Home Improvements in what order?

Marakith

Marakith

Marakith

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Joined
22 Nov 2004
Posts
405
Location
London
Hello!

Some of you may have seen my other threads about loft extensions and all the horrors and lessons learned from those.

My plan to improve the home was:
Stage 1 - Rip off the roof and build a loft extension - DONE
Stage 2 - Remove a pointless ensuite and move a wall on the first floor, then renovate 3 rooms on first floor - DONE
Stage 3 - Rear extension: full width of house - In concept and due to start in 2 years - possibly to include basement and or ground source heat pump
Stage 4 - Remove pebbledash and insulate house where pebbledash was and repoint brickwork (our house is bloody cold)
Stage 5 - Replace windows with triple glazing all round
Stage 6 - Renovate front driveway - it's rank and dangerous but would get chewed up by skips and vehicles if we did it sooner.
Stage 7 - Install solar panels on roof

So a lot of work going on over the next several years - and a lot of saving! But it's our forever home and I don't mind.

My question is: is this the right order to do things. I.E. should we replace the windows before doing the pebbledash. Or should we do the extension after the insulation?

Opinions most welcome!
 
Order looks good although j would do the windows before getting the external.walls finished/insulated as potential damage to the external walls is high when changing windows. Also I would go with double glazed there is only a very small improvement between triple and double for insulation. Where as if you live on a noisy road the triple is worth the extra money.

Ground source heat pumps as supliment to gas or electric heating is not worth the outlay, as you say the house is very cold I doubt a GSHP would cope well heating the property. They are designed for positive pressure property not older ventilated property.
 
As above, GOOD double glazing that is installed well with close attention to air tightness will outperform badly installed cheap triple, and be cheaper.
 
I'd prioritise the insulation, pebbledash, and triple-glazing - at least on the front of the house - over the extension. It will make the house look nicer and feel warmer.
 
All brilliant insights - thanks!

Quartz said:
I'd prioritise the insulation, pebbledash, and triple-glazing - at least on the front of the house - over the extension. It will make the house look nicer and feel warmer.
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Yeah - I wondered about that. Thought the extension first would be so disruptive to the "skin" of the house that it might make sense to do that first, then the external insulation.

Also - super keen to know if anyone has had pebbledash removed and how much of a pain it is - or whether it's possible to board over it?
 
What are your reasons for solar? If trying to offset costs on electric then doing it sooner would mean saving sooner. The outlay is not going to change massively in a few years but those extra months of reduced bills could help save for next project if you have the capital there now. It depends on what you want to achieve with them. They take so long to pay for themselves it’s just adjusting that break even point forward a bit.

In ours we have done everything to make it livable first with decoration and fixing core issues and then moving onto savings and efficiencies before extensions. We want an orangery doing to extend kitchen but have put it back another 3 or 5 years to get costs down as energy prices are always rising.
 
ShadowMan said:
What are your reasons for solar? If trying to offset costs on electric then doing it sooner would mean saving sooner. The outlay is not going to change massively in a few years but those extra months of reduced bills could help save for next project if you have the capital there now. It depends on what you want to achieve with them. They take so long to pay for themselves it’s just adjusting that break even point forward a bit.

In ours we have done everything to make it livable first with decoration and fixing core issues and then moving onto savings and efficiencies before extensions. We want an orangery doing to extend kitchen but have put it back another 3 or 5 years to get costs down as energy prices are always rising.
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Spot on - yes. It's to offset electricity costs. It's also a bit "to do our part".

You're right - it's worth considering sooner rather than later. Do you have a battery as well?
 
I don’t but I will be. I’m waiting on getting quotes to a full install. I wanted it done last year but costs in other items ran away from us. We had our boiler fail in December too so that ate a chunk of the solar budget.
 
If you aren’t worried about the capital outlay and long term payback then get solar and battery. Can also go onto a tariff that lets you charge overnight for cheap if you can’t generate enough. Will reduce bills further or you could sell back during peak times to save even more by making small amounts back each day.

Just be 100% sure you want it as it won’t pay for itself quickly at all but it will help reduce monthly especially over summer.

I have had a 2nd satellite CU installed in our garage to allow the solar to connect to and also to supply a car charger. It’s only rated to 50A supply but should be fine. We floors up and had our main CU updated anyway so took the time to lay 10mm cable out to garage area for a supply (the electrician did it all).

I’m finding that renovating is about doing lots of little bits smartly in timing in addition to the big ticket stuff.
 
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