On 7 Jan 2004 09:51:09 -0800, (mark al) wrote:

im just about to buy my first house and would like opinions, advice etc
what are the pros and cons of buying a victorian/edwardian house as
oppposed to buying a new house.any views will be read with interest.

Having been in far too many 'estate' type houses (friends etc) we'd
personally never buy a new-ish house because the rooms are too small
or impractical and if you're downstairs you can hear someone fart
upstairs. My sister's house is about 20 years old and it's an awful
plasterboard/chipboard job, even into the garage. When someone's in
the main bedroom they sound like they're about to come through the
floor!

We're currently in a house built in 1886, and the only thing I don't
like about it is the floors on the top floor all have a little too
much spring for my liking. Oh, and the whole building shakes when
trucks thunder past on the main road and hit the pothole convieniently
outside the front gate.

This one is definitely not a first time buyer's house unless you're
either very practical or have a lot of spare cash - when we bought it
it had dry rot, wet rot, weevil infestation, rising damp (in only 1
room!), no heating, no electric or lights on the top floor and
considerable water damage from an obvious constantly leaky roof
including grass growing above the bathroom ceiling!

The only non-loadbearing wall had been built AFTER the ground floor
floor had been installed and it wasn't supported by anything, so years
of water penetration at the front of the house had caused the nails
and wood holding it to the bricks to rot and its own weight made it
sag and buckle the living room and hall floors.

The first building inspector nearly shat when he saw it

And we still bought it, purely because it had massive amounts of
character and space, and none of the damage was irrepairable over
time.

Things that still need doing: repair all sash windows and replace
****ty plastic ones with proper sashes. Fix the aforementioned wall
properly (it's shored up on bricks now). Repair rest of water damage.
Finish renovating the dining room when it's not full of old computers.
Hope the ceiling doesn't come down! Repair all rotten wood in the
porch. Finish summerhouse that had been allowed to almost completely
rot away. Fit proper window in the room I'm in now. Renovate and
probably replaster top floor landing, and repair cracks caused by
heating the house properly for the first time. Rewire ground floor so
everything isn't surface mounted.

Of course, not all Victorian houses have suffered this sort of
neglect, but if all of the above doesn't put you off go Victorian.
Apart from anything else this place is now worth 4 times what we paid
for it D My sister's isn't.
--
cheers,

witchy/binarydinosaurs