What is it REALLY like to live in a Victorian house?

[WhereBeThatBlackbirdTo]

One day, in the far off distant future, we will be moving (once the children have left home and settled).

I was wandering around Rightmove yesterday, as usual, and realised that I seem to like the style of Victorian property more than any other era. This was a surprise to me, I always thought I'm a 1930's-semi kind of person

We have a 1950's house at the moment, double glazed, centrally heated, wood burner etc - all cosy and easy to run.

So - my question is - what is it really like to live in a Victorian property?

My heating bills are ok but the house is quite draughty and walls cold to touch, penetrating damp here and there, detected rising damp herr and there (not that I believe this concept), sloping floors, uneven walls.

On the positive good space and visually attractive.

Cold

My parents live in a Victorian semi, I grew up in it. small rooms, single glazing although they had a wood burner installed about 10 years ago so the front room at least is boiling!

Tbh it wouldnt be my house of choice but you can obv insulate them more now.
The plus sides are nice thick walls, sturdily built, huge garden but thats all I can think of!

Draughty! We have sash windows. They rattle a lot, and let in cold. I like Victorian design details tho, like high ceilings, picture rails, cornicing etc...

My experience was that they were cold and drafty. Nice room sizes & high ceilings.

Always thought we'd wind up in one but instead we bought a 1960s house. Pleased with our choice though it is not anywhere near as elegant as some Victorian houses can look.

Draughty and noisy - Victorian terrace.

Cold cold cold.

Also full of little gaps and holes for insects and mice.

They are nice to look at, but to make them pleasant to live in you should budget a fair amount for insulation and heating costs.

Depends! Ours has double glazed timber sash windows and is almost as warm as a new build. We also insulated our loft when we converted it which I also think makes a big difference.

The light is lovely through large bay windows. The rooms can be small though many Victorian houses have knocked through the two front reception rooms which improves the sense of space.

Ours has enormous ceilings which is lovely and I think the Victorian period detailing is really charming.

Cold and damp! I have never seen so much damp, mould and mildew!
It is gorgeous though.

Had to replace all windows and cost a fortune. Nice and light though. Small garden and room layout not great. Moved to a 30s semi which suits us better.

Ours is lovely and cosy but we did spend quite a lot on loft insulation and making sure the sash windows close and seal properly, also chimney balloons and other things to minimised drafts.

Love the look of Victorian houses, love the room sizes and the details too.

You can draftproof and secondary glaze - they don't need to be cold. There is often damp though, for various reasons, eg old chimneys, or lack of dpc combined with mending with inappropriate materials so moisture can't escape.

Every old house I've lived in has been nice and cool in the summer during heatwaves (not that that happens often....)

My house was built is 1900 so Edwardian not Victorian? Not sure.

Anyway it's a semi. Rooms are small but whole house quite big. There's a huge hallway that everyone admires coming into the house. The high ceilings & ornate cornices, architraves, skirting and other original features really make the house look lovely.

Previous owners installed white double glazing which I appreciate is not ideal but from a heat & noise protection perspective is perfect. House is cosy and doesn't cost a fortune to heat.

I forgot to mention slugs that always find their way in :)

Can be cold and draughty. Ours is ok as we have new radiators and boiler. Pipes tend to clang, everything creaks a lot and if like ours your house is on a hill, then some of the features are on the piss.
It's lovely and cool in the summer, and full of the lovely little features that I tend to take for granted, until someone else comes in and admires the high ceilings, fireplaces etc.
Oh and the bastard slugs, I hate them. Copper tape around the windows helped a bit, I need to redo ours though as I have found snail trails in the dining room.

freezing in winter, baking upstairs in summer, and an absolute sponge for money. Oh yes, and slugs. We looked into getting timber double glazed sash windows and were quoted around £2.5 - £3K per window! We didn't do it. (Doing anything else would I think devalue our house quite a bit.) Long, narrow living style, which can be a bit odd.

I don't think I'd live in one again, but finding a more modern house with comparable-sized rooms is hard. We have 3 double bedrooms and a large through lounge, haven't seen anything more modern that isn't 2 doubles and a box room (though we did see a beautiful Edwardian house which was just perfect and DH hasn't stopped going on about ever since)

Cold, draughty, can be lots of narrow rooms, noisy as you hear your neighbours, lots of maintenance of leaky roofs and sash windows. Until I was 40 I had always lived in them now I'm cosy and warm and my DH is doing far less DIY. Only miss the high ceilings.

We used to rent one, looked beautiful but the slugs coming up through the restored bare floorboards every night had me running upstairs before 10pm. Huge heating bills from the drafts. Wonky floors meant our cheap flatpacked furniture tore apart over time. We ended up evening things up using old paperbacks under furniture legs and a spirit level. We bought a 1970s detached house and don't miss the Victorian house at all

we used to need a ladder to change the lightbulbs as the ceilings were so high

I was raised in one until adulthood.

It is cold, draughty and dusty. I am never satisfied in anything less than an enormous room.

The high ceilings look lovely, but obviously make your rooms about 1/3 bigger again(in volume) which obviously affects the heating bill.

Well made though, thick walls, no problem with sound insulations although are problems getting wi-fi down 2 floors from the router some of the time.

Lots of space. Lovely to look at. We do get slugs coming in to the hall through the nooks and crannies, which I can see would horrify some people.
Lovely big garden (here, anyway, I guess some smaller terraces might not). Parking can often be a problem, as of course people didn't have cars when they were built.

Cold. Spacious. Beautiful features. Massive windows.

No right angles anywhere ;-)

Sash windows, which look lovely but can be expensive to maintain.

I grew up in a large ish Victorian house.
Bloody cold!

mine is cold, but it's a really tiny semi so bills not too bad.
the house has had damp in the past, although not on our watch

thick walls are good for insulating against neighbour noise

we've got lovely high ceilings, cornicing, and sash windows, so it's very pretty.

the wonky floors and walls drive me crazy though. and we get little movement cracks. nothing indicating serious subsidence/heave, just the seasonal expansion and contraction that houses of the period often experience.