What comes first etc

[xanthe]

Assuming that nothing was super-urgent - collapsing roof, walls, major leaks etc - how did you decide what order to do works in or what to clump together?

Husband is expecting a nice plan and mine goes round in circles. I was doing okay on list of jobs, but the interconnecting is not good.

We need to overhaul the electrics, plumbing, central heating - also need to replace all the fibre-board ceilings and modern plaster walls. Pipes and wires are hidden but fake chicken wire 'beams' in the cellar. So does one do all of that at the same time or rewire through the same holes and just do it again when new plaster board goes up?

Do you sort out the bowing gable infill panels and lack of insulation before, since the inside of that part has issues for the wiring, or leave that bit till later and also leave the plumbing/wiring lose in that area in the meantime.

Start at the top? Or the bottom? One room at a time - or go on a mad rampage and rip out all the 'improvements' (pre-approved by the CO) in one big go, knowing that you will still be living in the same conditions in 6 months time?

 

[Feltwell]

Very, very hard to say without knowing both the building and what you intend to do to it in detail.

However, a rough order for me is:-

- Water tight - roof first and any ancillaries like guttering, stop the house getting any damper if it needs work.

- Structural work - rectify any known problems / make any proposed changes (with LBC if required of course).

- Anything else causing damp problems - lowering external ground levels, that kind of thing, as it takes ages after you've done the work for the house to dry.

- Major services - a re-wire will affect almost every room, as will a complete new heating system. Any major re-plumbing work, and any changes to incoming services. Don't forget telephone, computer and burglar & smoke alarm cables, if you want to do these. Always a pain to do as these jobs affect multiple rooms at the same time usually.

- Joinery - providing it's not too bad that it requires immediate urgent attention, then doors & windows can be overhauled as you do each room

- Plastering

- Decoration last of all - as if you do it any earlier then you'll almost certainly damage it as you do other works

- Garden

But there's no hard or fast rules, and actually stepping out to do bits like some gardening helps keep you sane. For some the urge to decorate at an early stage and make the house look nice is to great to resist. Especially if you're called Joce. :wink: For me, the construction of a suitable "man cave" had to come fairly high up the list :lol: .

 

[Zebra]

If only there were a standard answer to that question!
The thing with having such unique, interesting homes, is that nobody has ever done exactly the project you are undertaking, and there is nobody really better placed to understand the priorities than you are.
I made a big mess everywhere in the first year. Stripped off render, dug up floors, filled skip after skip with concrete. Then made one room just about habitable and moved in. Then tackled the external jobs - render, roofing, windows and doors. Then started on the one-room-at-a-time method, sleeping wherever is least filthy.
Do the wiring and plumbing before you board or plaster the walls, definately. Otherwise they'll make a mess of the new walls. First fix plumbing and electrics usually happens when the house is at its barest/messiest, so if you're going to strip off the existing ceilings/plaster, then do that first, then let the sparks and plumbers in. They might be able to go through the same holes, but the existing holes might not be in the right places. Electricians will make new holes at will, unless you tell them they're not to, so if your house is timber frame, or of a special construction then choose your electrical contractor wisely and be sure to advise them of any special requirements.
Electrics is usually done in two stages - first fix, where the wires are put in the walls but not connected up. Then you plaster. Then they second fix - ie come back to put your sockets, switches and light fittings on.
I've been living for three years in between first and second fix with extension leads all over the place.
The answer to your question I think really depends on how much of the work you're intending to do yourself. If you're doing all the work yourself, then you can leave a job half finished for months and months while you do the other things which prevent you finishing it - like where your wiring is dependent of having the walls plastered. If you are having trades in, then such a long-drawn-out process is perhaps less easy.

 

[livias]

Just two things to add to the good comments made already

If you are planning to move in before the weather warms up, then top priority will be insulation and heating even if you have to live in just a couple of rooms at first. Resist the urge to pull the house apart (ok little exploratory holes can be bunged up again) until next spring

If you need to decorate your most used rooms for the sake of your own sanity then just do it cheap and quick. When you have finished the building works and installing services then start decorating at the top of the house and work down. By the time you start decorating you will be completely sick of the whole renovation project but take heart, you will be 90% done and it comes together very quickly in the end

Anna

 

[MatthewC]

Good advice from Feltwell and Zebra. I really like this one:

Electricians will make new holes at will

They certainly do! My electrician was very good technically but had an ability to have something going on in almost every room in the house, and so always conflicted with me and any other person trying to work anywhere in the house. He was also unable to lift nailed floorboards without splitting them and had a strong desire to chase his cables into my stone walls! Beware sparkies and don't try to have anyone else working inside at the same time.

I've been living for three years in between first and second fix with extension leads all over the place.

You've what? THREE years??? Oh poor Zebra...

 

[Keith Bowman]

Good advice from Feltwell and Zebra. I really like this one:
..........

I've been living for three years in between first and second fix with extension leads all over the place.

