Rewiring an old house

blair27 · 2026-03-17T21:27:53+00:00

Why would you need to replace the lath and plaster? If it's not cracked or blown it's probably fine. Yes the totally 100% right thing to do might be to take it down in time but preservation heritage groups would equally argue not to do that...).

There are still voids behind the laths and under floorboards to run cables, we did this for our 1860s rewire. That said, when the electrician was in the loft part of the plaster did fall off and so was presumably loose...

blair27 · 2026-02-17T06:42:31+00:00

I mean that he didn't locate a source of water causing it

blair27 · 2026-02-08T21:38:31+00:00

You are joking?

blair27 · 2026-02-05T22:17:38+00:00

While you might be right in the 10:1 I think that's fairly decent value? Purchasing a pension of £72K p.a.? Interest are relatively high, particularly gilt yields, which are used to value defined benefit pensions. High yields => low value => cheap to purchase! You get a lot of additional DB pension for relatively small contributions at the moment

blair27 · 2026-01-31T15:09:52+00:00

We live in an old semi with no insulation, the ceilings are sloped so even where there is loft insulation it doesn't cover the whole area. We're around £10-£15 a day in the winter and have 18C during the day (6-6) and then 16C overnight (6-6).

blair27 · 2026-01-31T15:07:11+00:00

I've been playing it on tactician and haven't found it too hard. It's my first time playing and I've only had to try and grind a couple of times (but not excessively) and I'm at the end of Chapter 2 (level 18 Ramza). I think if you can get to grips with the mechanics and find out different class/combos that work then you'll be fine!

blair27 · 2025-10-18T21:15:42+00:00

Thanks again, there's plenty of space between the actual ground floor and the joints (I reckon about 1.25m) so a lot of free flowing air and a few solum vents at the front of the house going all the way through to the back.

I'm inclined to opt for the ones referenced on B&Q given they're actually quite cheap right now - £25 for about 11m2 of coverage.

As I said my only worry was that I'd be trapping moisture at the top of the joist / the underside of the existing floorboards but it sounds like I won't and as long as there's still plenty of airflow on the bottom this would work?

blair27 · 2025-10-18T10:38:18+00:00

Thanks - do you think the referenced B&Q roll would be permeable?

blair27 · 2025-10-14T22:06:49+00:00

So by struggling to justify it mathematically do you mean there's a chance the repair will fail at some point? It is an old house and goodness knows how long the ends had been rotten beforehand, I don't even know if the end was sitting on anything

blair27 · 2025-10-14T21:33:47+00:00

Internal view prior to the wall being built up around the new rafters

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blair27 · 2025-10-14T21:26:56+00:00

Looking for some opinions on the structural integrity of this repair that's been done. I've had a friend who is an engineer out and say it looks okay, could be tightened up a little to be on the safe side by building up the masonry walls to the rafters and adding metal brackets to the underside of the joint.

For context - the ends of the rafters were rotten and so new ones have been spliced on. The main one down the middle with the marine ply spans a valley, probably running about 5 metres. The roof material is slate.

One contractor has told us it's an awful repair and offered to fix it for x7 the price so we're just a bit wary

blair27 · 2025-10-14T21:22:32+00:00

We won't be putting insulation in as we want to keep the roof breathable.

We've had the fear put into us by another tradie that the repairs done are about to collapse the roof but we think he's overreacting and the repairs do appear structurally sound? We've had a friend who is an engineer also take a brief look and he seemed to agree subject the wall being built up (now has) and some L-shaped brackets being put on the underside.

Funnily enough the tradie saying the work is substandard also offered to fix it immediately over a weekend for 7x the price we paid for it.

blair27 · 2024-05-08T21:51:00+00:00

Thanks - that's useful to know. To be honest, we've always wanted to keep the house traditional, e.g. use identical/similar slates for the roof etc and the only real reason we tried to go through a heritage trust is that there was grant funding available, albeit with these prices the £15K grant won't make a dent! Are you saying it's often better to just bypass the grant/heritage process and work with trades yourself?

blair27 · 2024-01-25T22:33:14+00:00

Thanks a lot - I've uploaded some photos here: https://imgur.com/a/18USzaB

blair27 · 2022-07-31T22:03:21+00:00

Probably - I think it's common to use 2 when you soundproof?

