I've always just moved in before, and got on with it the way it was, but this time I want to make sure the house is the way I want it right from the start.
The first thing is to get the outbuilding re-roofed, since asbestos is currently being used there: cue lots of research.
Next, as the bathroom is downstairs, and there's a trek through the living room to get to it as well, I want a toilet upstairs.
And the other, which I'm more ambivalent about, is having the present multifuel stove taken out, and replaced by a gas fire. I'm sad about it, but I grew up with one, and what I remember is emptying out the ashes early in the morning, and having to go out to the coal shed late at night - not that I ever did it, that was my brother's job. But I have no intention of starting now!
Those are the main ones; others are suggested by the surveyor on the fairly comprehensive survey I had done, and some are my own idea. For instance, the house itself is cavity walled, but the porch is single skin. So putting cavity wall insulation in is going to help, if its the *right* sort, but the porch will always let it down, so I have to research efficient and green ways of insulating that.
This is going to be a great adventure, I'm really looking forward to all of this! The property as a whole is slightly smaller than I have now, so I need to get rid of some stuff, which is very freeing in its own right. And I want to use what I have first, of course, even if it isn't the green option if I was buying it new. I already have it, so it might as well be used. I'm pretty sure that applies to a lot of the loft insulation I have - we'll see.
Saturday 26 June 2010
Found one!
After looking at quite a few - tiny little over-designed ones, big decrepit ones, shabby newish ones - I've found the perfect mix for me. Its a three bed semi with a porch built on, but the porch actually extends the hallway to provide a lovely open space when you go in. There's a wooden fence at the side to ensure privacy round the back, which is fully fenced in itself: and there's an outbuilding and a wooden shed back there too, as well as a really good size patio.
The garden is 50'long - big enough for me, with mature planting all around the edges - bliss. Its been kept in shape, and doesn't look too weedy, though there's a volunteer ash tree about four feet from the house at the side that will sadly have to go. It can, however, become my Christmas tree for many a year, once its dried out and painted gold - I've done that before, and its very successful :) And its the ultimate in doing Christmas the green way, though I'll have to put a bit of research into paint if its to be totally green.
The area is lovely and quiet - right by a recreation field, and 50 yards from a pathway to a wood. Some houses about a hundred yards away are scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
And its definitely the straight up and down, easy to maintain outline that I wanted, apart from the porch, which is ground level anyway, thats easy enough to maintain, using my super-bendy aluminium ladder that goes into three different shapes.
Does it appeal to me - yes it does! Its lovely, a gorgeous little thing to me. Its 15 minutes from everywhere, the main shops and the railway and the touristy bit on the edge of town, oh and 20 minutes from the big supermarket. I'm chuffed :)
The garden is 50'long - big enough for me, with mature planting all around the edges - bliss. Its been kept in shape, and doesn't look too weedy, though there's a volunteer ash tree about four feet from the house at the side that will sadly have to go. It can, however, become my Christmas tree for many a year, once its dried out and painted gold - I've done that before, and its very successful :) And its the ultimate in doing Christmas the green way, though I'll have to put a bit of research into paint if its to be totally green.
The area is lovely and quiet - right by a recreation field, and 50 yards from a pathway to a wood. Some houses about a hundred yards away are scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
And its definitely the straight up and down, easy to maintain outline that I wanted, apart from the porch, which is ground level anyway, thats easy enough to maintain, using my super-bendy aluminium ladder that goes into three different shapes.
Does it appeal to me - yes it does! Its lovely, a gorgeous little thing to me. Its 15 minutes from everywhere, the main shops and the railway and the touristy bit on the edge of town, oh and 20 minutes from the big supermarket. I'm chuffed :)
Wednesday 23 June 2010
What do I want this new house to be like, anyway?
I want it to have a garden, for somewhere to sit and somewhere to grow my own veg and fruit and flowers. I want decent storage - I have a lot at the moment, and while I'm decluttering like crazy, some is necessary - pots of paint, the bike, spare plantpots, the stepladder, all that sort of thing. I want it to be near some greenery, so that when I go a walk at lunchtime to stretch my legs, I have somewhere to walk that isn't just streets. I want it to be quiet - I've lived opposite a pub, thanks, and I'm done with that. I want it to be a semi, to minimise neighbour noise. I want it to be easy to maintain - no weird little ridges sticking out everywhere, no flat roof, straight up and down as much as possible (you can tell what I'm moving from, lol). Although I still want it to have character (don't we all!) and I still want it to appeal to my heart. And I want 3 bedrooms - one for me, one for an office/guest bedroom, one to see clients in.
I want it to be safe, of course, but everyone I've spoken to in my chosen town, Haywards Heath, has commented on how safe it is, how little crime there is. I don't know if thats rose-tinted specs or not, but it *feels* safe, certainly.
