Going to see a rural house to rent this week and wondering about a few things

[itsvampirina]

Seeing a listed rural house this week.
Rentals round here are going off the markets in hours in my price range. This house is much bigger than anything else we can currently afford. However I think it's because there's a few extra things we need to consider.
There's a septic tank. What on Earth do I need to consider for these?
It's oil heated so from what I can gather I need to get a fair price on oil and order it in advance?
Anything else we need to consider?

The size of the garden if you rent. We rented a gorgeous cottage with a huge garden that was an extension of the field. As renters you are expected to maintain the garden and all that comes with it - bushes/trees/huge thistles to name a few possibilities.
Will the landlord maintain the log burners and chimneys?
Your nearest local shop might be quite a drive away and you will need to be organized to ensure you're not constantly spending lots on petrol!
We also really liked that our long driveway was gravel as we were so remote, we knew we'd hear even the faintest footsteps.
Try and time your winter oil delivery right to order when prices are still low...
As PP said is your car suited to rural living? Mine was but my husbands was a sports car and the suspension and tracking was not healthy after dealing with rural roads!
And honestly, the flies in the summer...horrendous. And trust me, lavender does not help as everyone tells you!!

Re your boiler - check it is regularly maintenance - ask for invoice/evidence re it's most recent service as when I was renting, it was an old doddery thing that kept breaking down, and used far more fuel than it should have.
Also, if there isn't a padlock on the oil tank cap - fit one - and make sure only you have the key.

Agree to buying oil in Summer months.

Check the Council tax band too as I found it more expensive than the equivalent (2 beds) in a town house.

You will need to stock up on non perishable food for winter - I got snowed in for 3 weeks the first year in mine and had to live on chick peas!

Places like www.boilerjuice.com are useful to get an idea of how oil prices fluctuate. We had to fuel up in the winter after we moved in and it was quite a shock. Prices were very low in May so we topped right up. Local companies will sometimes match or beat the prices on sites like this.

Oil is really cheap at the moment. Or at least it was a few weeks ago when we filled our tank. I think we paid about 25p a litre. We didn't really need to to be honest as we'd used so little recently due to the good weather, but we are in a cooperative and when the email came round with the price it would have been stupid not to brim the tank. I think it was the cheapest its been for at least 5 years. Its been nearly 60p at times. (Dont forget there's 5%VAT on domestic heating oil though and prices are often quoted without.)So unless you aren't sure you will be staying, I would definitely fill the tank now. It might be worth getting someone to check the condition of the tank before you fill though, especially if its old.
Also, I wouldn't sign up with a company for regular deliveries if I were you. We have a few friends who do this because its convenient. You don't even need to book delivery with some companies as they monitor your tank and fill it up. But it comes at a price. Even before we joined a co-op we always shopped around and played the various companies off against each other and you can save a lot that way. Its like renewing car insurance. If you go with an automatic renewal you never get as good a deal as if you swap company every time so it pays to shop around. Boilerjuice is a good website for monitoring prices but I wouldn't buy from there as they are quite expensive in our experience. Local companies are usually cheaper.

Septic tanks, meh, people make a fuss about them and freak out a bit if they aren't used to the idea, but as long as you are sensible, you won't even know its there. Do check chemicals are septic tank friendly, but most are so its not a major issue. We have only has one problem in 20 years, which was when my sister in law came to stay for a while when her children were small and despite getting our usual "nothing down the loo except wee, poo and paper" warning she decided that baby wipes counted as paper. Though to be honest that's all that should be going into mains sewers anyway, and people are a lot more clued up nowadays about that kind of thing. The other thing to be careful with is kitchen fat. We drain all ours off into empty bottles before we wash frying pans etc and then they eventually go into the refuse. Again, everyone should probably do this anyway, whatever kind of drains they have, but you definitely don't want a fatberg in your septic tank. But with a few simple precautions you shouldn't notice anything different to having mains sewerage. It is wise to ask the letting agents when it was last emptied and if its a while, see if they will do it before you move in as it costs a couple of hundred pounds. People often say it should be done yearly, but we never have. We get ours done every 2 or 3 years on average. It will depend on how big the tank is and how big your family is though. Check with the agents whose responsibility that is, and whether there is anything in the contract that specifies how often it needs doing. I guess its different for a rental property- if we leave ours too long its our own look out, but I suppose when the house belongs to someone else you might have to be more careful.

