Owning your own home

IMHO that would be a fantastic opportunity - in London with that view? Why are you even asking? Move kitchen to back of house, overlook pond, consider ditching garage on side for 2 story extension home office with bedroom above = 4 /5 bed house. Buy out flying freehold.

Why are you even asking?

Ian Duncan Smith would be your MP.

It's going to take you a year to renovate.

If you wanted to live in a middle England cultural backwater you could buy this instead and save yourself a lot of time and money

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111731897#/?channel=RES_BUY

Crying out for converting one of the garages to house and building a massive extension on top of the single storey garage.

Do we think the current occupant has 3 cars or are they just lazy?

Floor plan definitely suggests otherwise...

This unique family house has off street parking, garage to the side and integral garage.

think it's just an odd floorplan

This seemed likely, they got access to the garage on the left, but no access from inside of the house to the right and probably forget to add it in.

I'm not sure this is the right thread, but ideas/inspo for a narrow hallway (3ishm x 1ishm) for storing shoes/coats/sundries?

It's obviously a small space, so need something a bit clever to reduce mountains of clutter around the front door.

Look for shoe storage benches.

Hang coat hooks above bench, put shelves above coats.

middle England cultural backwater

🔥

Can’t believe the EA left this off the particulars

Not being a million miles away I almost bit at that 🤣

No idea, we've fitted about 10 or so all supplied by customer and they just dont seem to heat to the same level as normal rads or the same style radiator in white. I dont know if its the colour or they are cheap made or whatever. Ive read various things about them online but fuck knows.

Yes, the house we're buying is very close both in age and locaion to that and has the same heating. Apparently its awful as the air is super super dry, also no one wants to service the system. Not suprisingly ours will be going.

Might play nicer with an air source heat pump than a traditional wet central heating system. I’d recommend having a poke about before ripping it out.

Depending on the overall design, but for mid century modern stuff they can look a bit clunky with rads, the advantage of the ducted air is that it’s not visible throughout the house.

Already checked, not practical for the house or the budget alas.

@Dammit yes, especally if you can see all the pipes. All of ours will be hidden though we're copying this:

https://www.themodernhouse.com/sales-list/christchurch-square/

Already checked, not practical for the house or the budget alas.

Ah sadface. As in, a heat pump couldn’t be installed or just wouldn’t work with the existing ducting?

I’d love to be shot of all our rads simply to reclaim the space and flexibility they rob.

Heat pumps can be run in reverse too in the summer…

There are a host of reasons why it doesn't work for us

• The current heating unit is located in the middle of the house so, even if the two were interchangeable you've still got to run the insulated lines to the pump though the whole house to get to it. And then put something in powerful enough to supply a big enough volume of hot air to every room

• the old system is pretty big, so you gain very useful space by removing it. In our case, it'll be our pantry. It also has to have a hot water tank which takes up a whole cupboard, which we'll use a wardrobe.

• They're not the widest properties so you have to mount the pump next to your neighbours which could piss them off with the noise it makes, would be easier when everyone has them I suspect.

• The cost of a heat pump isn't far of the whole install for a 'tradional system'.

• There are comparatively few installers for heat pumps, (vs. plumbers) and they're all in high demand with the new govt push which means a long wait for someone to do it. Fine if you've got a working system that you can adapt but will slow down our move sufficiently to be inconvenient

• the gaskets and insulation boards in the original system have asbestos in them

• Also, SOME air pumps can be reversed, they're technically capable of it (the system is a loop) but not all designed for it. The main drive of the govt In the UK is to replace your boiler so these systems tie into radiators, so there is no point in having very cold radiators. These systems also work well for underfloor heating systems, which would be great but I'm not ripping out the entire concrete pad the house is built on to install one.

These cover it well

https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto

https://youtu.be/7zrx-b2sLUs

I'm all for airpumps and but they aren't that feasible for our house at least. Hopefully in a few years when the price comes down more and they're more common place. I don't have the budget to be an early adopter.

Get UFH in every room howard.

Yeah. Want. Maybe when we rip the ground floor to bits in five years time.

I have hot air heating system in our 60s mid century house and work like it tbh, finding someone to service was a bit more difficult but now we have two contacts.

I understand the dry thing, our house plants have not enjoyed the move, but otherwise it’ it works well, warm, no mould or damp in sight either.

How do you find the running costs? The stated efficiency is significantly higher on a combi.

i mean its our first winter but so far cant say its been noticeably worse than our badly insulated flat with combi boilers and radiators, and the house is much larger.

mid terraced helps i guess?

only downside i’ve really noticed so far is nowhere to dry clothes quickly.

we have a separate electric megaflo water tank for water.

how much to retrofit UFH into a room roughly psqm you reckon ? can it be done with relatively minimal disruption (where e.g. the existing floor is laminate/tiled system) ?

only downside i’ve really noticed so far is nowhere to dry clothes quickly.

Ducted hot air heating is fairly common in the part of Aus my wife is from and as it's Victoria it can get what they call cold in the winter. They normally have the outlets pointing up from the floor and just put a drying rack over the top.