[Bionic]

I see you have already got your quad bike in the plan 

[Anke]

Ah, so you would have close neighbours. You would almost certainly have to put up some screening between the two properties, privacy and all that, so make sure you have got enough parking & turning space for two cars (that's what they insisted on ours), but we didn't have to tarmac fortunately    (our driveway is 100m long).
 
What kind of heating are you putting in? If oil - space for tank plus access for delivery lorry necessary.
 
Oh and make sure you have level access for a wheelchair and also have a bathroom etc facilities that can be adapted if you/your partner become less mobile - we have our main bedroom/bathroom on the groundfloor, so will be able to live here even if not able to get up stairs.
 
Will you have enough land to build some sheds/animal housing/workshop and is it accessible - the plot seems to be on a slope?
 
It was so exciting when we got our plans sorted... but also very nerve racking as we had to sell our house just before Xmas... Won't want to do anything like that again for a very long time...

[john and helen]

Tooooo right Sally  i refuse not to have one 

Hi Anke..yes the field does slope, more so further out... but that is where i would keep sheep , pigs and goats,
we did look at a flat grounded place, but just didn't get the feel 

plenty of room for more sheds; buildings etc ..and yes i would ramp up to the back door

we did consider about having neighbours, and we had the same situation in france..where they where no trouble at all, at the moment we live in a semi ..so real close neighbours...back front and sides
we will be out back most of the time ..so that means we would be away from them anyway... as it stands at the moment..only 1 of the 4 dwellings is occupied ... but either way, we can give a friendly wave and leave it at that...

as for heating, we where thinking of a multi fuel wood burner and LPG as a back up.... and cooking, i may even look into solar for heating the water,

plenty of car parking space ....

if we decide 100% on this property, we would make the back , our main entrance, thats where we get our total privacy .... thats one reason why we didn't go for the other barn with 17 acres, (a) it was far to steep (B) the neighbours overlooked the back garden.... Big No No

[henchard]

Most planning departments will require you to keep the original barn openings and for example retain the soldier arches above the doorways.

The other problems with this type of barn conversions is that you tend step straight into the dwelling through what was the existing doorway; i.e there is no porch area. This can lead to a lot of draughts across the room. I know because we bought one like that! It took a lot of time and energy (not to say money) to get the planners to let us add extensions.

This is our porch and utility extension on one side



and sunroom on the other

[Fleecewife]

Henchard - I love your sunroom     How difficult was it to cut the ridge into the main roof?   Your house is very similar to ours, except the front is the south facing wall, so we would want a sunroom plus front porch there, and a similar back porch and utility bit to yours on the north facing side.   Do you mind if I ask what sort of price we would be looking at for each of those?
 
John - I meant to say I love your arrow slits/ventilation gaps.  I've always felt a few of them would be very useful for fending off unwelcome guests as well as practising my archery skills 

[lachlanandmarcus]

Partly it depends if the house is listed: ours is and so no porch for us: instead one of the inside rooms is a sort of boot and coats room. But we don't mind too much as the old porch did look stuck on and anyway the gales would soon have it away across the hill!

John and Helen I see your thinking re the neighbours. And what lovely land and building it is...

[john and helen]

that looks lovely Henchard, really really like that....
FW..i did say to helen i could mount a gun post in the front room with those slits 

cheers LLM

[henchard]

How difficult was it to cut the ridge into the main roof?   

That's not difficult, a good builder can do it without any great grief - it's just a matter of stripping back some slates and leaving the felt in place.

Do you mind if I ask what sort of price we would be looking at for each of those?

About double what you expect! I can't give an exact figure as it was all part of a bigger refurbishment; including more insulation and underfloor heating etc. Much depends on the level of finish. For instance the windows are Danish and the bifold doors are German (at about double the price of what you can source them in the UK). But we didn't want poor door performance in the Welsh weather! I think a good starting point would be about £1500 a square meter for extensions of this height plus extra for any superior doors/windows/flooring UFH etc.

The full refurbishment is detailed in our blog (and subsequent parts)

http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/everyday-stuff/no-so-grand-designs-part-1/

[john and helen]

your blog was a great read john & liz 

[stufe35]

The place does have electric to it..it does state on the estate agents report that the vendor will bring a water connection to the property, so thats something i will need to get in writing from the vendor or take into account when i make the offer...


Make sure the water supply is new from the mains ie your own.  Not just an extention from someone elses.

[john and helen]

The place does have electric to it..it does state on the estate agents report that the vendor will bring a water connection to the property, so thats something i will need to get in writing from the vendor or take into account when i make the offer...


Make sure the water supply is new from the mains ie your own.  Not just an extention from someone elses.

yes..thats a good point
going on what the neighbour said...it looks like a bore hole job....so that will have to come off the asking price for starters ...£9k

[stufe35]

There looks to be lots of other houses there , is there not a water main,  and indeed mains sewage ?

On another point - Are the approach roads / accesses exculsively yours or council owned---private or shared roads/accesses can be a thing of nightmares (i speak from very bitter experience)  Any rights of way over your property or you rights of way over others ?

[Anke]

The place does have electric to it..it does state on the estate agents report that the vendor will bring a water connection to the property, so thats something i will need to get in writing from the vendor or take into account when i make the offer...


Make sure the water supply is new from the mains ie your own.  Not just an extention from someone elses.

yes..thats a good point
going on what the neighbour said...it looks like a bore hole job....so that will have to come off the asking price for starters ...£9k

I don't think you can get an extension connection from someone else's water supply anymore - needs to be to the mains direct and with a meter built in (or at least the space for one to be put in in future). Or a borehole indeed...
 
 

[stufe35]

That's exactly my point, an unscrupulos seller might tell you he will give you water, but it might be from a pipe on his adjacent retained property. It would have no legal standing and give problems in the future (if it slipped through this sale process)

[lachlanandmarcus]

That's exactly my point, an unscrupulos seller might tell you he will give you water, but it might be from a pipe on his adjacent retained property. It would have no legal standing and give problems in the future (if it slipped through this sale process)

Good point Stufe.


Also check by asking in pre sale Qs whether anyone takes their private water supply from within x metres of the boundary of your land, or on the land.


I say this as it wasn't until 5 years after we bought out place that we realised that next door but one neighbours a mile away get their water from right on our boundary (just the other side of the boundary) where there are just fields in between us belonging to another chap, it's then piped under said fields to their house.


The impact is that we have to be even more careful about sprays or anything (we don't normally use anything but we could have been spraying away to get rid of ragwort or ground elder), since it is basically the water from our land they are drinking. Chap in between did it like this I guess so that he could do whatever he liked on his land, as it's in pipes there, he sold them the house site. So he can spray and fertilise away!