Talk to me about 1930s houses

[TinyTroubleMaker]

I'm trying hard to find a suitable house. First time buyer, one sale feel through last year. Hardly anything in the market in my area so little choice.

I've found a 1930s house, 3 bed. Took a look, solid build, very tastefully decorated in keeping with the period. Original fireplace and such. Reasonably recent electrics and boiler.

Is there anything I should be looking for, anything typical of this era, anything to watch out for?

Jumping on this thread too as we have just had an offer accepted on a 1930's 3 bed terraced house so interested in responses too

They tend, in my experience, to be well built if a little uninspired in the design stakes. Solid walls construction which is a huge bonus as far as I'm concerned and if the electrics checks out then generally they're trouble free.
Same with any house when you're looking though - go kick the tyres a bit, look for damp inside and out.
I bought a 1930's detached in 2007 and only moved out of it a couple years ago. Bloody great house it was!

Bought a 3 bed 1930s semi, which is now a four bed. And don't regret it.
Electrics- ours were very out of date and needed a full rewire.
I've found that when we've refurbished the house things were not up to current standards and therefore we've had increased cost when blending the 1930s house with an extension in order to pass building control.
However overall its a very solid house with plenty of ways to adapt living accommodation for individual needs.

Very happy with our 4 bed 1930s semi but, now we've done our first winter in it, I'd say - check the walls, floors and roof for insulation (or the energy efficiency rating) and think about what you'll need to budget for insulation. Ours is solid wall construction which means we're looking at £10k minimum to insulate the outside walls - and it needs it. May be less of an issue in a terrace.

The doors and windows have all been updated but it's still quite draughty - not something we noticed or were looking for when we viewed, but I wish I'd known. I'm still happy we moved here but probably would have offered a bit less to have budget for the necessary updates.

We re-wired and re-plumbed before we moved into ours. Other than that it's been solid. Maybe check the roof too.

Having lived in both I much prefer a 1930s house to a Victorian terrace: wider, squarer, airier.

Trying to rid myself of a 30s detached home!

It’s stunning, full of character, I’m sure it’s someone’s dream home.

But, freezing cold, never gets hot even when the brand new boiler is as high as it can go, constant problems with mold, damp, drafts, leaks etc that no one can get to the bottom of, structural issues which again, no one can get to the bottom of. All the houses in this cul-de-sac are the same, cracks and mold appearing, massive heating bills, even subsidence. Feel like demolishing and rebuilding and would if I could. It’s constant financial upkeep and constant strain and stress. Also, the house makes a lot of noise at night which is irritating. Massive buyers regret. Lived in a Victorian townhouse, a 1950s and 1970s semi. All with FAR superior construction. The 30s house has been the worst. 50s trailing behind it.

I live in a 30’s house - it’s solid as anything! Only thing I’d say is check the WiFi connection, ours struggles to get through some of the walls until we bought a fancy WiFi thingy (I’m not technically minded and can’t remember what it is!). Oh, and it’s a pain in the bum to hang pictures and stuff in the wall, takes serious effort to drill through.

Usually really solid - perhaps budget for damp and electric surveys as part of the buying process if you're concerned.

Depending on how you plan to use the house, the 3rd bedroom often has a bulkhead, so note that & where it is to see if its still a workable room.

As above pps have said, building regs weren't the same years ago - our kitchen had a tiny extension on it to extend beyond the back of the house - pulled up the grim lino in the kitchen to reveal beautiful the original quarry tiles - except you couldn't stand on them unless you were wearing shoes /slippers as there was (we now know) no insulation underneath.

Check out the (adjoined) neighbours. The walls are thick, but occasionally we can hear noise from next door.

Usually big plots, scope for extension. Love ours!

I've had two 1930's homes and they were both as solid as a rock although sadly neglected by previous owners.
Its impossible to put a picture up, you need a hammer drill because those walls are solid. Luckily I had picture rail in every room.
I loved them both, you get a lot for your money with no real problems if they have been maintained.
The only thing found on survey when I sold the last one was a bit of woodworm in the loft but that was it. You would expect that kind of thing with an old house.
I never had a problem with damp or mould. Only one room was a bit mouldy and moving the radiator to the outside wall solved that little problem.
Neither house was cold. However a full structural survey of any house that age is advised.

I've lived in two - a terrace and a semi. They were well designed and reasonably spacious but didn't have the very thick walls that older houses do so you could hear quite a lot from the abutting walls.

They don't have the high ceilings of Victorian houses which may or may not be to your taste but they are easier to find curtains for. Both mine had bay windows.

If they haven't been modernised you may need to put more sockets in and the radiators aren't always in ideal places because the house hasn't been designed with central heating in mind.

Layouts tend to be very samey with two big bedrooms and a box room in an unextended semi or terrace. You might have to extend if you want more than one loo although they tend to have understairs cupboards which could possibly be converted with one of those sanilav toilets.

I’m in the process of buying a 1930’s detached. It’s lovely, 3 double bedrooms with scope to make a room in the loft as the roof space is massive. Also has the option to extend sideways over the garage to make it double fronted.

