[Closed] Buying a "Project" house - Looking for advice

Never meant to buy a project.

Did by accident.

Wish I hadn't! 😆

Basically, just go in with your eyes open and don't underestimate what might need doing. Assume the worst and keep plenty of contingency just in case.

But I might just be pessimistic!

check inside the attic for holes missing tiles,

lift carpets and check floors,

look for damp patches,along walls and near roof /ceiling inside

To save cash a lot of stuff can be do by yourself, strip out etc, hire a van and get a tip permit, cheaper than a few skips,

Get a few quotes from trades for doing the technical stuff, expect some to be cheap and some more expensive,

when you move in change all the locks, and when all trades have finished change the locks again, you never know who may have a key.

Expect to be let down costs to spiral etc, open an account at B AND Q trade and Howdens, toolstation is cheaper than Screwfix for tools and general building stuff

Off the top of my head;

Don't pay for any homebuyers survey or the like, waste of money and won't even lift a carpet.

If you're not living in, take the opportunity to do any major work that'll be a PITA to do in 5 years time - Plumbing, rewiring, roof repairs.

An excellent builder/plumber etc is worth his weight in gold, his quote is a secondary concern!

Always play material suppliers off against each other, they arn't bound by any sicker prices or RRPs.

EDIT: B&Q trade card is a bit poor, only gets you discount on some bulk and sheet supplies, never found mine to be worth more than a good phone round.

Good if you have a trade or good DIY skills. Costs more than you expect if you don't.

I've just finished renovating a 1930's house, don't underestimate the amount of cash and time it will take you even if you manage to do the work yourself.
Have you got a trade or diy background? Don't worry if you haven't YouTube is your friend 😆 (I was a complete novice when I started)
You can do nearly everything listed above yourself.
Oh make up a company letterhead and business card and get yourself a B&Q trade card, it will save you a few hundred on the kitchen alone.
Good luck and enjoy your project!

Double glazing sealed units can be changed easily and fairly cheaply without removing the frames. Loft insulation you should manage to get done for free if you time it right when subsidies are paid to the installers.

DIYkitchens.com Is the direct sales website of the huge automated kitchen manufacturer in Wakefield. If you can follow their tutorials and design your own kitchen, you can save a fair bit, especially as they supply a lot of "high street" sellers anyway.

Thanks for the really quick as advice,

We don't have too many DIY skills ourselves but are quick to learn (from YouTube, that's where I have learnt to do all the mechanics on my bike) and have family and friends who have lots of experiences as are happy to help.

Thanks for the advice about the B&Q trade card, that will be very useful.

We have a plumber and builder in mind who can do some of the technical stuff like installing the central heating and family have worked with him before.

We will be doing another detailed inspection at the weekend to see what really needs to be done.

Gas & electric work will need qualified, registered technicians. But a 1980s house might not need unless you want to make major changes.
Everything else can be done yourself

I would say something constructive, but I can't bring myself to put it into words.

Idea had an online 3d kitchen design tool. It's very good too.

Magnet, Homebase & B&Q also have kitchen design tools

if you have someone to do the central heating, plan the kitchen and bathroom before engaging because you may well want to reposition stuff and this is the time to get your services sorted

having said that, if the bathroom works, leave it until you have done some other rooms, to build skills - makes life easier to have a working sink, shower toilet when doing renovation

start off with a bedroom or similar to build skills before tackling the lounge, kitchen etc.

We've just done similar. Ours is a late 90's house that's never had any care or maintenance so was in a very sorry state. Wooden Windows and roof line had never seen a paint brush so lots of rot on the outside. Bathrooms were all "champagne" coloured and the kitchen was horrible and falling to bits. Artex everywhere and all the woodwork was very yellow. Rare to see such a new house in such a sorry state. Best thing for me was that (and I dare say this applies to the OP too) is that most folks looking for a project house want an older period property and most folks in the market for something modern don't want a load of work to do. So I got it for an absolute song. Now we're done we've got a house that absolutely to our taste and spec and were a couple of hundred thousand quid better off than if we'd bought a similar house in move in condition

Always buy a big house, in a good area, don't worry if the house looks crap, you will be changing that.

We bought a house nobody wanted and now everyone wants it and its worth a fortune.

C

STW post of the century.

I normally warn people off fixer uppers as there is always more work than you think and life gets in the way but that doesn't sound too bad. Get the kitchen and plumbing done and the rest can be done as and when. Just double check there is also no significant electrical work as that is best done earlier in the resto. Just bear in mind you will likely end up living with a few things for quite a while.

