where do we start(complete renovation)?

mouk

we are planning to completly renovate our house(inc kitchen, bathroom, electrics, plumbing etc)but dont no where to start and how to go about the whole process.

we would like to call in the profeshnals to do the job.



any advice, tips, guides welcome

27col

Anything that involved lifting floors and opening up walls should obviously be done first. Such as plumbing, heating and electrics. At the same time you would need to give serious thought to where you need sockets situated, in the kitchen, in particular. As mistakes in positioning can be expensive to alter at a later date. Obviously if any structural alterations are being carried out, they would need to be done before everything else. They will also cause the most disruption and accompanying dirt. Decoration and flooring need to wait until most of the risk of damage is well past. If you are going to be living in the house while all this is going on, then you may need to arrange things a bit differently, so as to maintain some semblance of facilities, such as water, cooking and toilets etc. Best of luck with it all.

mouk

got a place lined up to live in while the work is in progress.

27col

Good, that is by far the best thing to do. But you need to visit every day while there is work going on.

KT1985

I second that you need to get the messy stuff done first- we have done it in the following order without too much hassle:

Connection to gas and piping
Electrics (complete rewire)
Central heating (some new piping, new rads and a new condensing combi)
New Bathrooms (would be kitchen too, but we are keeping existing)
Making good and decorating

To give my personal take on it, I am loving our renovation. It is great seeing the progress that we have made since the New Year, and it means that we can have everything how we want it, a real dream house.

mouk

we are thinking of using the existing central heating system(boiler, radiators)can we re-use the copper pipping?

trying to minimise the costs

KT1985

mouk wrote: »

we are thinking of using the existing central heating system(boiler, radiators)can we re-use the copper pipping?

trying to minimise the costs

Do you mean that you want to have new boiler and rads, but keep the pipes?

mouk

KT1985 wrote: »

Do you mean that you want to have new boiler and rads, but keep the pipes?

keep everything inc pipes.

KT1985

Ah, yeah, thats fine. We tried that, but then found that the boiler didn't work (we bought as seen at auction). They will, if you need new bits, try and use existing pipework, but need to add to it where necessary.

brig001

If you are taking the floors up, seal everything that goes through an outside wall like joists and pipes etc. If your downstairs floor is timber, I would insulate that as well. When the floors go back down, seal all skirting boards to the floors. This will only take a few hours and cost next to nothing, but the improvement in heating bills and comfort could be dramatic.

mouk

we have living room and front room downstairs.

front room is timber and living room is solid.

were thinking of having the front room solid aswell
(concreted/insulated etc)

what will we need to consider?