep costs down instead of relying on painted help, its all doable. Just a case of being realistic about it so what you get is what you expect, and youre happy with the deal.


NT

 

[Penners]

£200 each for your new windows sounds a serious underestimate. They may not be very big, but sliding sash windows aren't cheap.

I can't be much help with a true cost, except to tell you that a softwood window with twin hinged casements (each with a single horizontal glazing bar), overall dims 850mm high x 1000mm wide, cost me about £320 plus VAT.

You could try to find some second-hand, but the chances of getting the right size must be slim.

Don't forget that rewiring is likely to be a more expensive option these days, due to Part P requirements.

 

[charlie-ia]

this is just the info im looking for! thankyou so much.
yes, we are complete amateurs, novices etc, diy&learn is the idea.

the iron bars are for burgulars,or to keep the inmates in.

there are no ceilings downstairs, just the underneath of the joists showing. looks like it had something sometime. we can see woodworm, we poked a few bits and it still felt like wood. nothing fell off immediately. we jumped up and down a few times in various places, and didnt fall through.(though we didnt go barmy just in case!)I did like the post about getting eight friends round to check the strength of your floor!!

the survey says "timber stairs from the porch are steep but reasonably sound and the upstairs floors all feel to be solid and in reasonable condition"

"there is evidence throughout the house of serious woodowrm infestation, paticularly in some furniture items and it is therefore suggested that all timber items to be retained should be thoroughly treated to minimize the risk of infestation spreading. furniture should be removed and burned"

on the settlement it says "the main stonebuilt walls appear to be generally sound, but there is some quite serious settlement cracking to the front wall, and less serious cracking to the rear.the plaster finish to the front of the house is in reasonable condition. no plaster to rear." we plan to take off whats loose and patch with lime 'cos we think its cement render.will check properly.

"paticular attention should be paid to the external drainage around the house"

"the basic structure of the house is still reasonably sound, but the cracks in the main wall should recieve attention or they will worsen through further ingress of water and frost damage"

It also has an old septic tank which discharges above ground because of the steep slope.The inlet is below ground, and the bottom of the tank is above ground, with no perculation pipes or anything.
Many nice ferns around the "water feature" though!
is this likely to be difficult to remedy? ive read if the soil is thin, with fast perculation, near a watercourse it can be troublesome. any experience?

on the fallen tree front, he took me to learn how to chainsaw as a romantic birthday treat. we now both have lantra certification and the bog is surrounded by forestry plantations!

 

[charlie-ia]

I also read that using a dehumidifier can lead to cracking of damp timber.

how do you regulate the speed of drying, or how do you tell if you're going too fast before its too late?

 

[NT]

the iron bars are for burgulars,or to keep the inmates in.

I dont know about others, but I cant see how I could comment without seeing whats going on.

there are no ceilings downstairs, just the underneath of the joists showing.

OK, then the surveyor could check them out. I dont see what we can add, we've not seen them.

"there is evidence throughout the house of serious woodowrm infestation, paticularly in some furniture items and it is therefore suggested that all timber items to be retained should be thoroughly treated to minimize the risk of infestation spreading. furniture should be removed and burned"

Chemical treatment will only affect future woodworm generations. Killing the existing ones achieves nothing, the holes are already made.

Reducing the damp problem makes the wood no longer attractive to woodworm insects, and is cheaper, safer, and stops rot too.

on the fallen tree front, he took me to learn how to chainsaw as a romantic birthday treat. we now both have lantra certification and the bog is surrounded by forestry plantations!

Well, if you need to replace a lot of wood, access to a nice tree certainly reduces wood cost. At the expense of labour of course. OTOH theres something nice about using your own wood. And tiring.


NT

 

[NT]

I also read that using a dehumidifier can lead to cracking of damp timber.

how do you regulate the speed of drying, or how do you tell if you're going too fast before its too late?

Wodo swells when damp. If you dry it too fast, the outside dries and shrinks, the inside doesnt, so the outside cracks.

Drying speed depends on how much you reduce air RH. This is why the thing needs to be humidistatic.


NT

 

[charlie-ia]

I understand you cant give specifics, what you have said was most helpful.
Im still a bit worried about the septic tank though.

we havent worked out how we're going to eat if we do buy the house.
Anyone got a recipy for woodworm soup?

 

[Nemesis]

Stone soup - an old story.

I think you have cause to worry about the tank too - it's possibly not very legal and could be causing pollution. I'd gently investigate the costs of ones which treat the sewage and can safely discharge into a water course.

 

[charlie-ia]

Ah - stone soup, i know that one. they told us it in the infants. And one about a donkey that ate the towns straw bellrope 'cos someone had been mean to it.

Is it easy to turn a septic tank into a cesspool temporararily? large cork?

at least we could go then. not many bushes, and i dont fancy traipsing half a mile over the bog in the dark to find a nice tree.
ok, we'd have to pay to get it emptied, but it sounds better than digging drains downhill from a half-working septic tank.

Ive been looking at websites for methane digesters, but only see farmsized ones. is this not an option on a small scale? Im probably getting ahead of myself here considering we dont have doors and windows

 

[Nemesis]

Well if it's currently working... but it's not something I think you can leave.

We have looked at these, not a clue what they are like in reality but they sound interesting.

http://www.biotank.co.uk/

 

[worms]

DIY biogas digester. Two big open-topped plastic tanks one slightly smaller diameter than the other. One dug into the ground with the slurry pipe leading into it, other (smaller) inverted over the top. Gas pipe to house from the top tank. Weight on top of tank to supply pressure. Overflow pipe from top side of bottom tank.

Can't imagine it would be legal and would gas production would probably stop in cold weather, but the technology is pretty simple!

 

[charlie-ia]

I agree, does look interesting, thanks nemesis!
worms- theres full instructions in my mother earth news book (older than me,and warns that we are running out of fossil fuels!) which is what got me thinking in the first place. youre absolutely right- does look like a job for the professionals. i just hoped someone had got round to making them commercially.

dont know if the existing tank works or not, we didnt dare try to flush the loo. no-one has been in the house for fourteen years, though there was a spare loo-roll! (clearly biodegradeable)
I am really fairly sure the tank is not legal as it is though, under anyones regulations.

and what about general drainage? I know it sounds daft, but the bog above must hold billions of gallons of water, and if we start meddling.....?

 

[Nemesis]

That I don't know.

I do know that when we came here the people before us hadn't had the septic tank emptied in eight years and it was full to the top. Fortunately or not any overflow (which meant anything new... went into the adjacent burn... interesting. OK when it was in full flow but...

It doesn't do that now I add!

Also check how you are affected by flying insects such as midges. You could get plenty of bites in the summer...

 

[charlie-ia]

sorry nemesis, you dont know about what? worms kindly replied whilst i was carefully formulating my reply, so i went back and edited, and now i dont know who's replying to what. im easily confused!

I suffer from horesflys, dislike midges, and have found toothpaste a good salve for mosquitobites in an emergency. Fresh black peppermint leaves work similarly to docks on nettlestings if i do get a horsefly bite.this is yet another thing in the "to buy or not to buy2 debate going on at our house at the mo. must say, you lot are adding to the "in favour " column!

lack of internet comes up alot too. anyone any experience of satellite broadband? probably not the place. we'll let him sort that one. i have the sense to earn my crust from the land

 

[Nemesis]

I don't know about general drainage!

 

[charlie-ia]

ah. i see. thankyou anyway. i just imagine lying awake at night wondering what that strange rumbelling coud be

 

[Nemesis]

I do know however about insect bites. Northumberland midges make the other half's life a torment in summer - nothing much helps, even anti-histamine tabs.