Do I want a project? I want somewhere that has the potential for a project, but not the immediate necessity for one - I've spent years living in a house thats nothing *but* projects, and I really need a bit of time out. There are bound to be things that need doing after I move in, that'll do for now.
I want it to be safe, of course, but everyone I've spoken to in my chosen town, Haywards Heath, has commented on how safe it is, how little crime there is. I don't know if thats rose-tinted specs or not, but it *feels* safe, certainly.
Do I want a project? I want somewhere that has the potential for a project, but not the immediate necessity for one - I've spent years living in a house thats nothing *but* projects, and I really need a bit of time out. There are bound to be things that need doing after I move in, that'll do for now.
Sunday 20 June 2010
The Renewable Energy Handbook
This is maybe not the very best book to start off my reading list, seeing as its an import from Canada, but its an amazing book, about everything really. It goes from a quick overview of climate change to details about what electricity is, to a discussion of appliances, types of solar energy, and biofuels. Happily, it also has a couple of chapters on real life installations, including a luxury resort by Fairmont Hotels, and one on ecological swimming pools and hot tubs :)
Thursday 17 June 2010
Further down the buying process....
To me, one really important part of being green is a kind of behavioural permaculture - if I minimise my inputs, and maximise my outputs, surely thats a good thing for everyone, not just for me? I want my life to be as low maintenance as possible in the routine things, so my house purchase should be too - no trekking to the new town every other day for months, no sitting in a solicitor's office waiting to hand in a document, no (or not much) walking up and down to view the whole neighbourhood on the off chance of finding a for sale board - they're all on the web!
So these are some random thoughts on greenery a bit further down the buying process.
- in some ways, I'm quite an average person - though of course I am completely unique :) :). I'm going to be living in a town, not in a rural utopia, and I want to know about the policies of the local council. What's their recycling record like? Are there any local initiatives already on becoming carbon neutral, for instance? What impression does the official town website give? Are there any local grants to help with the costs of green installations? Walking around, whats it like? Yep, there is some walking.
- what comes next is, what did my heart say? It said, after much to-ing and fro-ing, Haywards Heath. It was also more practical for my existing business, which was a huge plus, but not the deciding factor. This step alone, by the way, took weeks of agonising and journalling, but I'm really happy I did that - I'm very confident in my decision that the town I've chosen is the right town for me, because I took my time over it.
- my first port of call in finding out about the above, has been rightmove.co.uk - bless them for their map view showing houses within a chosen area and a chosen price range. Changing over between the map view and the satellite view also became second nature. Other websites do a map view too - globrix.com for instance, but I always found rightmove easiest and biggest. The street view button, showing the views up and down the street, is also great - it means you make many fewer fruitless journeys, you can see that industrial estate, you can see where the bus stops are, all sorts of things.
- otherwise, whats struck me as being very green in the house purchase lark has been the use of email attachments and scans. I put my own house on the market just before HIPs came to an end - and I never got a hard copy, it was a simple pdf document, thankfully. And it arrived very, very speedily because of that. And I could send it on to my conveyancer and estate agent equally speedily, just press the forward button and bingo. The survey on the house I'm purchasing, and the confirmation I'd paid for it, were also sent in this way. Its cheaper too, of course - packages of the size I'm talking about cost about a fiver to send securely through the post. Those fivers add up, so the saving was quite a nice little bonus.
- and of course, in such a big legal contract, the biggest most of us will ever make, when I correspond by email, I have a record of who said what to who, and when. Of course, if its my mistake, thats a big oops, but in general, it works in my favour :)
So these are some random thoughts on greenery a bit further down the buying process.
- in some ways, I'm quite an average person - though of course I am completely unique :) :). I'm going to be living in a town, not in a rural utopia, and I want to know about the policies of the local council. What's their recycling record like? Are there any local initiatives already on becoming carbon neutral, for instance? What impression does the official town website give? Are there any local grants to help with the costs of green installations? Walking around, whats it like? Yep, there is some walking.
- what comes next is, what did my heart say? It said, after much to-ing and fro-ing, Haywards Heath. It was also more practical for my existing business, which was a huge plus, but not the deciding factor. This step alone, by the way, took weeks of agonising and journalling, but I'm really happy I did that - I'm very confident in my decision that the town I've chosen is the right town for me, because I took my time over it.
- my first port of call in finding out about the above, has been rightmove.co.uk - bless them for their map view showing houses within a chosen area and a chosen price range. Changing over between the map view and the satellite view also became second nature. Other websites do a map view too - globrix.com for instance, but I always found rightmove easiest and biggest. The street view button, showing the views up and down the street, is also great - it means you make many fewer fruitless journeys, you can see that industrial estate, you can see where the bus stops are, all sorts of things.
