Be just as good to knock it and build from scratch. Your paying for the site essentially and even at that it's overpriced.
Building costs are through the roof at the minute so anyone be mad to buy that
The grand old Roscommon house is a money pit, but the thing that annoyed me the most is that all the land has been sold off. You get a fine old country farm house and not even a couple of acres of breathing room around it. That alone would put me off it (well, and the mould...)
It really depends on what you want to do. Thick olds walls can provide as much insulation qualities as super insulated walls. The problems with such property tend to involve using the wrong materials. Concrete and modern plasters used to patch up walls that need old school materials that let the walls breath.
The mold may look bad but a house deteriorates really quickly when not heated. The owners appeared to have stripped it back to the real structure making it easier to do up and asses the issues. The road looks pretty remote and rarely used so I think you will be ok for privacy
May I present to you, Galway Advertisers Property of the week.
It's a lot of money. And if I had it I would knock that house down and start fresh. It's in a great location quiet enough and close to the city. Couple of mins walk to Eyre Square on the pathway beside the railway track.
Jesus that is depressing! The price is scandalous!!!
'Kitchen dining images for illustration purposes only.'
Phew! I thought I was hallucinating when I saw them! 😁
Renmore isn't a house for sale. It's a development site. Full PP for 2 houses.
So 420 grand for a site. Oh, and by the way, there's a sh!t heap here you'll need to level before you then spend a fortune rebuilding
Jan Kaminski's place.
He survived the holocaust.
No, as @josip pointed out, it's a site...with planning permission. Development approval, as opposed to development potential, has a real value.
A site such as this can be attractive for a developer to purchase that eleminates the uncertainty (risk) and time (holding costs) associated with getting planning permission.
Im not suggesting the asking price is correct, but essentially it is 2 sites @ €210k each. What will most likely determine the selling price will be the point at which a developer can make the numbers stack up.
I know that you can potentially build two houses on this if you so choose, its still an outrageous price for a site in a cr@p enough area of Galway. Although the whole country is beyond a rip off at this stage, Galway is no different
Ah but sure.....this time is different!
That is not a crap area do you know Galway at all.
I said 'cr@p enough,' which it certainly was when I lived in Galway, although far from the worst. Given the house prices there currently, maybe it has developed into the Irish equivalent of Bel Air though
It was never a rough area so I do not know what you are talking about.
It'll be worse if they get it.
A corner house I know of sold part of it's relatively small garden (a bit from the front and a bit from the back) for €300k with PP and plans for a small 3 bed. While the 4 bed house across the road sold with the much bigger garden for less than double (IIRC €575k). I guess the people who bought the garden must have been kicking themselves. The 2nd house currently has a house being built in the garden, which will have it's own front and back garden too.
How do thick walls offer this kind of insulation you mention?
Their sheer mass. Old tech still works and it is mostly not maintaining it and incorrect repair that causes issues. Modern trades are a lot less skilled and a lot less experienced with older techniques. I don't blame them as their daily work uses much easier methods and practice make perfect so they don't have the opportunities to become more skilled.
Modern plumbing is really easy to do now and most amateur DIY person can do a huge portion of their own plumbing now and it doesn't take much to learn.
Yeah, plumbing seemed to get really easy when qualpex came along. But most plumbers seem to use a slightly more advanced system these days, with proprietary tools to seal fittings. Even copper work has amazing clamp fittings sealed with battery tools these days. I'd get one myself but they are expensive, and I wouldn't need it enough to pay for itself. I'm getting off topic!
I live in a house that was built onto an old cottage. The house needs minimal heating (it was built on about 25 years ago) and is comfortable. The cottage has the same oil heating and occasionally boosted by a solid fuel stove. It is dry since we did some work on it but it is by no means warm, more like a fridge. The only way a house with mass stone walls can be kept comfortable is by having a fire going 24/7 - which indeed used be the case if you had access to fuel - and even then outlying rooms, bedrooms etc would be cold.
Living in a solid stone house is no different to living in a cave, you have shelter from the worst of the weather, but it doesn't follow that you are comfortable.
A bit off topic, but Ray, I think you might be confusing thermal mass and U-values.
Thermal mass will help you regulate the temperature variation in a building and is excellent if you have external wall insulation.
But without the external wall insulation, the additional mass does little to retain the internal heat.
External photos only https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12506088/kinsella-17-marian-avenue-portlaoise-laois
Bizarre:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/17+Marian+Ave,+Clonminam,+Portlaoise,+Co.+Laois,+R32+FWV0/@53.029486,-7.3074513,3a,75y,23.1h,90.27t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szrWVbGfnZp4M2-tycCo1Vw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x485d0dd1ba4ef8d1:0x8a5e515254252ac1!8m2!3d53.0296232!4d-7.3074234
I know what I am talking about. If properly maintained an old house will store heat. The problem is not using the appropriate material prevents the old buildings working as they should. Years of poor maintenance can even mean it takes years to restore the balance in the overall structure. I lived in a gerogian house and we barely put the heating on because it was in good condition. I stayed in another gerogian house briefly and it was colder in the property than outside. That was the insulating factor working but as it was not maintained the building worked in reverse.
Thick stone walls do not insulate well - they store heat but do not keep it in. You need a cavity or insulation or something to prevent heat loss. If you externally insulated an old stone building then youd have a great time, but a stone cottage on its own is a nightmare to heat.
A house wall made correctly is not thick stone wall from back in the day. The proper renders of the time add the insulation. If all still correct the insulation value is very high but if failed it can take a lot of work to dry out the building and redo. The house in question is not a stone cottage.
Adding modern materials can make the house worse. I studied civil engineering I know this stuff along with fixing up a georgian house. Believe me are don't but modern is not always better and old is not always bad
The house in question has solid stone walls, see the pic with the shutters. You are shifting the argument - you have claimed that an old house can be comfortable to live in with proper maintenance. but above you say that a house wall made correctly is not thick stone wall from back in the day - what is your definition of 'made correctly', and how is this house not thick stone walls from back in the day? This house is exactly that, and is what we are talking about.
Your interpretation of 'proper maintenance' seems to involve constant heating - 'The mold may look bad but a house deteriorates really quickly when not heated.' Yes, that's what the rest of us are saying, who wants a house these days that needs full time central heating on just to keep it dry?
Jan always a crafty old bugger!
i didn’t realise he had a mansion like this
It's missing the obligatory rocking chair on the porch..
