AIBU to think a big house is a lot of work and expensive to run.

[Thingsthatgo]

We have outgrown our little terrace house, and have found somewhere to buy which I love. I am very excited about having more space. Other than when I was a child and living with my parents I have always lived in places that I have considered too small; tiny basement flats and little terrace houses.
Is a big house going to be a huge amount of work/upkeep? My dh is great around the house (better than me), so it will be shared responsibility, but I want to be prepared for the money and expense involved. It is 100 years old, and will be expensive to heat I imagine, plus more council tax. What other things might I need to consider?

@ElanaD

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs.

?!? Our house is 'worth' 1.2m (London) We don't spend £100k on upkeep a year

We have a rental property and we budget about 20% of rental income per year to maintenance and upkeep (although it usually is in reality 10% roughly) so maybe the PP was thinking of that?

Watching with interested as moving from a 2bed flat to a huge 4 bed detached house soon.

Have you checked out the new governement scheme to help with the cost of new windows, insulation, heat saving devices like a heat exchange etc. Might save you a bit if these things need updating.

A robot vacuum. That is an amazing idea! Are they any good? I also love the idea of oak everywhere, but we will need to save up because we will be broke when we move in.

There is a thread with over 500 posts on chat virtually all saying how much they love theirs

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3994205-Any-new-Eufy-Robovac-parents-out-there?msgid=99560685

Great- until your labrador has diarrohoea in the middle of the night and your robot vacuum is scheduled to come on at 3 am.

Maybe the OP will avoid Labradors.

We have a Labrador

I was sepaking from personal experience!

(On the upside after that we bought a vax machine and that has been a godsend for so many reaons.... )

yes a robot vaccum.

Or even two.

Eufy I found is the cheapest brand.

150 quid on offer. other brands way more expensive.
Much cheaper than a cleaner

I don't put mine on a schedule. It is just as easy not to and spend the few minutes making sure the floor doesn't have any wet patches on it etc. and relevant doors closed if needed.

Don't necessarily expect anything to be a standard size and shape. Our skirting boards are massive and cost loads to replace. Also Victorian bay windows? Expect to sell your soul for a curtain. On a more positive note, gas and electricity cost way less than I imagined, and our place (3 floors and cellar, double fronted, draughty) is just about manageable on maintenance.

Budget for maintenance whatever you do. We have a big house and things like garden, fallen trees, high bushes. Ceilings coming down, damp (inevitable) and exterior repointing, cost of heating and electric is exortionate - I pay at least £500 a month on oil and electric spread over year combined.
All the windows need repainting badly and inside needs redecorating and I need to do it before windows start to rot! I also have a gate that needs replacing and a garden wall to rebuild. It is literally never ending.

And the fucking cleaning is beyond a joke. I basically am a maid. My standards have slipped considerably

Cleaning will be more. I’m a housekeeper and I work on a country estate. Even in a week it is not kept clean as it is too big.

If ur very clean and tidy it will be a lot of work to keep that size if house up to a certain standard. If ur not that bothered that will help. But just the skirting boards alone take a while to do.

@ElanaD

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs.

This is madness.

We have a large victoriana 5 bed 4 bathroom house. Things we have done which have made a huge difference:

1. Installed double glazing
2. Insulated the loft and walls
3. Installed solar panels
4. I don't have a robot hoover but I do have a gtech which is a godsend.

The house is never fully clean unless I spend 3 days non-stop cleaning. I try and male sure I cover all bases at least once a week.

As has been said, the 10% of house value for maintenance must either have been a typo or a rule from 50 years ago, but the main thing - as with all houses - is to try and put away a fund for repairs as soon as you can, and then neither be surprised nor disappointed when it's inevitably needed at some stage.

Incidentally, how does council tax work with new houses? Weren't the ratings set according to the estimated value of the house in the very early 90s? (I know Wales has since had a nationwide re-assessment). For new houses, do they try to estimate what it might have been worth had it actually existed back then or do they just base it on its current value/value when it was built (which sounds grossly unfair)?

Following as we are hoping to move to a 4 bed soon

Taking it to extremes, I've often wondered what it would be like to have a stately home/country mansion/castle/palace as your own family home and thought just how mazing it would be.

However, I then think about all the staff you'd need to run it - many of them live-in (maybe with their own families) - and then it occurs to me that it isn't then your own private, exclusive family home, so that must be quite a downer.

Our house isn't at all large and 'only' has three bedrooms, but at least nobody else lives here except our own nuclear family!

#moreprivilegedthanthequeen

thought just how mazing it would be.

Obviously meant to say amazing - but both would still be true if it were Hampton Court Palace!

One good thing about big houses is that the dirt is more spread out, so you don't notice it as quickly. You can also push junk to the remote corners of the mansion and close the door.

Also, I don't know the layout of your new place, but stairs are a total pain to keep clean.

@ElanaD

A good guideline is to budget 10% of house value per year for upkeep/repairs.

Either you've made a typo or I'm getting yp a maintenance business and coming round to yours

You could build a new house in 6 or 7 years at that rate,come back and tell us what you meant to type

We have 3500sq feet.

Apart from all the things others have said regarding rooves, windows, doors, bathrooms, utilities, wiring, plumbing, fencing, tree surgeons, general maintenance etc, may I add:

Keys and the need for a labelled key cupboard
Light bulbs - the sheer bloody volume
Windows and cost of window cleaning
Guttering
Chimneys

My cleaner cleans for 6 hours pw and does 2 hours ironing because I work full-time

After we had refurbished I had to curtain five large bays and one large picture window, 5 good roller blinds, 5 French blinds!

Having moved from a terraced to a considerably older and bigger detached I would say the heating, the outdoor upkeep and the cleaning a massively underestimated.

The outdoor upkeep is actually one reason I want to move again. The garden surrounds the house here and it needs doing weekly. This house is cold in the summer and freezing in the winter so heating/electricity costs much more than previously