We moved into our BISF house at the end of July 2015, we are a young-ish couple and it’s our very first time buying a home together. I did look on this site before we bought it to see how good/bad these types of houses could be, there is a lot of misinformation out there especially if you talk to insurance companies, they think it’s all about to blow off in a strong wind! You do get a lot of house for your money compared to new build houses of the same price, and we are very lucky that we got a corner plot so our garden is massive too. You just have to do the research into what you are taking on, like knowing you can’t just whack a curtain pole up like in a brick build, you have to find some studs in the walls to attach them too, because otherwise they fall down faster than they went up.
So that being said we were quite confident when taking on our house, as my Fiancé used to have his own kitchen fitting company and he comes in pretty useful.
What we didn’t factor in was the previous owner being a menace with a hammer and frankly a bit of a liar. He should never have been let anywhere near a pair of safety scissors never mind a whole toolkit. He has made the work on the house a lot harder than it ever needed to be, he is generally referred to as ‘that bloody man’.
Turns out he really did a number on the plumbing and wiring (he said he never touched it at all, but I’m pretty sure when the house was built they didn’t have modern TV power cable powering their lights). The whole house has been re-wired and is now signed off and safe, although it did take a bit of swearing when it came to the steel beams in the upstairs floor, but it means that the shower no longer sets itself on fire when you try and turn it on, thank god.
The plumbing is in a similar state, although lacking in flammability, and we’re currently sorting out our bathroom so that everything drains through pipes that all connect…without using cement (not that ‘cement’ epoxy glue either, actual cement holding pipes together upstairs in the bathroom). At least the toilet doesn’t leak, well the one upstairs anyway. On the subject of plumbing can anyone recommend any modern connectors that would also fit the original soil pipe? We are having a bit of difficulty there. I’m sorry I don’t know what the thingy is called; I’m the decorator not the fixer, but it goes on the end of the pipes into the soil stack.
One of the first things we did was go and paint all of the main rooms so they were a little less stark, we really shouldn’t have bothered until we got the other big things done. We now have patchy looking walls from the re-wiring but you live and learn. If anyone else takes on any kind of house I’d recommend the type of survey where they poke holes in everything. It might save you money.
One of major things we did to the house after the wiring was safe, was to add solar panels on the roof, completely straight forward, contractors fitted them with no fuss whatsoever. We were really pleased with how easy it was to have done, which was a relief after the re-wiring palaver. It’s helped us cut down our bills because we have an electric oven and hob, plus when the central heating is doing is worst we pop on an electric heater.
We have also had new double glazed UPVC windows fitted throughout the house and it does make a difference in temperature. We have always had trouble with our central heating since we moved in, honestly we are a bit scared to see what the problem is with that one, but now I only have to wear one jumper so we are going in the right direction.
Next on the heating list is a wood stove, we have the original cast iron chimney bit so as I understand it, a good clean of that and a flexible liner is all we need, oh and of course the stove itself. I really can’t wait to cosy up in front of a fire.
We are now working room to room, well rooms we use frequently. ‘That bloody man’ before us had the outside loo and whatever the other building attached was (sorry but I’ve never seen one without it joined in the same way as ours) enclosed so it’s all one long extension, we put a partition up so we could have an enclosed laundry room/boot room (that the dog can’t get into, border collie puppy and shoes made it necessary plus you can hide things when family visits ha-ha!).
We just finished re-modelling our bedroom; we decided we wanted to take out the fitted cupboards upstairs to make space for a long chest of drawers. We took all of the old hardboard walls of and added plasterboards to help with retaining heat and a bit of noise proofing. It looks lovely now and ill post some pictures once my other half has hung our bedroom pictures up.
As I mentioned above were now doing the bathroom, ditching the bath and having a large shower unit, again all the hardboard is being ousted and replaced with plasterboards, plastering and either the waterproof board things (mermaid boards I think is a brand name) or tiles, we haven't decided on the latter because I can’t decide on the colour. The door has to be moved over a bit but its stud work there to our knowledge and he seems confident, at the moment. I’ll wait on the swearing!
The best thing I’ve liked about doing up the house so far, even with the difficulties, is finding some of the original features. I can’t say my other half agrees, but he isn’t writing this!
When the wiring was done and the floorboards were lifted we found one of the original light switches, apparently it was not acceptable to ask if we could use it, so I put it back for the next people to find.
When we were doing the bedroom we found some newspaper holding a power socket in place, yes I know paper + electricity = bad but it was hardly a surprise, when I looked through the articles in the paper it was from when the house was built, so technically an original feature although I don’t think an estate agent would use it.
We also found we still have the glass panels above the internal doors I don’t mind them on the downstairs rooms personally but upstairs we covered them back up.
It's all great fun isn't it 
The joy we get from misery always astounds me :)
Great post Hayley, it certainly made me smile reading your escapades with the house following the Demon Diy'er lol.
I can only imagine what you may may find next every time you lift a board or remove a wall panel. It can be challenging enough, refurbishing a standard house, let alone one where the previous owner imposed his own unique brand of DIY skills and throwing health and safety virtues out the window.
I and I'm sure many other BISF homeowners who have undertaken similar modernisations can fully sympathise with you and feel your pain. On the bright side though, the benefits do outweigh the human suffering in the long run and in general, these houses are pretty easy to upgrade once you understand the basic construction, as you found out with the curtain poles etc.
I've heard of some electrical horror stories in my time but I've never heard of a coax cable being used for a lighting cable! Was was he thinking and how stupidly dangerous. Glad to hear that you've had a full re-wire though. as safety and peace of mind are always paramount, despite the extra cost.