I would see if you can talk to other people who live nearby to see if there are any issues that you might need to be aware of, like the frequency of power cuts especially in the winter, quality of broadband and mobile signal, if any of the local roads tend to flood, and what the council are like with gritting the roads.

Hope that helps a bit and that everything works out for you. We moved from a major city to a rural area 20 years ago now and I would never go back by choice. We are not ultra isolated but its about 20 mins drive to nearest proper shops and there are no real facilities in our village. No pub, no public transport. There's a tiny shop/post office in the next village though, and a pub in the village in the other direction. There are downsides, but more pluses in my opinion. As long as you know what to expect and are reasonably self sufficient you will be fine. Probably the biggest issue I had at first was the need to be organised with shopping etc. You can't just nip to the shops if you've forgotten something or pop to the cashpoint etc like you can in an urban area, but that's fine once you get used to it. Happy to help if you have any questions about our experiences.

Mice are no more inevitable in a rural property than cockroaches are in cities! Put poison down (inside only) and keep it topped up. No further problem.
We had rats (outside) once, but a couple bait boxes and a good tidy up and they moved on.
Bats are only “difficult to get rid of” because they are protected and therefore it’s illegal to disturb them (let alone “get rid” of them. They really shouldn’t cause you any damage.
If you think it might work, then as you’re renting, so give it a go and see?
Septic tank & oil no problem.

Thank you. Oh yes we are going to have to change our singular car to 2x something that goes over the mile long dirt track to the house! I'm almost ashamed to be turning up to the viewing in the current car, in fact I am yet to go down the road because we felt it better to preserve the thin sports tyres for the viewing when we attempted to see it from afar prior to our viewing this week. 
However, we want to buy a house in a radius of this area and we think this would be a great opportunity to test the waters on out the way living instead of making a big mistake if we buy without trying.
Reviewing our lifestyles we realised we're actually not very exciting people and do enjoy being at home. We've had 3 takeaways so far this year two in the last two weeks and we both wfh. Internet is the one thing we must have so will definitely check that.
With regards to how rural. It is basically the sole house in a radius of about two miles of fields. The village is about two miles away so not cut off from everything. Actually I must check where the hospital is not that we need it but always best to check I suppose. And great idea re a medical kit.

And @MrsAvocet thank you so much for your rather epic post. I will go back and read that in the morning.

We order oil in ££££

So say £300 a pop twice a year

It’s generally around that amount but a bit like filling your car!

It’s half the cost of gas and works well

However - if it also heats the water ask if there’s is an electric override if the boiler fails for some reason

You can live without heating but not hot water!

Log burners are ace you need to set it up each morning ready to go on a cold day ... worth the effort for a quick light later

Logs should be less than 20% moisture to be efficient

Septic tanks which are working properly do not need to be emptied.

Keep an eye on your oil usage, and make sure you don’t run out in the winter.

www.ukdpsolutions.co.uk/blog/when-to-empty-a-septic-tank-and-how

Water drains away. Solid matter does not. If you never empty your tank you either have a massive tank for few people or it’s leaking into the environment.

Put a monitor on your oil tank and it can be refilled automatically. No need to keep an eye on then.

Have you got kids?

You will be the in-house taxi service.

Rural living can make kids very dependent on parents til they are 17 and you have to shell out for a car for them. No public transport, windy roads with no pavements...

I hated having to use the car to buy a pint of milk, in the heart of nature (and agribusiness) but needing to be so car reliant.

