Picking the brain of doozer and the other project experts....

sarah_elton

We are considering a house that needs work doing, and quite a lot of it. My mum has previously done up houses she's bought but it's not something either of us has experience with. We're trying to get an extremely rough, finger in the air budget to work out what we'd offer for the house (if at all). It's a five bed detached (originally a three bed with a two storey extension) and needs (or rather we would want to do; it's not like it's uninhabitable at present):

• New roof - currently original pitched roof plus flat roof on the two storey extension. The footprint of the house is a big rectangle, so we just want to replace with a full pitched roof that covers the whole thing.(assuming it was something we could get planning for)
• Single pipe radiator system replacing throughout
• Old two pin electrics replacing throughout
• Garage - floor slopes slightly from right to left as you look at the house, and drive slopes towards garage. Needs redoing so garage floor is flat, no gap under garage door at the side, and drive slopes away from it as water pools inside at present.
• Some floor issues; e.g. hole in floor in corner of dining room (small) and some iffy sounding floorboards. Obviously they'd all come up for the plumbing and electrics anyway
• Textured effect wallpaper throughout house stripping, some cracks to plaster so most of the place plastered probably.
• Some rooms coved some not - either take it down or put it up everywhere.
• One window wasn't double glazed when the rest of the house was (?!)
• Old metal back door wants replacing
• New carpets and painted throughout.
• Downstairs in the extension is a garage and utility behind. Utility was never plastered - it's just painted external brickwork. They've also since put a shower room in the corner with a sliding door (ick). Not sure what we'd do about that yet.
• Internal doors probably want replacing
• Kitchen is recent and fine, not sure if it would get destroyed by all the other work. Bathroom suites are the same.
• Electric cooker at present - would like to have gas there for a gas hob
• Hardwood conservatory - outside needs a sand and re-varnish

We're debating whether to even take on something like this, but we're pre-children and in rented so could stay here while the work was done; a position we're unlikely to be in again in our lives. And it could be a really nice big family house. It's in a wonderful location with an excellent garden. It's a house that's never been loved - everything that's ever been done to it has been on the cheap.

We were thinking very, very roughly £60k should do the above (excluding the cost of living in our rented place for say 6-9 months while it was done).

Can anyone recommend any websites or books to do some more research on what would be involved for us in project managing something like this? I've been a good project manager in other areas (have done it for a living in previous jobs), organised our wedding next year in about four weeks (there is an actual project plan for that lol). But the scale of this scares me with us both working full time.

Also trying to work out if we should buy something smaller and extend it ourselves. With this place, we wouldn't change the layout - it's all just putting right bodge jobs that have been done in the past, which isn't as exciting as doing it from scratch yourself. But houses on plots with potential to extend are very rare where we're looking.

Obviously we'd have a full buildings survey. House is 1960s or 70s but we're concerned about the extension structurally. How common is it for further problems to be unearthed once a project is started, after a survey? We are worried it could be a money pit, with more and more things coming to light as we started work...

DVardysShadow

sarah_elton wrote: »

We are considering a house that needs work doing, and quite a lot of it.

...


Obviously we'd have a full buildings survey. House is 1960s or 70s but we're concerned about the extension structurally. How common is it for further problems to be unearthed once a project is started, after a survey? We are worried it could be a money pit, with more and more things coming to light as we started work...

Good start, get a survey, but do your own homework first.

I think you have a fairly thorough inventory of works there and on a rough tot up, £60000 looks to be a fair starting point. Inevitably, initial estimates won't cover the program and the time you take will be extended, so you might be looking at £80000 and 12 to 15 months. But you can cut that down to size by putting your works in priority order and drawing lines across the list which say respectively

• minimally habitable
• acceptably liveable
• project complete

Minimally habitable: This is an important one to identify correctly and has a significant influence on your costs. Basically, if you are re-roofing to a new outline, the house will be effectively gutted. The less works you do from this point to the point of finding it minimally habitable, the quicker you can move out of rented, which means that from this point on you are only paying for the work to be done, not for alternative accommodation for the time it takes to do it. What you are doing will put great pressure on you and if you are able to slum it a bit, taking away the pressure of paying rent will make things easier.

Acceptably liveable: This is less easy to identify. Once you reach the stage of being minimally habitable, you will still want to move ahead at full speed to get things done - so you will be working away at the same pace, just living on site but without the pressure of paying rent. But you can ease up on your projects once you reach Acceptably liveable. For example, if you have a grotty bathroom which meets minimally habitable and you put a 2nd bathroom in, you become Acceptably liveable, even though you might still want to redo the original bathroom.

