House next Friday!

[Bailes1992]

As you all know I have been trying to buy a house for the last 3 months.
Conformation today that contracts have been exchanged and I will get the keys next Friday.

Excited is an understatement.
Had a few wobbles on the way.
I wanted to build a porch as you walk straight into the living room. When I got all the searches I found out there is a sewer that runs under the front garden and I cannot build within 3 meters of it.
I also found out the extension on the rear, although built 15 years ago has never been signed off! Now as it's been there longer than 4 years unless it's dangerous the council can't do anything about it. But I made the vendor pay for an indemnity policy so that if the council did ever decide that it needs knocking down and rebuilding the insurance covers the cost of this.

The property is generally immaculate.
It needs a new fuseboard as it has an old Wylex rewirable board. I have a new board ready with individual RCBO's for each circuit rather than the usual split load board.
I need to replace the electric shower as the one that's there is fairly old. Depending on what size cable is there (I suspect a 6mm² T&E) then I will need to pull in a 10mm² in to replace it.
I plan to get in and enjoy it for a few months before I start pulling it about though!







I'll try get some better pictures when I get the keys. These pictures really don't do the property justice. It is the first and only house me and the other half went into that actually looked better than the photos.

[Welly]

Very nice too! looks like the archetypal 1980's (possibly timber-framed?) semi, there's not much to go wrong with it anyway.

Good luck with the 1990's Artex ceilings

I like the Kitchen and Bathroom, I guess it's a nice place for you to add your own touches.

What time's the House-Warming? I'm free all next weekend, and it looks like you'd have a spare room for me (you'll get used to my snoring, especially after the Red Wine)

You can build near drains, I've done it with a large extension at the last place. I had to approach the Water Board and ask for a 'build over agreement' this goes onto the Deeds and basically says if there was ever a problem with the drain and they (the water board) needed to dig through or otherwise disturb your extension then then can. The reality of course is that they are highly unlikely to do anything drastic.

[Bailes1992]

Very nice too! looks like the archetypal 1980's (possibly timber-framed?) semi, there's not much to go wrong with it anyway.

Good luck with the 1990's Artex ceilings

I like the Kitchen and Bathroom, I guess it's a nice place for you to add your own touches.

What time's the House-Warming? I'm free all next weekend, and it looks like you'd have a spare room for me (you'll get used to my snoring, especially after the Red Wine)

You can build near drains, I've done it with a large extension at the last place. I had to approach the Water Board and ask for a 'build over agreement' this goes onto the Deeds and basically says if there was ever a problem with the drain and they (the water board) needed to dig through or otherwise disturb your extension then then can. The reality of course is that they are highly unlikely to do anything drastic.

You'd be right! It was built in 1986, so not that old!
My Auntie has an identical house around the corner. These were not built with central heating so I was chuffed to bits that it had been fitted to this house!

The bathroom is long enough to accommodate a bath which will be done in the near future. Hopefully without disturbing too many tiles as I don't fancy having to redecorate.
I am tempted to fit a combi boiler so I can remove the hot water tank which would make a massive difference to the second bedroom. In which case I'll be having a standard shower and an electric shower in the bath on backup. I don't trust combis.
I've got a few other plans, would like to move the staircase 90° which would make the living room a bit easier to arrange and give us an extra 4ft in the master bedroom. My Uncle is a chippy by trade so can get any advice off him.
The garden is on a different level so wouldn't mind having it all dug out and a boundary wall put in. But it'll be as and when we can afford it!

I don't think I'll stay here forever as I would like something bigger in the future and rent this out for a pension.

[trufflehunt]

Indeed.., really like your kitchen and bathroom.

And so clean.

[steve_earwig]

That does indeed look clean & tidy. I take it that's not your furniture in there, will you be using milk or beer crates?

The bathroom is long enough to accommodate a bath which will be done in the near future.

Why? My wife doesn't have a bath in her bathroom, just a shower. I put the biggest bath I could find into my bathroom because I was was used to having baths. When I started living here permanently I thought I could always go home if I wanted a proper bath but I've got use to it now and have never bothered. If you think about it like washing a car, a bath is like using a brush and a bucket while a shower is like using a hose pipe. And you'll have to heat all that extra water, which you'll also have to pay for...

