How would you future proof a house whilst completing renovation?

[Tweddle]

We’re about to start a major renovation of our new home that hasn’t been touched in decades. Most of the rooms need taking back to brick so we’re in a position where we can design each room from scratch.
it’s a Victorian property and I’m keen to keep as many features as possible but I also want to future proof it as much as possible as it’s unlikely that we will ever have the funds in the future to undertake a major overhaul.
Our youngest dc is in her mid teens so we don’t need to think about babies/young children, and there’s not much we can do to the garden as it’s quite small and has been well kept by the lady who lived here.
What would you include in the referb if you were in our position?

PS of course you can use ordinary wall switches to override the timers and apps on your smart lighting and blinds

A socket where you put your Christmas tree

Outdoor sockets for either lawnmower or Christmas lights. We have them both front and back and we can turn them off from inside meaning they cannot be used. The front one has a built in timer which we use for the Christmas lights.

Can you make the main bedroom more sound proof, cough cough for privacy reasons? Helps when you have teens in the house.

Make sure the wiring is up to date, consumer unit which can take extra circuits for future additions.

We have an automatic light in the downstairs loo and are installing a bidet toilet in our en-suite shortly plus an automatic soft light for night time use. We have a normal bright white for day time but no one wants to be blinded at night.

I agree plus make sure any floor voids are either ventilated or filled in to avoid damp issues in older house. Flood idea is especially important- don't skimp on drains. Good windows. Make sure roof is sound, repoint chimney etc do the awkward things. I am not convinced about ground source hear pumps they don't work so well retrofitted into usual size houses. I am optimistic than another eco system can be found which doesn't involve so much ground work and fits in better with existing systems. Yes to downstairs loo, bathroom and wide spaces where possible in corridors etc

From current experience - I've developed mobility issues so we're moving to a bungalow. We looked into getting an indoor lift and they are surprisingly cheap. So if I was designing for being older I'd look at the rooms and 'ringfence' an area where a lift could go. (We're moving because our current house has no space for a lift).

Previous pp said as you get older you'd prefer a bath due to aches and pains, in reality as you get older you are less able to get in and out of a bath

Just thought of another one, built-in fire proof safe. Easier to integrate than retrofit.

Get more electric points than you think you will need, especially in the kitchen. Make sure the kitchen power supply has enough welly- and you don't want sockets on spurs in there, Ideally, they- or most of them- need to be on a ring. Get some chunky stuff put in there for the future, as modern cookers and things like induction hobs tend to take a lot of power when first switched on so they can heat up quickly.
We had a separate power supply done to the kitchen from the board, with its own little board, partly because it had to be done separately and later than the rest of the rewire. And we had an extra circuit put on the board that's just redundant at the moment because I plan to replace a cooker with an oven and an induction hob- the extra one is already wired to where the oven will be.
As I hate switch boxes wired inside cupboards, we have had the cables put in for the white goods and the cooker etc. run through a switch plate- each appliance has its own fuse and switch there, labelled. Much safer than scrabbling in a cupboard if something needs to be switched off in an emergency. And it makes taking out/replacing cupboards much easier. The cables have a sort of clamping box at the end that the white goods/cooker are wired into. It's so easy and sensible I don't know why it isn't standard practice. I didn't know it was an option until we had the electricians round for the quote and I said- 'I'm having no wires or switches in cupboards, so how else can it be done?'

I'd also second getting all the drains up and relaid in plastic if they haven't been already. Old ceramic ones crack and leak over time, and can cause damp under the house. If you get them all done, that's a good thing not to have to think about again. Get lots of access points put in for rodding out if needed (our old ceramic drains were virtually impossible to rod out due to lack of those). And if you plan a new patio/drive, get them to put in access points that have spare inlets in strategic places. They can easily cap them off now, but if ever you need to put a drain in for a patio or a drive, it's a piece of cake to undo the cap and connect into it. Our chap calls them 'iffers' For if you ever need them.😊

If you are putting in good insulation, consider putting in large-diameter pipes and larger radiators that can work well with a heat pump, or underfloor heating. Heat pumps are more efficient if the water used to heat the house is at a relatively low temperature. Think 30-40C instead of the 60C you would have coming out of a boiler. But then you need a larger radiator. In case you are want to go ahead and install the heat pump from the get-go, I know somebody who has good technical knowledge and works with a network of installers; send me a DM in case you want their details.

Ethernet cable behind all of the walls with sockets in every room can let you have wired connections, which are massively faster than WiFi. It is like the difference between a hard drive and an SSD.

I agree with the bit about lots of plug points.

On the car charger, if you are not ready for an electric car yet, just put in a well-shielded cable from the house to the place where a charger would go. I agree with rewiring everything, AND checking whether you have enough amperage with single phase power to run a fully electric house (including car charger and heat pump), or whether you need three-phase power.

Not the same same scale but I’ve recently done a flat which had zero problems insulation. We lined every exterior wall ! It’s made a massive difference. We also insulated below the new floor.

Hard wired for data and added sockets for usb.

@SuddenlyOld - my GP's (92/93) have a bath lift which sits inside their bath to raise and lower them in/out of the bath

They are in a rented bungalow and the shower has a big step up/down and both were getting worried about falling getting out

The bath lift is a loan from the NHS somehow - just sits on suckers and has a rechargeable battery that they need to charge up before they have a bath.

I think it's this model

A powerpoint for a dyson over a powerpoint for a roomba.