We have moved rurally, inherited a house. Best thing we ever did, selling up and moving here. No neighbours, big big garden, space to roam, we love it. We have made friends with the nearest neighbours which is nice, and get random things left on our door step! Once a month we meet for a meal and drinks which is nice.

I can’t help with the tank! But you had some good advice. Ours goes to the farm at the back of us and they deal with it.

Oil tanks - make sure you have the boiler serviced regularly, and oil is really cheap at the moment, I normally look on boiler juice for a quote then phone a couple of companies to see what they can offer normally buying from the company direct is cheaper, but last time I got 500litres of oil for £104, before that I paid £340 for 750litres. But boiler juice let you build up a credit so to speak which is always really helpful. I normally just pay £40 into a bank account and use that.

Make sure you are well stocked on milk and bread, I had always lived in a town with big supermarkets less than a 5 minutes drive so for the first few weeks was always running out of milk.

Took me a while to get used to how dark it can be! Some nights it’s literally pitch black, can’t see the wall outside the front of the house. No streetlights here and no foot paths I’ve invested in a good torch and head torch, for when I’m walking the dogs.

Get used to mice/bats/owls. We have all of those here, also the house spiders are 4 x the size of ones we used to have.

Also keep your car filled with diesel/petrol everything seems so much further away than you think!!

If you have a log burner get a decent stock of wood it’s been our first winter here and I was amazed at how much wood we burnt. Good tip about having it ready to light!

It’s certainly very different from being in a big town which we came from but we love it and are unlikely to move again.

........also the house spiders are 4 x the size of ones we used to have

Putting oil tank monitor on list definitely seems a good plan.
@ComeBy yes one 6yo. We've only used online food deliveries since lockdown began so am going to check that will still be possible. I haven't been to a shop since March (!)
I will have the school run though. Have not missed that. We drive to school anyway but the road conditions will definitely make it more difficult I'm sure.

@MistyIsland to inherit a lovely home how wonderful! We've no such luck unfortunately.
Actually I'm rethinking all of this on your mention of spiders perhaps I'm safer in a town after all.
I can handle the no light pitch black, the ladybirds, the mice maybe even the rats. But spiders. If I see one bigger than average it could well be a dealbreaker.
Did I mention the property also has a cellar which the estate agent appear to have conveniently not photographed...

@itsvampirina I swear it’s the wooden beams they live in them, no amount at using the dyson seems to get rid of them I’m not that fussed by them and the dogs seem to like eating them so just let them carry on!

Yes we are very lucky, even tho it’s a wreck (liveable) just needs lots of work doing to it. Will eventually get around to it.

This house has beams a plenty
🕷🕷

We have a septic tank and get a discount on our council tax because of it.
Be worth checking to see if you can.

Oil is a really good price at the moment so I'd fill up the tank to take advantage.

Get some oil cans so if you can't get a delivery for some reason you can top up using those. We got our emergency oil from a petrol station.

The smallest amount of oil a tanker will deliver is 200l.

I think you are worrying about the wrong things.

septic tank just needs to be treated the same way as normal drainage - nothing down the toilet except body waste and toilet paper, nothing down the sink except water and washing up liquid. If you stuff up then YOU pay the penalty rather than the water company picking up the pieces as happens on mains drainage.

a non-shared tank should only need emptying every few years provided you aren't chucking bleach around, which you shouldn't be doing anyway. You clean toilets with jif and a brush/scrubber.

oil is often cheaper per unit heat than gas (certainly at the moment). No silly gadgets needed, the tank comes with a sight gauge. Pull out the knob at the bottom (that is important) to see the actual level. The tank will be marked with its capacity in litres, you can see roughly how full it is and therefore work out what the top up will cost. Don't join regular schemes, keep an eye on price via the boilerjuice price charts. And then buy directly from the supplier as boilerjuice charge extra.

what you do need to worry about:

• grade II listed. Does the EPC make it legal to rent? Happy with how cold it might be?
• oil boilers must be serviced annually. Will your landlord do that?
• there's no equivalent of gas safe regs for oil, so ask how old the boiler it is, when it was serviced
• with log burners you must have a CO detector
• mile long dirt track; fun fun fun...
• broadband speed
• mobile reception will be chancy
• don't put a padlock on the oil tank, if they want to steal oil they just put a hole in it.

a postcode search will tell you about location of facilities - doctor, dentist (hah!), hospital and so on. Keeping a basic first aid kit and food reserves is common sense anyway.

