Buying a house : How to Educate Yourself

FuzzyFrog

I'm in the market to buy a home and I do not have any skills that would help me to be more informed when evaluating a home. I'm quite open minded when looking at homes from something that would in turn key condition to something that needed to be extended or modernised. So the knowledge I would need when evaluating a home is quite large. I'd like some advice on where to gain that knowledge from books to courses, online youtube videos etc that would help me educate myself. I know each home is contextual, but I'd like to have ballpark figures for questions like these, not actual quote accuracy, just mental guidelines I can use when evaluating a home. It'd be nice to have a family member who was a builder but I can't afford to pay for these skills above everytime I go to simply view a home.

As a sample, I'd like to be able to reasonably answer questions like

1. What would be the ballpark costs to upgrade the insulation in this home to take it from a BER rating of F to a B or C grade
2. What would be the ballpark costs to improve the old electrics in this house.
3. What would be the ballpark costs to extend this 2 bed home to a 3 bed home.
4. What are the chances of planning permission in this area to add a new room to the house
5. Is that crack I spotted an issue or not

Obviously when I had completed my mental checks on a house I would get a professional to assess the house if I was really interested. I'm just trying to educate myself a bit more to filter out some of the more obvious non runners.

Thanks,
FuzzyFrog

D3PO

FuzzyFrog wrote: »

I'm in the market to buy a home and I do not have any skills that would help me to be more informed when evaluating a home. I'm quite open minded when looking at homes from something that would in turn key condition to something that needed to be extended or modernised. So the knowledge I would need when evaluating a home is quite large. I'd like some advice on where to gain that knowledge from books to courses, online youtube videos etc that would help me educate myself. I know each home is contextual, but I'd like to have ballpark figures for questions like these, not actual quote accuracy, just mental guidelines I can use when evaluating a home. It'd be nice to have a family member who was a builder but I can't afford to pay for these skills above everytime I go to simply view a home.

As a sample, I'd like to be able to reasonably answer questions like

1. What would be the ballpark costs to upgrade the insulation in this home to take it from a BER rating of F to a B or C grade

Not possible to know. BER really is a basket case anyway. The ratings are done off a checklist and doesn't accurately reflect the energy efficiency of a house anyway.

1. What would be the ballpark costs to improve the old electrics in this house.

Depends on the size of the house and so on so forth so again not possible to know.

1. What would be the ballpark costs to extend this 2 bed home to a 3 bed home.

Again totally depends on the size of the extension, one or two story, what kind of roof you would be putting on it, what kind of finish you were going to to with, type of windows etc.

1. What are the chances of planning permission in this area to add a new room to the house

Call the relevant council and they will be able to give you some idea of weather your likely to get PP on a particular house based on what your looking to do

1. Is that crack I spotted an issue or not

You don't need to worry about that. That's why you get an engineer in after you make an offer.

Obviously when I had completed my mental checks on a house I would get a professional to assess the house if I was really interested. I'm just trying to educate myself a bit more to filter out some of the more obvious non runners.


Thanks,
FuzzyFrog

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FuzzyFrog

Thanks for replying to the individual questions but I was looking for "I'd like some advice on where to gain that knowledge from books to courses, online youtube videos etc that would help me educate myself." Then I might be able to apply some knowledge to all the different scenarios, old house, new house, house sizes etc I came across.

beeno67

FuzzyFrog wrote: »

.
1. What are the chances of planning permission in this area to add a new room to the house

On this point, look at the neighbours. If someone else in the neighbourhood has an extension you will more than likely be able to get planning permission too. Remember if floor size is less than 40sqm for the extension you usually don't require permission

geoffwode

FuzzyFrog wrote: »

Thanks for replying to the individual questions but I was looking for "I'd like some advice on where to gain that knowledge from books to courses, online youtube videos etc that would help me educate myself." Then I might be able to apply some knowledge to all the different scenarios, old house, new house, house sizes etc I came across.

The SEAI website would be good place to start for BER and insulation related matters http://www.seai.ie/

Regards building issues, you could start by having a look at this site http://www.pickapro.ie/

EricPraline

D3PO wrote: »

What would be the ballpark costs to upgrade the insulation in this home to take it from a BER rating of F to a B or C grade

Not possible to know. BER really is a basket case anyway. The ratings are done off a checklist and doesn't accurately reflect the energy efficiency of a house anyway.

Sorry, but that's inaccurate and unhelpful to the OP. Of course it's possible to make a good estimate regarding improving BER ratings. Any half-decent assessor will be able to tell you how you can improve your rating by making specific improvements,. Any good assessor will be able to do it in a way that does improve the energy efficiency of a house and reduce your bills. Also it's not as simple as ticking off items on a checklist - you seem to be misinformed.

OP, in terms of planning, it would be worth investigating similar successful and applications made by neighbouring houses in your area in recent years. For instance, if you were looking in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, you can gather a lot of this information from their Planning Search site.

D3PO

EricPraline wrote: »

Sorry, but that's inaccurate and unhelpful to the OP. Of course it's possible to make a good estimate regarding improving BER ratings. Any half-decent assessor will be able to tell you how you can improve your rating by making specific improvements,. Any good assessor will be able to do it in a way that does improve the energy efficiency of a house and reduce your bills. Also it's not as simple as ticking off items on a checklist - you seem to be misinformed.

OP, in terms of planning, it would be worth investigating similar successful and applications made by neighbouring houses in your area in recent years. For instance, if you were looking in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, you can gather a lot of this information from their Planning Search site.

Im not misinformed. Lets not make this a discussion about how poorly thought out the BER certification process is however.

Its not as simple as ticking off items on a checklist however it isn't far off it.

StillWaters

The construction forum on here is very good. I also find the 'In My Home' forum on moneysavingexpert.com really useful.