Anyone live in a 3 storey house?

[jgm]

I've seen a couple of houses for sale that are 3 storey detached - both are built on hills so are 2 storey at the front and 3 storey at the back (or vice versa). Apart from the obvious what are the negatives and positives? I'm thinking things like long way down to let the dog out for a wee / make a cuppa in the morning? Taller shadow over the garden? Carrying shopping in from the car to the kitchen? But more square footage / rooms than similar priced 2 storey houses.

I have a 5 storey eco haus - very small footprint and lots of stairs! Upside, awesome views, lots of light and way more space than we could have afforded otherwise. Going up and down stairs becomes normal very quickly and you learn to carry things with you. Foresee it will really come into its own when DC want more privacy as teens as they can then have a bedroom/bathroom each. Down sides - heat differential. That top floor gets real hot - we have the balcony doors ajar most of the time.

We used to and it was like a traditional two storey semi from the front and three storeys at the back. It had a massive garage with a steeply sloping drive. The cellar space was great - a big storage room, an office which could be used as a bedroom and a utility room. The issue was the small kitchen which meant lots of stuff was stored in the cellar and we had to have the fridge freezer down there and an under counter fridge in the kitchen. There was also no access to the garden from the main living floor without going through the cellar. We decided against extending and moved to a house with a bigger kitchen when we moved area. We have an attic bedroom and office in this one and it works much better.

Theg00dwife re - being hot on top floor - for winter have the radiators on top floor set much lower than the lower floors (we eventually found in ours, ground floor need radiators set to highest, middle floor radiators midway and top floor on lowest balanced the temperature across the 3 floors). In summer there's not really anything you can do though.

Ragwort that's fantastic! Hmmm hadn't thought about damp, I think the houses are 15-20 years old so maybe not so much of an issue? Seems people love them or hate them so maybe need to consider resale issues too... overall I think we'll go and look and see what feel we get for them. Thanks everybody!

As a child both the houses I mainly grew up in had 3 stories. First one had all the main rooms on the ground floor, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor and 2 bedrooms or 1 bedroom and 1 playroom on the second.

Second house was massive and basically the 1st floor could be a self contained flat having 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. That house had a bathroom on all 3 floors.

Anyway the only problem I can envision is kids getting to the bathroom at night tbh. Or elderly people getting up and down stairs. Never had any problems with it. Loved having our own floor as kids.

Oh and I'm thinking alexa's on each floor for calling the kids for dinner etc!

We have a townhouse with 4 floors: lower ground (garden level, kitchen and dining room), ground (street level, living room and study), first floor (two bedrooms and bathroom) and second floor (master bedroom and shower room).

Advantages: it gives us a 3 bedroom house in an expensive area at an affordable price, since the footprint of the house is the same as a single-storey 2-bed.

Disadvantages: hard to move furniture in, hard to supervise young children, 3 staircases so not great for toddlers or anyone with mobility issues. When our son was younger we had to have six stairgates which got pretty annoying...

I have lived in two three storey houses and absolutely loved both.

Biggest pro is there is lots more internal space for your money which is so handy when you have kids and they have loads of toys and want to have space to run around even on wet days. Also it's much easier for people to feel like they have their own space when the kids get older or you have guests

Biggest con is probably gaining access to outside space can be trickier. It can be a pain when you have a first floor lounge and kitchen to not be able to just open a door and go outside, but honestly it's not that big of a deal.

Our house is in US, it has two air conditioning units that manage different levels of the house, so one unit isn't trying to manage the temp for the whole house.

We have built up decking on one level and direct garden entrance on another.

I think it depends on your health. If you are prone to arthritis or have bad knees, I wouldn't do it. If you have arthritis in your family, I also wouldn't do it. I had great knees until I had twins in our 3 story home. It's not just cups of tea that you have to think about, but also laundry, and if you have babies, nappies and rubbish.

