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?

We've got a 6 bed with 1.5 acres and reckon I spend about 10K a year on up keep. Theres always something. A wooden gate blew down and smashed in the storm this week -£2K to replace. New guttering and fascias this spring and lots of scaffolding, another 3K. Plus a cleaner and a gardener costs. Double your existing costs - if you would have bought 1 tin of paint to stain your stairs, now buy 2. Wouldn't change it though!

I find cleaning easier in a bigger house as you don't spend so much time manoeuvering a vacuum cleaner around furniture in a confined space.

Council tax on new properties - Council sends info the the Valuation Office who I presume compare with similar sized houses and set the rate accordingly.

We moved 2 years ago from London 2Bed modern terrace to small town 100 miles away and a large 4bed house. The extra space is bliss and larger windows, so much more light. Go for it, enjoy it until you go into a home!
The larger garden is wonderful.

The high estimates for maintenance probably include putting something away for the roof to be replaced every 40 years. or windows every 10to 15 years. Even rewiring, we found some 1970s very light cable. Even then it seems high; 10% might include running costs like council tax.

We moved from a two bed terrace to our current 5 bed detached and it felt huge when we initially moved. It's not much more stress in terms of tidying/cleaning, and it's so much better for storage, for giving everyone space, for us all to settle and not have to move again.

We've done the 'big' things like windows, kitchen and bathrooms since we've been here and whilst it's not cheap, it's a huge investment because realistically we won't leave here til both DC have homes of their own.

It's a real luxury having enough space for an office for each of us, a games room for the DC, a garden big enough to host parties (aside from this summer, obviously). Enjoy your lovely space!

My top tip is to always always use lining paper, never plaster, skim and paint. Then when the cracks appear (which they inevitably will), you won’t even know they are there.

There’s a reason people used to love anagalipta.

Climate change is playing havoc with some Victorian houses.

I am a bit confused about the 1% rule for maintenance. Surely property prices also has to do with the location. Surely a £800k 2 bedroom London flat costs less to upkeep than a huge country house with land etc, assuming the service charges for said London flat are not insane.

Utilities 4k, council tax 4k, insurance 2.5k, annual maintenance 10k, cleaning and gardening £10k. Totals £30k nowhere near 10% of the value - but we are only just outside London.

Don’t be too fussy about windows as long as they ‘look’ authentic. Above the ground floor, there are some gorgeous double glazed plastic windows - including lovely sash windows.

Also, our builder is always telling us - and all our three storey Victorian neighbours - to replace the facings on the third floor, when the wood ones wear out, with heavy duty white plastic ones. From the street you can’t tell the difference - and it will never need replacing again.

Our heating bills are very high because the insulation is rubbish. We can’t use a thermostat - it’s either on or it’s not. We have two systems - ground floor and then top two floors. Rads on the top never get that hot though.

You need to budget for a big boiler.

But in the summer, it’s the coolest, loveliest house ever, and I always love walking into it, all year round.

I live in a 140 year old big detached house: four receptions plus kitchen, four beds, three bathrooms plus loo.

It is a money pit. I replaced all the original windows with wooden sash double glazed - about £800 per window (15 windows, plus four sets of french doors - I couldn't do the other three windows on one side as no access). I had to treat most of the ground floor for rising damp. Line the fireplaces, replace and replumb the central heating and rewire. I also had to take four rooms' ceilings down as they had failed, reboard and replaster, plus get new coving specially made to match the original. Roof has only had one repair and is in good shape. Redecorating costs £££ as 11ft high ceilings with intricate coving, ceiling roses and high skirting. Other than the windows, none of the work has added value - just part of taking care of an old house.
I did lots of other stuff (originally only one toilet for four beds for example), but those were the main bits.
If the house you are buying has double glazed windows in good shape, up to date wiring and heating, then you are already ahead of the game. But maintenance is ongoing.
But on the plus side I have large rooms, high ceilings, loads of character.
It's a trade off.

If you "need" a 5 bed because you have 2 kids, guest room and home office, it will be easier than trying to fit everything into a too small space, just don't expand stuff to for every nook and cranny.

We've moved from a big 4 bed/3 reception to a small 3 bed/1 reception and it's much tougher staying on top of things because we have too much stuff in all the rooms.

It's temporary (relocation and needed to break chain as England to Scotland) otherwise I'd be ditching a tonne of stuff but it's so much tougher when there is nowhere easy to put all the things while you're sorting them out and limited space to dry washing - I used to have a massive conservatory so washing dried fast without impinging on living space!

We brought a big house.
Four double bedrooms upstairs, large family bathroom.
3 large rooms downstairs, large kitchen diner, toilet, garage and laundry room.

Gas and electric are huge expense.
We've put in new windows and doors £20K 3 bays, 2 patio doors, 6 normal size, 6 small and a new front door.
Redone the flat roofs
Insulated the loft- I did that myself.
New kitchen.
House looked perfect when we moved in but we discovered leaks from the roof, windows were rubbish and wood frames leaked and aluminium frames caused condensation mould, we have cracks that need looking at.

