Could someone talk to me about thatched cottages please. :-)

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, I've seen a grade 2 listed thatched cottage for sale, which is in need of a new thatched roof fairly soon. I've heard that they cost about fifteen to twenty thousand pound. How long do they then last?
I'm also worried about the fire risk, as the property has 4 open fires, and it's very easy to set a chimney on fire. (Well, it is for me.)

Any advice or information would be brilliant.
Thank you.

Hi mummyloveslucy, I live in a thatched Grade II listed cottage so might have some answers for you.
Cost of thatch depends on size of roof (obviously). Brace yourself: we live in a 3-bedroomed house and to replace the roof and ridge (bit along the top) would cost £30,000. Quite often the roof wears at different rates, so you don't have to replace it all at once. The ridge and the side of the roof met by the prevailing wind will age faster than the rest.
A thatched roof lasts for up to 30 years so it's worth getting it done properly. Chances are the property you're interested in was thatched locally, so ring the thatching company and ask how much it would cost to replace.
If you have a fireplace (open fire or woodburner) you will need to have the chimney lined. If the property currently has fires, this should have been done already as insurers tend to insist on it. Once a chimney has been lined (it's a metal tube that gets poked down the chimney) you are pretty much guaranteed NOT to have a chimney fire. Your surveyor should find out if the chimneys are lined. If they aren't, it's something you might be able to negotiate off the price because it is absolutely essential if you want working chimneys.
I'd recommend that you find out how much the annual insurance costs from the current owners. We pay over £1,000 a year, and only have two functioning fireplaces. We have chosen to seal off the third fireplace so save on insurance (costs go up with number of fireplaces). You will be required to have a very detailed electrical inspection, so be prepared to budget for electrical work after you move in. Only a few insurance companies will deal with thatched houses. I recommend NFU or a specialist thatched house insurer.
I hope this is helpful.

That's very helpful, thank you. Wasn't banking on the roof costing that much every 30 years. We wouldn't have any money left over from the sale of our house to do anything other than the roof. It needs total renovation including kitchen, bathrooms, windows, electrics etc. I'd want fire proof sheeting in the roof too. I'll have to find out how much the chimneys cost to line. Lots to think about, thank you for your help.

Hello again!

I've got out our invoice from having the chimneys lined and it cost £2,000 to have two chimneys lined, including labour and all materials. The liners themselves are not the expensive part. Once the liner is in place, the rest of the chimney has to be filled with vermiculite (a bit like cat litter) to provide further fire protection. Our chimneys are moderately wide (I could probably wriggle up them if I had to) and we needed 16 bags of vermiculite costing a total of £300.

However, on top of the £2,000 we had to spend a little under £1,000 on scaffolding, because obviously you can't crawl around on a thatched roof like you can on a tiled roof. The lining job itself only took a day and a half, with just one chimney sweep, but the scaffolding stayed up longer because it was provided by a separate company on a different schedule. We also had to have nearby electrical lines sheathed in case the chimney sweep touched them and fried, but your local electrical power will do this for free.

Yes, you will definitely need fireboards underneath the roof. Like the chimney liners, these aren't massively expensive in themselves, but are a bit of a faff in terms of labour.

If you are not being pressured to make an offer on the house, I highly recommend that you contact the Conservation Officer local to the property. They will need to be your best friend if you are planning to do so much as change a lightbulb! You can chat to them informally, tell them your ideas for the property, and ask about any grants that are available for the work you plan to do. It's the best way to find out whether you are going to be able to make the house as you want it to be without encountering issues with the Grade II listing. We actually pulled out of a property after making an offer because we spoke to the local Conservation Officer and had every single idea for renovation turned down.

The one other thing I wanted to warn you about is that you will almost certainly have to insure your house for more than its commercial value. Our house would cost £100,000 more than the sale price to rebuild because the materials and construction methods have to be authentic. This can make your insurance costs even more eye-watering! You need to ask your surveyor to provide a rebuild value, not just the drive-by value usually required by a mortgage company. Rebuild values are calculated on the size of a house, but bizarrely, the size of your house will not be the sum total of the room square footage. It has to include the walls as well, and in the case of a thatched cottage with super-thick walls, these can take up several hundred square feet.

I will stop hurling information at you now and leave you in peace, but please ask if you have any other queries. I am not an expert by any means but I have had a crash course in thatched house/listed building ownership, and learned some hard lessons!

Hi mummyloveslucy

I have been reading the correspondence above and could I suggest the following if you don't mind? If you can send me a few photos of the property or a link to the estate agents photos to [email protected] I will give you a ballpark figure for thatching work which may be either a re-ridge and repair or a total re-thatch. Also look at my guide to buying a thatched property on my site at www.thatching.net.

Thank you so much. We had another look at it yesterday and have decided not to go ahead. There is an electric power station next door to the property's garden and it'd need far too much work. My DH saw loads of things I didn't notice. :-( It was a lovely house but just in the wrong area and in need of too much work.
Thank you for all your info of thatched roofs. Now I know what's involved, I wouldn't be totally put off if we find another one. :-)