We did this (including the staying with parents bit..) about 12 months ago on a 60's property but there was a re-wire in the equation too.. we used 3 trades:

> Spark for the re-wire;
> Heating engineer for new boiler relocate, pipes and rads; and
> Plasterer to sort out the mess from that lot ^^^ (and create a bit of their own mess)

We also got a bathroom fitter in to sort the downstairs loo after I had lost the will to live (it will happen).

My main pointer is on time estimates for DIY jobs.. treble everything and then add a bit. I did everything from tiling, kitchen fitting, coving, plumbing, fit flooring, skirting boards, new patio doors etc, etc. and I couldn' believe how long it all took. We saved an absolute packet (Bathroom fitter reckoned he would charge about 6.5K for full ripout and refit of bathroom that cost us about 2K) but the project really dragged. By the time you've sat on youtube for an hour and went to screwfix/toolstation/B&Q a few times the day has almost gone.

Other pointers are:

> Buy a cordless drill AND screwdriver thingy. I just used my drill for both and it got old constantly swapping bits.
> If you've got a lot of stubborn bathroom tiles adhered to plasterboard dot and dabbed to masonry for crying out loud buy/rent an SDS drill and a proper bit. I used a hammer and a brick chisel thingy and it was a pig of a job.
> If you're doing a hob cutout in a worktop get the proper tool (plunge saw / router?) or get a pro in to do it - I very nearly messed up a longish lead time piece of worktop (and that was a brand new makita jigsaw with the proper bit) - jigsaws are not the way forward for this..
> Get decent underlay - 10mm stuff if possible not the cheap crap.
> Don't put PVA anywhere near plaster or boards you are going to tile especially in a bathroom. Use proper primer.
> Check the electrics - rewires are expensive..

Couple of things I wish we'd done:

> Ripped off all the architrave before the plastering and put all new up afterwards. We just left the old stuff up and it's not quite right.
> Put some sound deadening boards up on the party wall in the main bedroom and living room before plastering cos next doors bairn is doing me tits right in.

There's loads more that I've probably forgot but that's what comes to mind.

oh yeah - insulation, get the loft properly lagged and boarded, you can DIY this, and get the cavity wall insulation done if it hasn't been done already

I do think there is an element of truth in that though. I would rather buy either a complete project, or something almost spot on that I did not have to do much to. Nothing in between.
If it's jut a bit meh then you'll be living in mehness because it isn't justifiable to renovate (or is a waste of money if you do anyway).

Project you get benfit of getting everything how you want, it CAN be enjoyable (and make some money too if you han skilz).
If it's ready to move in you benefit from lack of stress.
Middle of road is worst of all worlds.

We've completely renovated first a 1930s semi and now coming to end of latest victorian terrace. This second one has been a real labour of love but now it is nearly finished, it's amazing and we have made a tidy sum at current prices.

Anyway, do roof, gas, electrics FIRST. It will make a mess. This is the worst bit as you will be paying out $$$$$ for what feels like little actual benefit to you, maybe even going backards as decor will be ruined and lots of hassle and mess.
[N.B. if you have plans to move on fairly swiftly then you may want to compromise on what you do]
Try to plan in advance for where the services are going but just to counter the advice above, I would not go overboard trying to plan all you kitchen and bathroom and everything to perfection. It is very difficult if not impossible to plan everything just how you want it up front. Better to just accept that there will need to be some alterations and remediation as you go, than to analyse it to death up front and get nowhere fast.

In an 80s house there is unlikely to be lead paint, so you will probably be OK sanding, however take a look at condition - if you need to plaster etc, and you don't have features you want to hang onto, then it may be more time and cost effective to just rip it all out and put in new. This will be particularly true if you have the opportunity to do work before having to move in.
My ideal scenario for a house not having features, and time to work beofr moving in, would be to do roof, heating, electrics, rip out disposable woodwork, plaster, maybe put woodwork back in. At that point it's livable and there won't be too much mess (even if you are putting kitchens, bathrooms in, they don't make too much mess.

(hanging on to features has been a major ball ache on our victorian terrace. I doubt I would renovate a period property again for this reason, until I have more time on my hands, e.g. in retirement)

Oh, and do one room at a time. hall last. Slowly slowly, catchy monkey.

We have just embarked on a major renovation, a 60s house that has been badly extended and altered over the years, covered in textured wallpaper, had rats now got mice!

First up, you will spend double what you originally thought!

Big unexpected cost for me was bathroom renovation, it's working out so much cheaper to build new ones as stripping out and re plastering adds so much cost, if you can do that kind of labouring you'll be quids in.