If you have an Oil Club, join it. I always check on Boiler Juice as well and the Oil Club is always cheaper. Always! If you do go for it, fill the oil tank up, oil is very cheap at the moment but the prices are creeping up again (you get a weekly email with the oil club price).

We’ve had mice in the attic and we did have one in the kitchen but we’ve never seen or caught any elsewhere in the house, and a couple of mousetraps dealt with them. We’ve found a few dead rats in the garden but none in the house! We do get birds nesting in the loft, there’s a loose tile and every year we forget to fix it until our feathery lodgers have made themselves at home again 🙄 One day, we’ll get round to it... we do get the off beetle bimbling around the carpet, cockchafers falling down the chimney in summer and some fricking massive spiders scuttling around come the autumn, which is not my favourite thing... the latter being the main downside, I think, in terms of house-based wildlife.

Think about things like mobile signals, there’s only one network that gets a really good signal at our village and you might not even get that. Ditto broadband speeds, ours are actually pretty good but they struggle a bit in the village itself. Also think about necessities like a local shop - we have a good village shop with a post office, a GP and a primary school down in the village. It made a real difference when the Beast from the East hit, being able to get to a shop (although it took me 45 minutes to do what would normally be a 20 minute walk!). Since then, we have made sure to keep a small stockpile of essentials in to keep us ticking over for a while.

I love where we live and I wouldn’t want to move. We have a lovely little community. We swap plants, fruit and veg with our neighbours, another neighbour dropped off free eggs during lockdown, and the church kept leaving little arts and crafts kits for DS too. Our wedding bunting has been put onto long term loan for village events, and the school friends group does all sorts of fundraising things. We can also step out of our garden gate straight onto a footpath - no roads.

Thought of more - buy a chest freezer and fill it with essentials (bread, milk, butter, packs of veg, and such). I love mine and it seems to freeze colder than my fridge freezer.

Get a cat to deal with any spiders 😂😂😂

Check what happens with the waste collection - I have to push my bins to the road because the bin lorry can't get up my street. A friend on a local farm has to drop them at the end of their drive, and I've heard of areas where the council doesn't collect the waste.

@itsvampirina did you view the rural house? Did you like it?

Padlock your oil tank or tie an alsation to it.

I went this morning! It is actually currently empty which I didn't realise.

I found:
Lots and lots of dead ladybirds and flies trapped between the secondary glazing and windows
A great fear of opening any cupboards after the first one I opened had several big spiders crawl everywhere when I opened it

I loved loved loved the views. So nice out in the open. We have to fill the oil if we move in, although there's some left, responsible for the septic tank but apparently usually is emptied once a year and will be emptied before we move in.
There is a wonderful giant fireplace in it (I'm no expert but you can stand in it)
Me and dh stood there for ages wondering how we felt. We loved it and dh was brought up in these kind of houses but we are so scared of regretting going for this over a modern 'easier' place. I much prefer this old rickety farm house to modern homes but it is hard, thinking about inviting people over and them navigating a pitch black lane as well!.

Also the bins do not come up the lane so that's another added joy.

One thing we were also concerned about was the security being so out the way. We think we are going to go for it but I'm waiting for dh to stop working and we are going to sit down and go over everything.
Estate agents said the landlord wants to make sure whoever moved in is serious and will fit 'with the property ?!' so they will be reviewing all applications. So no idea if we are even in with a chance anyway!

Did I mention I actually let out a scream after opening the cupboard
Oh the shame!🕷🕷🕷