Project complete: I would argue that some of your proposed activities are beyond Project complete - for example consistency over coving, new carpets throughout, taking down textured wallpaper, new internal doors, because any time you move into a house which is not new, you will spend a few years getting rid of the previous occupiers tat - it is not a renovation activity so much as a maintenance activity. If you put some of your activities outside of the project in this way, you will have less costs to account for and less to manage in the scope of your project and come more quickly to a point where you can relax a bit from the project.

Now, the survey. You need to look first at the potential showstoppers such as the roof and be convinced in your own mind that they are feasible, before committing to the survey. You need to cost everything to Project complete and be sure you could pay for it all and be sure that you have a margin in hand. Then get a survey. Because this project is so extensive, I think I would want to do a survey before offer or if I had to offer, I would want to take into account the likelihood that the survey would throw up more.

Of course, if you are going to flip the property as soon as you have done it out, you can ignore most of the foregoing.

sarah_elton

Wow thanks! This is really helpful as something to start with. I was aware there was a real mixture of work there in terms of stages and those three broad ones are really helpful to categorise it a bit.

We wouldn't be flipping - the point for us is that this house has the potential to be a great long-term family home. I do worry about costs creeping up though, e.g. to £80k as then things could get tight. As I said though, it's an intriguing option to us as we're currently in rented, kids are a few years off and we were going to put down a large deposit. A smaller deposit and using the cash to do work is an exciting option in a way but the budget spiralling would cause a problem.

So much to think about and I'm probably focusing too much on details at this stage. What are the big factors that affect whether we actually go for it and offer, and how much to offer?

To find out if changing the roof to a pitched is feasible (I hate flat roofs and I wouldn't go for it if it had to stay), do I need to speak to the council re planning, a roofer to see if its physically possible, or both?

I guess that a full pitched roof would either be much higher than the existing roof or have a much shallower pitch. I don't know which you'd do.

Doozergirl

Now you see I'd be really surprised if it cost £60k. If you are going to project manage then I can't see the need for spending that much - I'd expect someone to look after it all for me for that price. Budget £20k for roof, plastering, electrics and central heating which are the major ones and I'd be struggling to spend another £40k. There is no need for a decent kitchen to be destroyed by work at all, likewise clean white bathroom suites. Things can be taken off, put back, whatever with minimal cost to put right rather than replace. It's impossible to imagine what needs doing to the garage and drive and put a price on it. Will it need digging down to flatten it or building up?

How old is the house? I'd be inclined to agree that if it is textured wallpaper then you may find all the plaster falling off if it's pre-war or at the least you will want the whole place reskimming (which is a 'nice to have' in any house)

What concerns me is dodgy floorboards - why is there a hold in the dining room? Are the board broken or missing? Worried that might be an indication of rot...

There are always surprises but if you're expecting most major things to be done then hopefully the surprises won't be too big. Floorboards and joist would be something I'd be looking at for the surprise!

If you're spending £60k on it I will donate you my husband for a month!

GDB2222

I had one question, but I think it's a biggie. Do you have to remove the existing roof completely, or can you simply extend it over the extension? That's an awful lot less disruptive and less costly. If you take off the roof you'll need scaffolding over the top and corrugated/tarpaulins etc to weatherproof. But I imagine you won't keep all rain out, so then you'll be ripping out saturated timberwork, hacking off and replastering etc. Or simply leave the roof as is?

Everything else is pretty straightforward. I expect rewiring, new heating, bit of plastering, coving, running some gas pipework, etc can all be done in a month for less than £20k (lot less hopefully). Decorating, new doors etc, another month - £10k?

Round here, that sort of 'doing up' seems to be pretty standard before people move in, and nobody bats an eyelid.

The roof is what is really going to cost. If you price that into what you offer, won't someone else who is less worried about the aesthetics outbid you?

justjohn

mmm there is a difference between what you want done and what actually needs done, in the terms of how much you can knock the seller down.

Sorry if i have read this post wrong...

Doozergirl

I don't think it's necessary to remove an entire roof to put in another section. You might end up with gullies up there but two separate roofs with connections or one would be more likely and cost effective.