Also I hadn't budgeted for new roof, but that was pretty cheap compared to new house bathroom.

One of my mates renovated an Edwardian detached house, no reroof, no extension, but great spec inside and all rooms back to the brick, it cost him £80k...!

Oh also I went and did a one week plastering course at college covering patch repairs, dry lining and skimming. It's easily paid for itself already.

Work out what you think it's going to cost and then double it - this will be your final figure.
Can be fun though.

Thanks again guys, loads of great advice there that will be very useful.

We will be getting the gas works and heating installed, roof work and any electrics done before we move in. We will also probably have to get the bathroom work done as that will be completely ripped out and radiator going where the bath is currently and cupboards knocked out to make more room.

I'm keen to try to do as much as possible myself with help from friends and family as money saved can go towards a new fs bike.

Oh.. and be careful! I used all manner of power tools but the thing I very nearly hurt myself with? A screwdriver.

Just reading your post on the bathroom layout - you may be somewhat hamstrung by where the existing services are (especially soil pipe) and the direction that the joists run.

For tools we should have a fairly good supply as MsMOC's dad has a large shed full and loads of experience at this sort of thing, so does my dad but without the massive shed.

We are hoping that there won't be too much plastering as the walls are in fairly good condition, however there will be a could of wooden partitions coming down that might leave some damage, also depends how easily the wallpaper and current tiling comes off.

Underlay and sound deadening boards are very good bits of advice that we hadn't factored in and will definitely have to go into the calculations.

Electrics should be ok as the host isn't too old with just fittings updated, however we well be getting a sparky in straight away to check

We have also done estimates for what everything will cost and got a large amount left over for over budget items, but this is the fund I want to use as little as possible so I can use some fit the above mentioned new bike (To be purchased after project completion)

Does anyone here have any contractors, plumbers, electricians etc that they can recommend in the West Sussex area? Bit of a long shot I know but anyways good to have someone they can recommend, likewise for any that I should avoid with a 100 foot barge pole.

Thanks again your advice has been priceless

markoc1984 - Member
....... as money saved can go towards a new fs bike.

😆 😆 that'll never happen 😆 😆

Thanks Nick, we already looked at that and we will just be moving the toilet up the pipe so that won't be a problem, that will be a job for an expert though as I'm not getting involved with 40 years of other people's c*@p.

Get trades to do skilled work, you just do the humping. Nothing looks shitter than somebodies first attempt at joinery, they think it looks great until they've finished the rest of the house and then discover its crap and then they're stuck with it.
You will be sweeping, carrying, stripping, scraping and bashing until midnight every night forever so make sure you look after your neighbours. Good ones, with the right disposition towards you, are an absolute treasure. All it takes is a bit of communication and most people will be cool,having been in similar position themselves at some point.

If it is an 80s house I can't imagine there can be a great deal to do really other than cosmetic (unless you want to start changing layouts).

We bought an 1987 house 2.5 years ago - it hadn't been changed since new (apart from wallpaper that looked like it was done immediately after moving in).

Since then we have done every room apart from the front room (saving for a log burner) - this includes taking down a couple of stud walls and one internal load-bearing wall. Fitted a new en-suite, new bathroom, new cloakroom, new kitchen. Installed double glazing, replacement doors and x2 bi-folds (which replaced some old French Doors). Also done a load of work in the garden and replaced approx 60ft of fencing and upgrading the plumbing and electrics.

Still got loads to do (wood cladding/gutters/downpipes/soffits etc) but the big stuff almost all done.

Coming from a previous renovation (a 100 yr old house that had stood empty for the last 50 years) it has been pretty straight-forward but echoing posts above - you do the labouring and leave the skilled stuff to tradesmen unless you have plenty of time and willingness to learn.

Going through this at the moment, we bought a 1920's house just before Christmas. If you can live away from the house and have a warm bed/shower every day it will make a huge difference. Im currently living in the house which is cold, dusty and has no heating and it makes doing things a lot tougher. That with my wife and 5 month old daughter living an hour away also makes it tough.

If you've got a lot of stubborn bathroom tiles adhered to plasterboard dot and dabbed to masonry for crying out loud buy/rent an SDS drill and a proper bit. I used a hammer and a brick chisel thingy and it was a pig of a job.

Dust sheets. Lots of them and good quality ones, not the cheap plastic bag type that you can move or reposition. The less stuff you can have in the house the better as dust gets everywhere.

