Knocking a house down

[dan blocker]

On 01/03/2022 at 12:34, Joe Newton said:

Something about the vat on a self build is zero rate for materials and labour, whereas you'll pay the full 20% on both for a renovation

I’m pretty sure material and labour isn’t zero rated? You pay the vat on materials and vat registered sub contractors/ trades etc then claim it back at the end. If you can build a new building separate to your existing and on a different footprint it should be classed as a new build and vat can be reclaimed. Rebuild on the footprint and that could be classed as renovation or a rebuild and may not be vat refundable. Best to get this confirmed before the demolition ball moves in🤔. What people used to do was re-claim the vat to pay for your kitchen units and bathroom suite.

[carlos]

id use a angle grinder with a thin disc to take the nail heads off, when removing the tin rather than trying to pull the nails out.

it might be an idea to let the digger take down the roof timbers if you are going to burn them, a lot easier and safer than ladders and chainsaw.

[peds]

On 01/03/2022 at 19:45, Macpherson said:

You might be lucky and find some nice stone which you may be able to reuse as features in the house you build.. Lintels, quoins, cills etc.

 

I don't know what your local stone is like, but over here the older houses had first pick of what was lying around when they were built all that time ago, and often a lot of it is very reusable.

 

Obviously I've  no idea of your plans but you may get enough good stuff for a feature fireplace, porch or something, letting the old house live one.

 

I too will watch with interest, cheers.

All of the cills are a good block of stone, 6 of them, plus a doorstep. The lime plaster I've scraped off the walls so far shows a range of sizes underneath, there's some beautiful big bits. Our digger driver says we'll need to look out for any good bits around the hearth and chimney, too. 

It's all our local limestone, probably taken from the now defunct quarry just down the road, same geology as the cliffs up behind the house.

 

The new extension (left of photo) is of concrete block construction, I'll even be tapping the mortar off of them and stacking them away for future use.

[peds]

8 hours ago, skc101fc said:

Living out hereSW Ireland, We've got 2 of these old wrecks on our land. Soil infill and rubble between the stones, only the render (plaster) on the outer and inner walls holds them together. No or poor jointing of corners. As we found out when we hacked off the mortar on the gable end , the wall "sprang" out leaving a 70 mm gap where the ceiling should have been touching the wall inside.
No foundations to be of any trustworthy purpose, so start digging against the walls and the rest of the cottage will be joining you in the hole !

Sounds exactly like what we've got up here in Sligo. It's a beautiful old building until you start looking closely at it.

[peds]

7 hours ago, sime42 said:

Take the roof off and rain will rapidly do the rest by the sound of it...

There's a few holes in the tin roof, and the bits beneath are visibly falling apart quicker than the rest.

 

We bought the place 2 years ago, we emptied the seven-years-dead previous owners' lives into a skip (keeping and recycling whatever we could... the wardrobe is now a henhouse, the fridge is going to be an egg incubator/honey warming cabinet, the coconut matting from the mattress is lining my hanging baskets.. ), and it's crazy to see just how quickly the property continues to rot. It wouldn't be long before nature does the job for us.

[peds]

3 hours ago, NJA said:

Ref demolition;

Large machine+ large skip =fast but expensive 

Dismantle by hand and separate materials = slow but v cheap (my preferred option if it was me)

We'll be walking down the middle of those 2 options, definitely. All the unwanted metal will definitely be sold for scrap, it'll barely cover the cost of driving to the scrapyard but there you go. I'm going to be saving what I can of the plumbing and electrics, the watertank and fuse box can definitely be reused, but I'm not going to be too precious about it... most of the wiring and pipes can definitely go into the (medium sized) skip.

 

The current toilet is going to be installed as a (private) composting toilet my shed, the bathtub is going to be sunken into the wooden deck with a lid to hide under, next to the sauna and hot tub, as a plunge pool. Guess what the hot tub is going to be made of...?

[peds]

19 minutes ago, carlos said:

id use a angle grinder with a thin disc to take the nail heads off, when removing the tin rather than trying to pull the nails out.

it might be an idea to let the digger take down the roof timbers if you are going to burn them, a lot easier and safer than ladders and chainsaw.

You are in Ireland, right?

 

Where do we stand legally with burning the wood that can't be salvaged? I'm not into throwing every bit of shite on the burn pile, even though we are hundreds of meters from the nearest neighbours, but I've nothing against getting rid of dry wood like that.

 

Chatting to my boss earlier, he suggested digging a hole, burying the whole lot, and selling the spare topsoil... I'm not into that, either.

 

 

[carlos]

i think legally your not meant to burn stuff, i guess if you have an arsey neighbour then it could be a problem, ive burnt loads of stuff if it has a lot of nails in it.

 

[sime42]

There's a few holes in the tin roof, and the bits beneath are visibly falling apart quicker than the rest.
 
We bought the place 2 years ago, we emptied the seven-years-dead previous owners' lives into a skip (keeping and recycling whatever we could... the wardrobe is now a henhouse, the fridge is going to be an egg incubator/honey warming cabinet, the coconut matting from the mattress is lining my hanging baskets.. ), and it's crazy to see just how quickly the property continues to rot. It wouldn't be long before nature does the job for us.

Yep, houses deteriorate rapidly when there's no one living there to do even simple maintenance. Water is always the biggest destroyer I think. Quite nice to see in a way through; how quickly mother nature erases the marks of man.

Good efforts with the reusing/recycling/upcycling of previous contents. Sure you can do the same with the bulk of the building materials. Pretty much all building stone can be reused, if you've got masonry patience, or hardcore if not!

[peds]

7 minutes ago, carlos said:

i think legally your not meant to burn stuff, i guess if you have an arsey neighbour then it could be a problem, ive burnt loads of stuff if it has a lot of nails in it.

 

I guess I'll just arrange a few garden chairs around it and call it a fire pit, keep a bag of marshmallows handy in case anyone gets suspicious.