Our lounge was on the first floor and every time you have a treat, a packet of crisps, candy or whatever, you need to carry that wrapper downstairs. Every time you want a cup of tea, you go downstairs, you forget your biscuit, you go back downstairs etc etc. You carry dirty clothes down 3 flights, then you need to take it back up 3 flights. Eventually your knee starts cracking or your landing becomes a dumping ground for things that need to go up or down.

It also gets very hot, but i suppose this depends on where you are. We had a ceiling fan in every room and we had to use them a lot. Our house was semi detached so that probably contributed to it.

On the positive, you will have so much space. You will have an extra lounge space so you can have different rooms to watch tv if you don't agree. You can store all that extra stuff, and the rooms are larger.

I would do it, if the main lounge I was using is on the same floor as the kitchen, otherwise I wouldn't.

We have three floors and Alexa is handy after all. I can see what people are up to in the kitchen and say ok bedtime if I’m upstairs with a sleeping baby

I find it hard work carrying a 9 month old but it would be ok other than that

Always take something up and down

No health issues here, but it was a total PITA going up and down stairs in order to cook a meal.

storeys

We have 3 storeys at front and 2 at back. No issues. We use the ground floor reception space as a study so the remaining layout is then standard ie, no split living. We do have toilets on each level tho - that’s a must

@jgm don't worry too much about damp, chances are if it is quite a modern houses it will be fine. My damp isn't a huge problem, but more the fact it is old and they hadn't invented DPCs then . A survey would pick it up and chances are you'd see/smell it.

I have family in a four storey house.

One thing I would say is that staying in such a house is not just a case of "get a stairlift". We had great difficulty finding a company that was able to manufacture and install one that was so long with any level of success. Thankfully there's a loo on almost every floor to reduce accidents.

Pro tip: don't retire to a three or four storey house. It ain't worth it.

We have a 5 year old 3 storey eco house - kitchen / diner / family room and wet room on the ground floor, master with en suite, family bathroom and sitting room on the middle floor and two bedrooms and a bathroom at the top. It’s designed so that you can install a lift from the ground floor to the master if you need to. And a ventilation / heat recovery system does help to circulate the air as the top floor can get warm.

So it can work in retirement if it’s been future proofed a bit.

Our house is like this!

We didn't use the lounge on the middle floor so ended up using it as a bedroom and the DC have a lounge/music room on the top floor instead.

We live in the semi basement kitchen/dining/family room.

Dog is crate trained so sleeps in kitchen - never been a hassle to let her out for a wee!

Ours is built into a hill but we got the tanking/basement converted ourselves. It survived Storm Desmond the back up battery to sump pump kicked in when we had the 6 day power cut!

I rented a 3 storey house for 18 months I (naively) didn’t anticipate it being a pain before I moved in and just was pleased I’d found a big house with lots of toilets .... but
(Ground floor had toilet, utility, garage and “bedroom”; middle floor had kitchen and lounge, top floor had three bedrooms two bathrooms)

• pain having to go up or down to toilet when in lounge
• pain when having a bbq to have to upstairs to get food
• pain when you get to the front door and realise you’ve left something you need in your bedroom
• pain having to take shopping upstairs
• can’t just let (young) kids play in the garden when you’re in the kitchen as it’s a whole trek away (plus my kitchen was at the front my garden at the back).

I hated it and vowed never again.

I grew up in a tall, thin 4 storey house. Think about the distribution of toilets if you have children!

We sold a townhouse recently and found it quite hard to sell, a lot of viewers didn't like stairs. I would only buy one again if all living accommodation was on the ground floor, and if I couldn't afford the same number of rooms in a two storey house for a particular area.

We sold because we found the living space where we spent the majority of time in seemed too small, whilst upstairs we had huge bedrooms but they seemed relatively underused. We also had a small narrow garden which meant any conversation in the garden was easily overheard by neighbours.

I have a three storey house.Downstairs living dining area and kitchen & dining (two separate spaces) and downstairs loo.
Middle floor three bedrooms and bathroom.
Top floor small bedroom used as a study ,large bedroom and a bathroom.
Didn’t worry us when kids were small as we just slept on the same floor as them.
Stairs are good exercise.