You will be sweeping, carrying, stripping, scraping and bashing until midnight every night forever so make sure you look after your neighbours. Good ones, with the right disposition towards you, are an absolute treasure. All it takes is a bit of communication and most people will be cool

Finally, make sure you love the house and can see the bigger picture. It is tough to do a full day at work and come back to a cold dusty house and work for another few hours into the night before doing it all again tomorrow.

Get an asbestos survey.

You will need a refurbishment and demolition survey

The builder you have in mind should have a Howdens account. The quality is excellent, only Wren better really.
He'll be able to get between 70% to 90% off list on a kitchen (I do).
As an example a 12 unit Clerkenwell handleless white gloss kitchen with cornices, pelmets, worktops, sink, hob and oven is costing me £1650 + VAT.
If you can use a tape measure and a drill, fitting is easy, the units come pre-built, just get a joiner in to do the worktops (should be about £50/joint, £20/cutout). Howdens do cheap doors too.
You can get a decent bathroom suite from Screwfix for between £300 to £600.
If you are doing tiling, use a good adhesive & grout, BAL or Mapei, no Wickes home brand etc.
As mentioned above, DG units aren't dear. I can get a 3x2 unit for about £20 from a manufacturer (eg. [url= http://www.ksealglass.com/ ]K Seal Glass[/url]), don't go to a local DG company.

Get an asbestos survey.

You will need a refurbishment and demolition survey

You won't need any of these as a homeowner.

Asbestos survey for a 1980s house?

Edit - just looked and surprised to read that it was still used until the early 80s 😯

I remember (mid-70s) seeing an asbestos house demolished near where we lived as it was a health hazard. Didn't stop me and my mate going to the plot to throw scrap bits of it onto the builders' fires and watching it explode 😳

If you do a lot of the boring stuff yourself (fixing blown plaster, stripping ceilings/walls, tiling, skirting etc.) you can save a lot of money without becoming a DIY master.

We bought a decrepit late victorian 1900 semi.

We relocated a bathroom upstairs/all the outside wastes (mini digger in tiny garden job)/replaced all internal and external water supply pipes, put in new boiler, new floor joists in ground floor, new remodelled kitchen (which involved RSJs, new doors to garden etc.), plasterwork back to brick in three downstairs rooms, a bit new plaster ceiling coving, underfloor insulation, wood burner, re-rendered an outside wall, new double glazed sashes throughout, new garden wall, new outside tiles, loft conversion with 2 rooms (one ensuite), new roof, new garage roof etc.

I wish so much I'd had a complete rather than partial rewire too - we should have done it first as mentioned above. I now don't have a working bedroom light, and fixing it means taking the ceiling down. Allow plenty of time for planning if you need it - we had a big delay for the loft permission to come through, which meant we had no roof in a very wet January. Don't redecorate everything so you can have your family round for christmas, then knock down a ceiling to put a new flight of stairs up. Or you'll be living in a house that needs redecorating 3 years later... 😕

We also lived in and had two kids under 5 while we were doing it! I plan to die in this house, or at least be rich enough to get someone else to do all the work if I do it again 😀

You need a good builder, patience, a lovely wife, nice neighbours and enough contingency cash for when something goes horribly wrong. Get the right tools. Be prepared to send family away for weekend after weekend to in laws etc. while you do tedious jobs that are not child compatible. We came in just under budget. I certainly could have bought a few nice bikes instead!

Asbestos survey for a 1980s house????????

Asbestos was still being installed in buildings up to 2000-ish.

Got any 80's or 90's artex? Fair chance it contains chrysotile.

Get an asbestos survey.
You will need a refurbishment and demolition survey

You won't need any of these as a homeowner.

diglover +1, unless you plan on disturbing anything suspicious you don't need to worry. By the 80's Asbestos should have been long gone in new buildings, at least the loose insulation stuff. The stuff in artex isn't so bad because it's embedded in the plaster, just get it skimmed over.

We bought a similar house last summer by the sounds of it. My honest advice:

1) Double, or trebble the time you think it will take, yes grand designs go form second fix to moving in within a month, but they're not living there.

2) Budget for trades. Yes you can do a lot yourself, even quite complicated stuff. But one of you working in an evening will take 2 weeks what it would take a pro to do in a day. And I'd like to think 2 weeks of my life is worth more than £200.

If you want to save money, just make the trades life easier, make sure rooms are empty when they're working, tell them to leave a mess, do the fetching and carrying etc. No point having 2 hours of their day rate spent clearing the room and cleaning up afterwards. Even simple stuff like painting becomes an [b]UTTER PAIN IN THE ASS[/b] by the 6th room, especially when you find yourself spending yet another Saturday filling and sanding the plaster and not even getting round to the actual painting bit.