You've what? THREE years??? Oh poor Zebra...

Shhhhhh! (Very sensitive creatures these stripey ones)(

 

[Penners]

I agree entirely with Feltwell's plan - with one exception. I would do the joinery repairs/installations before the plumbing and electrical wiring. Pipes and cables are very likely to have to pass through beams or other joinery items, and it's much easier to do this after you've dealt with any woodwork projects.

However, you need to think through very carefully the appropriate plan for your house. Above all else, try to consider how to tackle each stage in such a way that you don't ever have disturb, undo or redo anything that's already been done.

 

[88v8]

....knowing that you will still be living in the same conditions in 6 months time?

6 months? Jeez, I like an optimist.
Unless everything goes perfectly, great organisation, everyone turns up and sticks at it, you work at it and do little else....that could be six years.

The alarming thing is, one gets used to living in a mess. And so, the temporary has a tendency to become the permanent.

One thing to think about therefore, do you peck away at the whole house with every room uncompleted, or after the backbone work is done do you finish one room perfectly and then move to the next. In our previous house - 30,000 hours' work - the latter was my preference, but what with life getting in the way and me being rather slow and fussy, the hall & landing for instance took nineteen years to get done.
OTOH, the rooms I did were so well done that we never redecorated, and some were done 28 years by the time we moved, and gradually we had more and more completed rooms where we could live entirely free of that sense of Building Site.

Ivor

PS... I did a 'temporary' decoration of the sitting room. It was still 'temporary' when we sold the house 22 years later.

 

[Penners]

....knowing that you will still be living in the same conditions in 6 months time?

6 months? Jeez, I like an optimist.
Unless everything goes perfectly, great organisation, everyone turns up and sticks at it, you work at it and do little else....that could be six years.

Ivor's right. Our first project was planned to be 2 years (I had zero experience when I made that estimate!). It took us 4 years, living in a 30ft caravan in the back garden with 2 children, 2 dogs and 2 guinea pigs!

 

[Zebra]

I've been living for three years in between first and second fix with extension leads all over the place.

You've what? THREE years??? Oh poor Zebra...

Your sympathy will evaporate, Matthew, when you remember I'm the electrician who hasn't finished the job! One learns to live with things......

 

[Penners]

Unfortunately there comes a time when one has lived with things for so long that one no longer notices them. I speak from experience (as Mrs P knows to her cost)!

 

[Feltwell]

I've been living for three years in between first and second fix with extension leads all over the place.

You've what? THREE years??? Oh poor Zebra...

Your sympathy will evaporate, Matthew, when you remember I'm the electrician who hasn't finished the job! One learns to live with things......

The cobbler's children are always the worst shod!

I have sympathy though, if you spend every working day as an electrician then it's bound to not be your first choice of activity for what is your "leisure" time*........

*Does such a thing really exist?

 

[malcolm]

We were also very ambitious when we first bought our place. Fortunately we were held up for a year by planning restrictions and got a bit more sensible. That has allowed us to bring forward the fancy oven and feck off fridge (when I say we...) , currently both in temporary locations and are working a room at a time so we can live here and progress as budget allows.

It is very useful to live somewhere for a year before going mad stripping the whole place out and starting works. You'll get an idea of the other things that might be worth doing while works are in progress, how you will use the rooms, and where you want sockets and radiators. Don't rush into it. Our plans changed around completely after the first year. The kitchen is going to be in a different room now, we've changed plans for the upstairs, and even the garage will be different.

Turning the heating up to cope with the drafts and lack of insulation will only cost an extra £500 over that year.

 

[Nigel Watts]

I hated my wife's proposed answer to this question when we moved in but went ahead with her plan anyhow. As ever, she was right.

Ours in a two bay wide four storey semidetached townhouse. She said we should to the very top floor first. Illogical or what?

It gave us three nice clean bedrooms, a loo and a good bathroom which we could retreat to with our then young children while the rest of the house was being sorted out. It also meant that, once done, builders did not have to trudge through finished parts of the house to get the the most remote floor.

 

[Penners]

Ours is a two bay wide four storey semidetached townhouse.

You appear to have omitted a number of adjectives from that description, Nigel. Words like 'enormous,' 'classically Georgian', 'highly decorated' and so on!

 

[Penners]

feck off fridge

OK - I have to know.... :?

 

[Feltwell]

feck off fridge

OK - I have to know.... :?

It's a fridge that belongs to this chap:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNY376o2XMY

 

[malcolm]

It's a regional expression Means unusually large and extortionately expensive in this case. Or a waste of money as I would put it.

 

[Penners]

Thank you for the translation, Malcolm.

Feltwell - you nearly had me watching a few seconds of Father Ted there, for which I would never have forgiven you. :evil:

 

[Feltwell]

Feltwell - you nearly had me watching a few seconds of Father Ted there

Ohh, go on. Go on go on go on.

It is a bit of a "marmite" comedy, I'll admit. Father Jack is an institution though.