Love the house but yes larger does cost more to keep.

@ElanaD

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

What??? I'm struggling to think what I'd need to do on this place every year for £35k!! We've never spent that on the place!!

It's an interesting guideline to live by.

The other big issue with 100+ year old houses is parking! Even though the houses are big, they typically went up when people used hackney carriages...

Beware of roads where lots of your neighbours’ houses are split up into flats. At one stage of its life, in the 60s-70s, our six bedroomed Victorian semi was split into 5 separate dwellings. Nowadays, each of these would have two cars at least. Nobody on our road has parking and we rarely manage to park outside our own house.

We went from a 3 bedroom terrace to a 7 bedroom semi-detached Edwardian townhouse seven years ago. This year we have really, really appreciated the space! We have a cleaner for 4 hours per week, but cleaning (and decorating and repairs) seem never ending.

My one piece of advice is: positioning of radiators has a massive impact on condensation. All of ours are on interior walls (away from the windows) and it makes such a huge difference.

@minimike

We moved 2 years ago from London 2Bed modern terrace to small town 100 miles away and a large 4bed house. The extra space is bliss and larger windows, so much more light. Go for it, enjoy it until you go into a home! The larger garden is wonderful.

The high estimates for maintenance probably include putting something away for the roof to be replaced every 40 years. or windows every 10to 15 years. Even rewiring, we found some 1970s very light cable. Even then it seems high; 10% might include running costs like council tax.

We replaced our roof when we moved in and, despite having a large and complex roof for the size of house (similar sort of thing to the one attached with angles everywhere plus 2 big, leaky dormers) it cost us less than 5% of the value of the house.

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

Blimey that's a lot. Or did you mean 1%? My house is worth around £500K, I couldn't afford to spend £50K a year on it! Some years we spend more than £5K, eg this year have bought a garden pod, but other years it might just be £500 to fix fences that have come down.

10% worth for upkeep? Bollocks.

My 250+ yr old Welsh vernacular cottage is worth £375k and we certainly don't spend 10% on up keep each year.

The more space you have the spaces to clean, it does take a lot longer with a bigger house.

A lifesaver for me is a lightweight rechargeable vacuum to whip out when cleaner isn't here.

The thing that annoyed me most after buying our place was how there's always SOMETHING that could do with replacing/updating! Sometimes it's little things, sometimes it's big things!

I think it depends on what you mean by 100 yo house. We’re in a 1920’s one, originally built with cavity walls and it has double glazing. We used to live in an Edwardian property with single skin walls and original single-glazed windows and drafty floorboards. The heating costs were twice as high in the Edwardian property.

Other than that, you might like to spend money on a cleaner as there’s a lot more to clean. Or a gardener if you have a large garden. And it’s generally more expensive whenever you update anything as rooms are bigger so you need more windows, more carpet, more kitchen units etc.

OP is your house going to be 1920's/30s style semi or an Edwardian/Victorian pile? How big(ish) is it (i.e. are we overestimating the size)? This website might be worth a read through (or maybe look to see if your 'period' has a Society/Preseervation Trust)

We are in a 230 year old Georgian terrace and have lived her long enough to know its faults. We still have the original windows and doors (though a couple of bits of wood have needed to be replaced). Yes they need painting every decade or so (but that is a lot cheaper than replacing UPVC windows/doors once they yellow or warp).

With a big house you just tend to have variable heat in each room and shift a dehumidifier around to stop condensation problems in the coldest months.

It has certainly been a lot easier for us all to work from home during lockdown because we've had the rooms and space to have proper workstation/desks without encroaching on the living/sleeping areas.

We live in a fairly large house on just over an acre of land with a tennis court and swimming pool. To all intents and purposes, our dream house (it was in a total state when we bought it 10 years ago which put off a lot of viewers).

Being completely honest, and acknowledging upfront that we know we are very lucky to be able to afford it...but the cost of everything does get quite wearing and you start to resent it over time. Particularly given that we carried out major building work and garden work when we moved here in 2010 so expected it to last longer than it has.

The patios we had done needed repointing and partially relaying this summer, the pool heater and electric cover broke as well which is a big cost. The larger scale of everything compared to our old house seems to constantly mount up, plus the cost of a gardener and the long list of jobs. Yes, we could do our own gardening but most weekends are spent ferrying the kids to various sports stuff.

It is lovely looking out of the windows onto green space but we both admit that we'd like to move to something smaller next time and spend less time and money on house and garden maintenance. That is not to say that we don't appreciate how fortunate we are but also that living in what we perceive to be our dream house has its drawbacks in reality.

Small houses the same mess is confined to a smaller area so seems worse IMO.

I alternate the rooms I clean, so rooms that don’t often get used get cleaned less often than the rest of the house. Same for toilets. We have a guest bedroom with an en-suite - I only clean that when someone comes to stay.

It takes longer to do a deep clean but day to day it’s fine.