Grade 2 listed house permissions

[Sleepyk]

Hi all

we are due to exchange on our house which is full of damp, needs rewiring throughout and have heating put in oh and decorate! We love it though! My DH called the local council to speak to the conservation people and she told him we would need to apply for permission to do anything and it can take 8 weeks to get an answer!! We have to move in by end of Aug tho..was she just talking nonsense? If we just went ahead and did the essentials could they ask us to un do what we have done!

here you go beetle info

you already love this building, embrace the techniques that it will respond to and your love for it will only grow :)

Cotswolds no, Epsom in Surrey!

spab info on damp

familiarising yourself with thsi sort of thing will ensure that your LBC application proceeds smoothly and as another poster said, by the time you've sourced your materials / workmen and got yourself ready your consent will be through and you'll be ready to go

We don't want to make it all shiny and new looking but we just want it to be nice! No damp, have CH etc

Conservation officers are meant to be realistic about houses needing to be made liveable to be preserved - mine has been very pragmatic so far. There can't be too many houses where you really can't have central heating etc, they will just want to make sure you go about it the right way.

absolutely countess beneficial reuse is the aim. being lived in and loved is what will ensure survival for another 200 years. no one wants, or expects you to be uncomfortable or to live without heating or safe wiring. but achieving those things has to be done in the correct way, and that incudes gaining listed building consent

I will speak to them tomorrow myself...My husband was very despondent after talking to her on the phone as he found her very robotic and unhelpful. You have all been extremely helpful and have all had different experiences so that's a comfort in a way!

i don't want to bang on (much) but she is undoubtedly overworked and underpaid. she probably gets 23926796 calls each day from people saying 'i've got a listed building, what am i allowed to do' - thing is it's so individual to specific properties and dependent on so many things.

approach her with specific questions i.e i've got an 1880's grade ii listed rectory designed by built of with (show you know what you've got and what makes it special - thus giving her a basic idea of what you're both working with). We will be asking for consent to do X, Y and Z, if i email you some pictures and specifications can you give me some guidance and and advice on a, b and c'. make sure you're aiming for something productive.

do as much research, so you sound informed as you possibly can, look up the list description (though it'll probably be only a few lines), look at the Victoria County History (lots is online now) and learn why your building is considered important. it might just be group / setting value, in which case interior alteration will be far less onerous than if it were, say, the last surviving example of a specific, indiginous kind of vernaclular architecture in materials only used within a 10 mile radius

sorry, boring, long, preachy

good luck, it'll be an amazing adventure :)

Good luck! It can be frustrating when they are vague.
It is brilliant that your dh is a builder - just what you need. If he doesn't have experience with relevant techniques (eg lime) he can learn. It will be a brilliant experience and even if you do have to move in before you have heating at least it will be summer!

when i called my planning office they took my address, looked it up on the system and gave me a good idea of what i could and couldn't do

If you can afford it, it might be worth talking to an independent conservation specialist who will be able to give you an idea what can and can't be nodded through in your home and the best courses of treatment for things such as damp. Ime, local authority conservation officers can be (a) overstretched (b) not that helpful. Ultimately you will need to apply through the LA for permissions but having an expert on your side from the outside will make the process slightly less painful.

Thank you all...My DH has gone to bed with his head in his hands Im still trying to unpick all this before we exchange!!

What is the work you want to do op? It might be helpful to list it here and figure out what it entails? We can advise as well- could be useful before you speak to the conservation officer.

But please do think about this hard before you exchange- if you are not on board with having to apply for permission and undertake work in a traditional way, or living with the property as it is, it might not be the house for you.

There is a listed building property owners club which may help. And you really do need to befriend your conservation officer - work with her and not against her.

Hi

We want to sort out the damp, put in CH, rewire and decorate...its not too much is it? Oh and get rid of the woodworm....

Ok- damp. What is it you want to do exactly to sort it? Where is the damp and do you know the cause?

Woodworm- is it currently active? Are you thinking of spraying or replacing affected wood?

Decoration- again, this may not be an issue provided that you won't be taking off skirting boards, corn icing, fireplaces etc. any replatsering will need to be done like for like (usually lime mortar).

Replacement kitchens etc don't usually need listed building consent, but you should double check.

We're in a listed building and I am afraid you are most likely going to have to live with a certain amount of damp. In my experience, if you get rid of the damp, you will introduce condensation and mould issues. Of course, it depends where the damp is and how you propose to deal with it but putting in modern materials (like damp proofing and "weatherproof" paints), can do more harm than good.

The biggest issue I have found has been finding tradesmen that can work with the traditional materials - lime plaster, oak beams etc.

As others have said, you need to be very specific with the conservation officer, work with her rather than against her, and ideally put things in writing.

I don't see it as living with damp so much as using traditional methods to keep it at bay. If dealing with damp means sealing moisture out then yes, you can't, but my Georgian house isn't a damp place to live and walls, books etc aren't damaged by damp (my old house was damp and I know what it's like). Moisture comes up through the walls (I don't mean it's noticeable but AFAIK it's there), it escapes through the lime plaster and mortar, I open the windows and it is blown away, all is as it should be! I believe this is one reason why people writing about locations of houses in the past talked so much about places being healthy or unhealthy - some places are just harder to ventilate.

Since actually moving into our house (c1600) the damp has decreased which I'm sure is mostly down to having a bit of heating on and opening the windows on a nice day! It's great at the moment!!
Winter is the worst time. The kitchen and downstairs bathroom floors are quarry tiles placed directly on the earth and so get cold and damp and a sort of "bloom" on them, but with the heating on and a window cracked open a bit it seems to subside.
The stairs are made of brick, and the bottom two levels can get a bit damp, but again dependent on the time of year and the weather.
Like Rockdoctor says, you do learn to live with a certain amount of damp. Although I have never got to the bottom of a 50p sized patch of it halfway up an internal wall??

I work in Estate Agency and we sell a lot of Grade II listed houses. If you develop a good relationship with your local office and work with them you can do a lot to a listed house. I haven't seen any old houses round here that dont have central heating, some have secondary double g lazing (done very well and not noticeable) and I've seen walls knocked down between rooms etc. All done with consent to open up and modernise houses. It can be done.

I agree Bilbodog. It's a myth that you can't ever do anything. My house used to be a care home and the owners were allowed to do a lot - divide rooms, knock down the Victorian kitchen extension to make a (very stylish and sympathetic) new one, and lots of things to meet increasingly stringent fire regs like some new doors and replacing the brass door furniture with plastic (grr). Though I do see the point of the saying that you should never buy a listed building unless you're willing to live in it as it is, because you never know what you will get permission for and what you won't, and all it takes is a change of conservation officer before your permission comes through to mess up your plans.
I thought mine was going to say I couldn't have secondary glazing if it meant removing the brass sash lifters but actually she reckoned the trade off was worth it.

Girlandboy I wonder if it's a patch of an impurity in the building material that is deliquescent. Or even not damp at all but salting caused by the same thing.

TheCountess - we have no idea! But I've been watching it reappear on and off for 16 years now. It's on a stone wall that's been plastered with horsehair plaster, and then painted. It can go a couple of years with nothing happening, and then the paint blows off! It peels and bubbles, the plaster puffs up and feels damp to the touch and then disappears again. Maybe it's something in the plaster?
It's a mystery