Unless you absolutely have no plans to do anything fun at all (a bike, what's that?), plan on getting trades to do everything, then just help out where you can.

Would I do it again? Yes (although this one isn't finished yet). You end up with a much more expensive house than you could otherwise afford. [b]BUT[/b] I'd not plan on doing any DIY, and I'd camp in the shed whilst I did it.

Yeas - see my edit above - it was stopped being used in residential buildings in the early 80s. *very* surprised!

I rented a couple of 80s houses, I'd try living in it for a week, I found the lack of internal brickwork made it very noisy. Not sure if this was universal or the ones we lived in were the norm. If I'd bought them I'd definitely have tried to do some noise reduction.

I've renovated older properties, hopefully some of the horsehair/bakelite electrics issues I've dealt with won't affect you!

I rented a couple of 80s houses, I'd try living in it for a week, I found the lack of internal brickwork made it very noisy. Not sure if this was universal or the ones we lived in were the norm. If I'd bought them I'd definitely have tried to do some noise reduction.

Our's is 100% blockwork, you can't even get wifi signal outside the study!

Ours is a mixd of structural and stud (80s again) so definitely dependant on the building.

I've only skimmed through the other posts so sorry if I'm repeating someone else. My main advice would be to be realistic about the level of fixtures and fittings. For example, a Smallbone kitchen may well be fantastic, but it might be out of place in a 2 bed terrace.

^^^^ Good point - similarly, spunking £££££s on underfloor heating in a small bathroom in a 2-bed terrace would be money not easily recouped, but it would be expected in a 4 bed 'executive' home.

Edit - posted twice

Tools to buy,

some of those large rubberised plastic buckets for carrying crap out,

a builders shovel bigger mouth than a normal shovel.

crowbar, hammer and hump hammer,

Wet and dry vacumn cleaner, a godsend,

Decent step ladders,not cheap aluminium bendy ones,

Large tool box,

Plastic sheeting to block rooms off when making dust, and to cover windows.

Bump cap, and face masks, coveralls,
and thats just for strip out.

all from Toolstation and they do free delivery so no probs with collection etc.

DLGLOVER

Correct, a private home you don't need any type of asbestos survey.

But you would have to be very very stupid not to, unless you're 100% sure you have no asbestos in your property.

My advice dont move in to you Finnish it, living in the project can be really stress full especialy for the women ime and the motivation to get away from the rents will keep you at it, so many people move in and the project grinds to a holt and then becomes the reason for divorce.

Toolstation may well be cheaper than Screwfix, but with a trade account at Screwfix I get free coffee and doughnuts!

and be careful!

The separate drill and impact driver is a good tip. I've found it a huge time saver. Loads quicker to put down the drill and pick up the driver than to stop drilling, take out the drill bit, drop it in the pile of bits on the floor, eventually find it, put it somewhere safe, fumble with your gloves to pick up the screwdriver bit, take off your gloves, pick up the screwdriver bit, put it in the drill, put your gloves back on, screw the screw in, take the screwdriver bit out and put it in your pocket, realise that it's missed your pocket and actually dropped on the floor, get down on hands and knees to find it, kneel on the drill bit, swear, put the drill bit in, drill the next hole, take the drill bit out, realise that you didn't find the screwdriver bit a minute ago......

Luckily for us Toolstation and Screwfix are right next to each other so can get different things from each depending on which one is cheaper.

sammaratti - Member
Correct, a private home you don't need any type of asbestos survey.

But you would have to be very very stupid not to, unless you're 100% sure you have no asbestos in your property.

Maybe, but if you're not planning on disturbing anything that could be asbestos during the actual work, then you've got to go through the process of drilling, cutting, taking samples etc to send off for testing, potentially needlessly exposing yourself to the thing you're trying to avoid.

Toolstation may well be cheaper than Screwfix, but with a trade account at Screwfix I get free coffee and doughnuts!

Thisisnotaspoon

That is exactly why I suggested a survey. You would be very suprised just to how many products in the average household can contain asbestos.

And you should never drill or cut anything that you think should be asbestos

Another thing - think very carefully about what you want for the future (difficult I know) as it will be easier to prepare things now than to damage newly plastered walls.

I did this in our bathroom - simply a case of chasing in some twin & earth and leaving exposed (not not wired in of course) behind the vanity unit. Then if I want to add a shaving point/toothbrush charger in the future all I need do is get an electrician in to wire up each end.