[annie10]

looks a really nice, well looked after house. looks a good size driveway aswell.

[GingerMagic]

+1, it looks like a nice place - a good start on the property ladder. The kitchen looks great and central heating is a bonus.

Don't make any changes for at least a year if you can help it - so many people make alterations quickly without getting a 'feel' for the house and how best to use its potential - then its too late.

Just live in it and enjoy it, change can come later.

P.s. I think you only need 10mm cable for a shower over 8kw and a run of more than 10 meters from fuse to shower iirc, and baths are either 1500mm, 1600mm, 1700mm or 1800mm, mostly 700mm wide.

[Bailes1992]

I like a bath if I'm not feeling too good so think it's worth the money sticking it in! It would be a Whirlpool unit if I did get one fitted.
The bathroom is 1900mm x 1900mm so room to get a decent sized bath in there.

No alterations will be done for at least I finally qualify which is about 18 months away (4 year apprenticeship and I'm halfway through my 3rd year). The first work to be done will be the garden!

The shower I have is 8.5Kw so will need upgrading to 10mm² cable. I think 6mm² would just about cope with the 37A the shower draws. The thing is a shower is either on or off, it's either pulling 0A or it's full load. That said it is only used for 5minutes at a time. But I think it's well worth pulling a 10mm² in, at least to the shower pull cord anyway! There might already be 10mm² there. I haven't looked.

[rwb]

That does look like a very well laid out kitchen: washing machine, dishwasher, big window, and still a sensible number of cupboards and surface space

Is there a back door into the kitchen?
If so then it makes the front-door-into-the-front-room thing a complete non-issue.
Either way, it's not like the front door opens right onto the street.

[rwb]

Whirlpool

[steve_earwig]

I like a bath if I'm not feeling too good

Yeah, me too, many times I came in from work in the early hours, ran the shower over my head until the bath filled up (taps as well as shower or it'd take hours) and then lie in the bath for an hour or so. They were also screening X-Files about 3 am so I'd watch that from the bath on the portable (life in the fast lane ). This is why I replaced the pathetically small bath in my house when I bought it (seriously, it wouldn't have looked out of place in front of a Victorian's fire place) with the biggest bath I could get, I think 1,800mm, I had to chop the old cast iron bath out because it was tiled and bricked in, cut a slot along the wall to fit the extra length, build the base up with concrete because the old one was deeper and set into the floor, and build a new box around it with 4x2s and shiplap. And after all that I've not been in it for about 7 years.

GM's right, it looks plenty good enough for you to just move in and not worry about anything until you know what you want and have the funds to do it.

[Bailes1992]

The fuse board is something I want to change before I move in. I don't fancy having a shower with no RCD or RCBO. It means that if for any reason the water was so become live and I earthed myself I could potentially have 40A flowing through me rather than 0.030A. Still 30milliamps would still be hell of a belt but you'd survive.

The Girlfriend wants to paint too.

And Rich, what's wrong with a whirlpool? We have one where I'm living now and it's great.

[markw]

Good idea to get rid of the rewireables. But in a house of that age, the bonding should be in place to prevent the very scenario you described!
You enter a so called 'equipotential zone' in a bathroom, which essentially means that a stray voltage cannot appear across two points....all the metalwork will be at the same potential during a fault, so it's not possible to get a shock.
That assumes, of course, that the bonding is in place and hasn't been interfered with either!

Good luck with your new purchase btw.

[Bailes1992]

Even if the bonding isn't in place there is a high chance that a copper pipe runs underground before it comes into the house. Therefore all the pipework would naturally be earthed.
So like you say if the water in the shower did become live then all the metalwork in the bathroom would rise to the same potential and you wouldn't get a shock.

But I won't take any chance and next Saturday I'll swap the boards over!

[Welly]

I've never really understood earth bonding in a house, see my house is *mega* bonded (even the Bathroom Radiators are bonded separately) but all of this goes back to an incoming Mains Cold Water which converts to MDPE (plastic) before it disappears underground