Concrete pipe holders too, that's certainly got to be one of the howlers of the century and another first for BISF house renovation.
"On the subject of plumbing can anyone recommend any modern connectors that would also fit the original soil pipe? We are having a bit of difficulty there. I’m sorry I don’t know what the thingy is called; I’m the decorator not the fixer, but it goes on the end of the pipes into the soil stack."
Now, that's a slightly more of a tricky issue because as you know, the original soil pipe is cast iron and the pipes that do run into it behind the wooden boxing are imperial sizes whilst modern pipework is metric.
I can't offer much help there as I simply removed my cast iron pipe, replacing it with a new plastic soil pipe on the outside of the house. It was a pretty straightforward job and it meant that I could remove that ugly wooden boxing from the bathroom and kitchen wall below, making for a much more clean and modern look.
I did however find a Screwfix forum discussing pipe connectors to cast iron soil pipes which may assist you. Here's a link to the site Screwfix forum.
I haven't got any before pictures of the old bathroom but I have posted an image below showing my completed bathroom conversion with the soil pipe removed, to give you an idea of how it looks without the internal boxing.
I hope to add a post showing my entire bathroom renovation process once I have a little time free.
Moving your door over to accommodate a wider shower unit should be pretty easy and it really can make a big difference. Other refurbs that I have seen, actually steal a little space from the adjoining spare bedroom, usually around a foot or so. They first remove the adjoining stud wall and simply rebuild it slightly further back into the rear bedroom. It's also worth thinking about dropping in a little sound insulation before you board and tile the bathroom walls, particularly inside that adjoining bedroom wall.
I really do like the idea of Solar panels because my oven and hob are also electric, it's just the cost that puts me off slightly now the feed in tariffs have dropped yet again but at least the panels are becoming cheaper.
Does it make much of a difference to your bills?
I have to pop out of the office now but I hope to add a little more later this evening.
Thanks for the post, and the smiles!
On the soil pipe front, the OH didn't want to have to take out the soil pipe because it would disturb the kitchen too, the mantra seems to be 'one broken room at a time'. He works at Travis Perkins and the plumbing people there are currently suggesting all sorts of fittings to him! He has bought a few new ones each night this week to try, no luck so far.
I'll show him the Screwfix thing and see if it helps him, cheers for that.
As for the solar panels, We get a pretty good return on them, and during the summer any usage during the day is pretty much covered (so using TV and gaming console, washing machine on and the cooker, no gas cooker in our house). Winter is not as good as you can imagine, if your on a feed in tariff with your energy supplier the money you get back during summer can help with the bills in winter if your want to get thrifty.
Peak summer we can get between £150 - £250, depending on what we used per quarter. Winter is considerably less, the lowest that went was about £17-ish. They certainly help lower the bills though, during summer we pay about £20-£30 quid per month (duel-fuel) which is pretty good considering my OH does wood turning as a hobby and the lathe is going most of the weekend, we do all of our clothes laundry at the weekends and I'm a gamer.
The main thing i would like to change however is them feeding into the network, i really would like them going into storage batteries, but when we had them done the technology just wasn't affordable. Well they still aren't exactly cheap now, but they are much more reasonable.
Hi Haley, I can understand not wanting to rip out the entire pipe and disrupt the kitchen below.
Actually, you've reminded me that my good friend Matt, who also lives in a BISF house, managed to remove just the upper section of cast iron waste pipe in the bathroom, replacing it with a much shorter breather pipe that allowed for the boxing to be removed and which facilitated easier pipe connections to the main pipe.
If I recall correctly, this breather pipe just slotted in on top of the lower half of the cast pipe with a boss,
I'll message him to make sure that's what he did, and try to find out what parts he used.
You got me looking at Ikeas solar panel line up last night, Apparently, they are the new players in Solar energy, or at least they want to be.
They have two systems available one with and one without battery storage.
They suggest a 16 panel system which I think is quite a lot, with two systems varying in price from just £5499 and £5950 with a suggestion of saving £400 a year or £11k over 20 years.
A battery system pushes the price up to almost double at £9400 to £9900 depending on which system you choose and I believe you can also use your Ikea family card to obtain a 15% discount off these prices.
Non Battery
With Battery Storage
What they don't mention much is the significant drop in winter output but I guess that's pretty much common sense really.
I like the price of the non battery installation and the practicality of the battery storage one too, but the price is not so easy to swallow.
For anyone interested in solar from Ikea, here's the weblink with an easy to use calculator to see if your roof direction would be suitable to catch enough of the suns rays to generate enough power and what the approximate cost would be.
We have 12 on ours. And they fill up most of the south pitch.
We really like the idea of being more self sustaining. Generating your own power, grow your own veg type things.
I didn't know IKEA did them, I'll go over and check out the batteries. Thanks
Hi Hayley, Mark
I replaced the entire stack with pvc. Fitted air remittance valve just above flood level of the toilet.
Removed tile on roof and replaced with new one. The soil stack above food tile was asbestos.
I broke the cast stack at kitchen ceiling height first to make it easier to handle. I then gently tapped with lump hammer round the cast collar just above floor level in kitchen to break joint and then pulled out to leave and expose a cast collar to connect a Pvc adapted in to. I had to cement this in place and put new pvc pipe in to this.
In your instance you could do the same but break into cast stack above bathroom floor level and fit adaptor. You do need to be really careful with the cast stack. I would recommend cutting with angle grinder carefully.
Good luck
Mat
@hayley_13 Wow, you’ve really taken on a lot! Sounds like the house is coming together nicely despite the rough start. Love that you’re uncovering some original features too!