- otherwise, whats struck me as being very green in the house purchase lark has been the use of email attachments and scans. I put my own house on the market just before HIPs came to an end - and I never got a hard copy, it was a simple pdf document, thankfully. And it arrived very, very speedily because of that. And I could send it on to my conveyancer and estate agent equally speedily, just press the forward button and bingo. The survey on the house I'm purchasing, and the confirmation I'd paid for it, were also sent in this way. Its cheaper too, of course - packages of the size I'm talking about cost about a fiver to send securely through the post. Those fivers add up, so the saving was quite a nice little bonus.
- and of course, in such a big legal contract, the biggest most of us will ever make, when I correspond by email, I have a record of who said what to who, and when. Of course, if its my mistake, thats a big oops, but in general, it works in my favour :)
Tuesday 15 June 2010
Finding a house - the research.
I'm in the middle of moving house, and I realised I needed to write about the whole process, for my own sanity, and to work on getting the whole process to be as green as possible. So here it is! Moving house, the green way.
I've always been concerned about green issues - I remember reading about polluting oil spills in the library when I was fifteen, mumble-mumble years ago. Time to bring it home, literally - and doing it from the ground up.
It can be done bit by bit, of course - it has to be, in lots of ways, I just wanted to think about greening the whole process of buying a home, in all sorts of ways.
I last moved home 12 years ago, and in that time, the whole process has become completely different: getting and assessing information, even. The internet! Well, we have it, its not going away, and personally I'd be lost without it.
Flashbang news: the internet is green! My research about what town to live in was almost entirely done on the net, and these are the questions I was looking at:
- can I get to London easily? Can I get to Brighton easily? These are my two bases, but I don't want to live in either one of them.
- can I walk to the main shopping centre and the railway station? Can I walk everywhere, basically?
- what facilities does the town have? - shopping, banking, sports, community groups, cinema, even hospitals and dentists, you know the sort of stuff.
- whats the atmosphere like? How safe is it to walk around late at night?
Even this last one, there was some startup research I could do on the web. I came across a great little site about Haywards Heath, very ironic and understated, and I thought to myself, if a town has a bloke like that living in it, chances are there are others like him, so its probably the town for me.
Looking at these issues meant that the only two serious contenders were Haywards Heath and Crawley, because of their transport links between Brighton and London. Only then did I go for a wander about each of them. I did a lot of walking (very green!) and my sister and a couple of friends drove me about both places, looking at potential areas to purchase in. It was important, though, for me to do a lot of it by walking, because thats a really important part of it all, to have everything within walking distance.
And they both had that, more or less. And thats where personal choice came in: which place do I like best? Where am I most likely to find kindred spirits nearby? And although there was a tiny little crescent of housing between the two main stations in Crawley where I thought I *could* find my kindred, the answer had to be Haywards Heath for me: its an organic market town, thats grown over hundreds of years, its really quite tiny compared to most of the places I've lived but it feels vibrant and alive.
So, thats my first blog on the green way of moving house. I hope everyone that reads it will come back for more
I've always been concerned about green issues - I remember reading about polluting oil spills in the library when I was fifteen, mumble-mumble years ago. Time to bring it home, literally - and doing it from the ground up.
It can be done bit by bit, of course - it has to be, in lots of ways, I just wanted to think about greening the whole process of buying a home, in all sorts of ways.
I last moved home 12 years ago, and in that time, the whole process has become completely different: getting and assessing information, even. The internet! Well, we have it, its not going away, and personally I'd be lost without it.
Flashbang news: the internet is green! My research about what town to live in was almost entirely done on the net, and these are the questions I was looking at:
- can I get to London easily? Can I get to Brighton easily? These are my two bases, but I don't want to live in either one of them.
- can I walk to the main shopping centre and the railway station? Can I walk everywhere, basically?
- what facilities does the town have? - shopping, banking, sports, community groups, cinema, even hospitals and dentists, you know the sort of stuff.
- whats the atmosphere like? How safe is it to walk around late at night?
Even this last one, there was some startup research I could do on the web. I came across a great little site about Haywards Heath, very ironic and understated, and I thought to myself, if a town has a bloke like that living in it, chances are there are others like him, so its probably the town for me.
Looking at these issues meant that the only two serious contenders were Haywards Heath and Crawley, because of their transport links between Brighton and London. Only then did I go for a wander about each of them. I did a lot of walking (very green!) and my sister and a couple of friends drove me about both places, looking at potential areas to purchase in. It was important, though, for me to do a lot of it by walking, because thats a really important part of it all, to have everything within walking distance.
And they both had that, more or less. And thats where personal choice came in: which place do I like best? Where am I most likely to find kindred spirits nearby? And although there was a tiny little crescent of housing between the two main stations in Crawley where I thought I *could* find my kindred, the answer had to be Haywards Heath for me: its an organic market town, thats grown over hundreds of years, its really quite tiny compared to most of the places I've lived but it feels vibrant and alive.
So, thats my first blog on the green way of moving house. I hope everyone that reads it will come back for more
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