I loved my 1930s end of terrace, currently renting a freezing cold 1990s. Our 1930s we did a LOT to, rewire, replastered, new roof, the list goes on. It was a solid built house and despite spending a fortune we made money on it.

A tip I had was to walk around the estate and look carefully at the lintels, rendering and bay windows, and note the number which had extensive work done, cracks or wobbles. Lots in our area needed to have the front elevation replaced (so we avoided!).

Everyone says they are solid houses , is there any houses that aren’t solid ?????? Our house is 79 and it’s well solid 😉

We love our 1930s house, well built, solid brick walls, don’t find it particularly cold despite the lack of insulation, our heating bills are reasonable (£60 a month for a 3 bed and we have the heating on all the time), love the high ceilings in the downstairs room, original wooden panelling in the hallway, stained glass windows, huge bay windows. We had some condensation damp when we moved in because the house was empty for a long time and the radiators weren’t on high enough, but this is all resolved now.

I love 1930's houses. Where I grew up they all had stained glass front door and landing windows. If they still have these then you pay a big premium.

They tend to have large gardens and good height ceilings. Although I've found they tend to have unequal room sizes - two enormous bedrooms and one tiny one and a galley kitchen. I think they also have a tendency towards being damp. Everyone I know with a 1930's house owns a de-humidifier! I'm not sure the terraces are wonderfully sound proof but not nearly as bad as some houses I've lived in.

Ours is a 1930s 2 bed semi.

Positives -

large plot, we have extended out the back without compromising the garden size noticeably and could easily extend sideways, although you would then lose the side access to the garden.

V solid walls, good soundproofing.

Cheaper than equivalent sized Victorian or Georgian houses, obviously lacks their character features, but makes for a good first time buyer house.

Decent sized rooms, all of them. We could easily fit an en-suite in the main bedroom, but I don’t like them so haven’t.

Negatives - no real character, we have put in a nice fireplace and oak doors etc, but the bones of the house has nothing exciting!

Our place has a downstairs bathroom, we don’t mind it but it will put people when we sell.

Our place also has a lounge than is also the entrance to the kitchen, which I really don’t like. No proper hallway, and a proportion of the decent size lounge has to be used as a corridor.

We are selling ours, based on the lounge / kitchen layout and a need for a proper study, as I will be WFH from now on.

It’s a good , solid, easy to live in house though so hoping will appeal to buyers.

I loved the look of my 30s house but I had to do alot of structural work because the previous owner did nothing.

It had beautiful panelling and a faded elegance. I would have stayed but the neighbours were awful.

We've only been in ours a month but love it so far! Nice big garden, decent sized rooms, beautiful fireplaces and picture rails etc add nice character. The kitchen needs extending but we bought it knowing that was a project we would want to do in the future.

Our last house was a 1930s house that hadn't been touched for a while...

Pros:

1. More square than a Victorian house which meant a bigger plot overall especially because the garden was also long
2. The roof pitch is often incredibly high, the loft conversion we did was hip to gable and had a bedroom, full bathroom, dressing room and a 2.8m ceiling height (higher than the rest of the house!)
3. Fireplaces in some of the rooms which now seems like a dream of a period feature as we've moved to a wider, bigger but modern and with zero features house. The original 1 over 3 doors are lovely too.

Cons

1. Like everyone has said they are single skin so can't insulate anywhere but the outside and so they can be cold and damp especially on the outside walls for bedrooms. Watch out for damp getting under render as this is an expensive job to fix.
2. Our structural surveyor said that pretty much every wall was supporting so not easy to knock about and open up because you need steels and building regs.

They're lovely solid houses though and can take lots of different interior styles.

Fascinating so far!

This one is box shaped but kitchen an extra box on the back downstairs
Downstairs opened up to be open plan except the kitchen
Cupboard under stairs
Long garden
Side path to garden
Decent parking at front

Upstairs is one smallish double (had boiler cupboard in), one OK size single, one small room with the over the stairs box..
Bathroom not much to say there

Didn't see loft. It's insulated not boarded

Electrics have been done relatively recently

I think this post demonstrates that although they're all 30s houses, they're not all the same - there are some general similarities, but ours for instance isn't single skin, had 2 large doubles and a good sized single/small double when we moved in, we don't have the roof height for a loft conversion...

We just moved in and we thought it would be a cosmetic makeover. How wrong we were! Floorboards had woodworm and needed replacing. Boiler was insufficient and needed replacing. Insulation was old and needed replacing. Water pipe and gas pipe needed renewing to meet modern requirements. Full rewire. And woodchip everywhere!!!

In summary, I would check how recently things have been renovated. And have a really thorough look round, preferably with a builder.

Our last house was an early 1930s semi. It was a really good size and had been extended downstairs in 1960 with a large properly built and heated sitting room/garden room. Downstairs had a 31ft by 16ft sittingroom/garden room, 16 X 16 ft dining room, 16 x13ft kitchen and big squared hall and cloakroom. The garden was 60ft. The upstairs wasn't as spacious- no extension. 2 decent size doubles and a single and a smallish bathroom. It had lots of character. We loved it but once we had children we needed more upstairs space.
It was really solid- very soundproof walls- no damp. We sold it to SIL and BIL - they love it too.