Really breaking the labour down is where you can save money. We use a man that deals in roof trusses to design and build the new trusses and his guys to fit ( a crane is going to be expensive mind but you're not going to avoid that really) and then a regular roofer for the rest (felt, batons, tiles). We saved an absolute fortune that way. The roofer was paid on a day rate. He stripped the existing tiles, saved them and put them back with a load of reclaims mixed in for the extra area.

It's entirely possible to fit a pitched roof over a flat roof so you don't get the house wet.

poet123

The first thing you should do is to get a list of tradesmen who friends reccomend. A tradesman on your side can save you thousands. Last time we undertook major renovations we used a tradesmen we could trust and he saved us loads of money and time. He advised us to do the roof as above,rather than re roof and it worked fine.

GDB2222

Doozergirl wrote: »

It's entirely possible to fit a pitched roof over a flat roof so you don't get the house wet.

That's what I thought. You could live in the house whilst the roofing work is done. I was a bit thrown by the original post on this which said: "excluding the cost of living in our rented place for say 6-9 months while it was done". It just wouldn't take that long unless you took the whole roof off and ended up hacking all the plaster off and replastering.

I am surprised that the plaster in a 1970's home needs reskimming, but I guess the OP is right to be suspicious about what's under the textured wallpaper.

sarah_elton

Well, the roof looks like this:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-23399329.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E27230&insId=1&pageNumber=1&premiumA=true&fromSummary=true&backToListURL=%2Fproperty-for-sale%2Ffind.html%3FsearchType%3DSALE%26locationIdentifier%3DREGION%255E27230%26insId%3D1%26radius%3D0.0%26displayPropertyType%3D%26minBedrooms%3D%26maxBedrooms%3D%26minPrice%3D%26maxPrice%3D%26retirement%3D%26partBuyPartRent%3D%26maxDaysSinceAdded%3D%26_includeSSTC%3Don%26sortByPriceDescending%3D%26primaryDisplayPropertyType%3D%26secondaryDisplayPropertyType%3D%26oldDisplayPropertyType%3D%26oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType%3D%26oldSecondaryDisplayPropertyType%3D%26newHome%3D%26auction%3Dfalse%26x%3D109%26y%3D18

(you're going to look at the internal pics and say the house needs no work at all lol. The first time we viewed it, ages ago, I walked in and went cold as the pics make it look a lot better than it is; there are lots of plasterwork cracks, poor finishes, patchwork carpets made up of little bits of carpet, the outdated plumbing and electrics, etc)

What would you do with it to get rid of the flat roof on the extension? We imagined a pitched roof all the way across, so it's still a gable end house, with a wider roof. So either taller, or reduce the pitch on the existing right hand side, if you see what I mean. Again, no idea till we talk to some roofers.

Agree re knocking the price down. Although we'd want to replace the single pipe plumbing and two pin electrics, they do work. There are no doubt people who would move in and just re-carpet and re-paint. So this may all be a non-starter if we can't get enough off for what we'd want to do to be happy with it. But I'm trying to assess if it's (1) financially viable for us and (2) a project we could take on. If we then can't get it for what we'd need to then hey ho.

Doozer - we thought £20k for the roof so your numbers have made me happier. Of course, first time project, bound to mess up some things so we might keep £60k in mind and hopefully that includes a good contingency.

Re floor. We don't know what the deal is in the dining room. Before we left, OH noticed that in one corner the carpet was sunken. You can't feel floorboards underneath. It's a quarter-circle in the corner, maybe 4-6 inches across. It is against an external wall so possibly water getting in somehow. It's also near the radiator for the room; possible leak of some sort.... Not sure. We'd make a list of all these things for the surveyor if it gets to that stage.

Re garage - I don't know how you'd fix it. I guess the floor would have to raise a bit, in order to raise the drive slightly in front of it. Because the existing floor isn't level, the garage door is only snug to the ground on one side. On the other, there's a 2-3 inch gap under it which is where water, leaves etc come in and pool.

Re trades, I have a plumber brother, a friend who is a plasterer and a friend of a friend who's an electrician, so we should get some reasonable rates. They should also between them be able to recommend the others we'd need.

Thanks for all the advice guys - very much appreciated. :money:

misskool

Just a note about the electric cooker and getting gas in there. I used to only be able to cook on gas but have now opted for an induction hob. It's just as responsive as gas and much more energy efficient. The hobs are more expensive but they would be better than trying to find where the gas pipes are in the kitchen.