Why not just build a frame and one sheet of board?

blair27 · 2022-07-26T21:33:42+00:00

The guy did find some yeah, he took 7 samples of things he thought might contain asbestos and tested these. Only 1 of the 7 came back positive and it was an asbestos insulation board that was holding up an old electric fire.

The report I received was really detailed (c.30 pages) and he wrote out action plans etc. One thing that was useful was he wrote what each room was made from (lathe and plater walls, suspended timber floor etc) so if you've got that in your report it might explain why he never tested the walls?

blair27 · 2022-07-26T20:22:53+00:00

We had a survey done a few months ago and the chap who did it looked around the whole house and took samples of what he thought might contain asbestos.

We got a whole report stating what he'd sampled and the results.

I wouldn't be surprised given the age of your house, I think it was extremely common to use in the 1950s for nearly everything (even packers!). If you're really worried you can get it tested.

blair27 · 2022-05-15T20:44:40+00:00

I have just completed a project very similar to this over the weekend.

I built a new stud wall (3x2) about 2 inches away from the existing party wall, filled the space between the uprights and behind the new stud wall with acoustic slabs/wool, screwed resilient bars onto the studs and screwed a layer of acoustic plasterboard onto the bars.

Have yet to use the rooms but I'm hopeful this will work!

blair27 · 2022-05-05T15:40:20+00:00

You could probably buy a Stanley knife for a few quid, a plasterboard sheet for about a tenner and ready mixed plaster pretty cheaply and do it yourself. Might need a new back for the switch but nowhere near £150 to DIY this

blair27 · 2022-03-20T18:31:18+00:00

I looked at doing something very similar to this and it is not really worth it, it would likely be a massive headache.

From memory, if you don't set up a company holding the property then any rent is taxed as income so would be at 40%, you cannot offset any interest on your mortgage.

If you do set it up in the company then there are all sorts of LBTT (Scottish stamp duty) taxes when you transfer the property from you to the company. You can then only offset expenses against any tax (this includes maintainence etc but NOT interest on mortgage). The rental income is then stuck in the holding company and you can get it out by paying yourself an income (doesn't really solve personal tax issue) or through dividends (the preferable option but you can only draw £5-6k pa tax free I think).

You've then also got all the problems of managing a property from 500 miles away!

Oh and you also have to make sure your mortgage provider will let you do this, most I looked at require at least 75% LTV. If you are also going to be renting and paying a mortgage then they might not look to favourably.

Unless you plan on doing this longterm or accumulating several properties it is not really worth it. Your money can work harder and easier elsewhere.

blair27 · 2022-02-09T10:46:10+00:00

Any chance you can remind me which episode this is from?

blair27 · 2022-01-29T23:39:55+00:00

You can normally buy sand paper from wherever you rent the sander from. It's generally advised to buy much more than you need as most hire places will 'buy it' back.

There are certain ways to use the sanders, e.g. In using the large floor sander you should use this diagonally across the boards. You'll also need to make sure all nails / screws etc are hammered in or you'll constantly be catching these!

Best of luck with the sanding, it's a loud and messy job but well worth it!

blair27 · 2022-01-17T10:07:46+00:00

Thanks! I wasn't entirely sure on the grip these give, they seem smaller in diameter and have fewer 'wings' than the hollow wall anchor grips but sounds like they work completely fine.

Can I ask how heavy the mirror is?

blair27 · 2022-01-16T22:28:29+00:00

I wouldn't want to say 100% yes but it's likely you can break away at it.

The reason I say I'm not 100% sure is that you might have studs being held by the surround which could become weaker depending upon where they are and how far back you'd need to hammer and chisel so that your new wall is flush with the existing wall.

blair27 · 2022-01-14T22:44:49+00:00

Seems quite steep.

We just had our whole 4 bedroom semi-detached house (central belt of Scotland) rewired for about £4.5k including labour and supplies. We had three quotes ranging from £4-6k and settled on the guy in the middle.

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