Following Tim’s comment he sent me a private email which informed me he had left some alternative plans under the mat outside his front door. This is clearly the one of the benefits of knowing who is reading your blog!
Anyway at 6:15 this morning I duly collected said plans from under the mat, scanned them in and reproduce them below.
This is an interesting idea and not one I had considered before. There are a couple of difficulties with it as I see it. One of them, as Tim acknowledges, is the waste route. The toilet close to the outside wall wouldn’t cause a problem but getting the pipe work from the toilet attached to the front bedroom would cause some difficulties. There is no obvious route through the other bathroom; in addition there needs to be a “drop” from the toilet to the waste otherwise the contents of the pipe may just sit there. Clearly this is best avoided!!!! I don’t usually like multiple exclamation marks but I think they are probably justified in this case.
A further consideration is that the plan involves building out slightly over the stairs (whilst maintaining headroom for the stairs below). I like this idea and it makes sense but it would add considerable expense to the project. It would also mean that the house does not have a bath unless I revert to having one downstairs. Does not having a bath matter if you have two showers?
Who is likely to rent this house? If it is two individuals on a house share I think Tim’s plan is a good one and there is a key benefit in having two en-suite rooms and no bath. If a family, I think a bath becomes more important. On balance I think that the house is more likely to be purchased / rented by a couple or young family so perhaps the cheaper option where the bath is maintained is the best.
It does go to show what can be achieved with some thought and a little time. When I first saw the house I was looking to put a simple cloakroom upstairs vented by a fan and soil pipe that had to run through the house.
Anyway at 6:15 this morning I duly collected said plans from under the mat, scanned them in and reproduce them below.
This is an interesting idea and not one I had considered before. There are a couple of difficulties with it as I see it. One of them, as Tim acknowledges, is the waste route. The toilet close to the outside wall wouldn’t cause a problem but getting the pipe work from the toilet attached to the front bedroom would cause some difficulties. There is no obvious route through the other bathroom; in addition there needs to be a “drop” from the toilet to the waste otherwise the contents of the pipe may just sit there. Clearly this is best avoided!!!! I don’t usually like multiple exclamation marks but I think they are probably justified in this case.
A further consideration is that the plan involves building out slightly over the stairs (whilst maintaining headroom for the stairs below). I like this idea and it makes sense but it would add considerable expense to the project. It would also mean that the house does not have a bath unless I revert to having one downstairs. Does not having a bath matter if you have two showers?
Who is likely to rent this house? If it is two individuals on a house share I think Tim’s plan is a good one and there is a key benefit in having two en-suite rooms and no bath. If a family, I think a bath becomes more important. On balance I think that the house is more likely to be purchased / rented by a couple or young family so perhaps the cheaper option where the bath is maintained is the best.
It does go to show what can be achieved with some thought and a little time. When I first saw the house I was looking to put a simple cloakroom upstairs vented by a fan and soil pipe that had to run through the house.
2 comments:
The issue with the soil pipe and the WC furthest from the outside wall could probably be dealt with by swapping the WC for the shower in that room. The soil pipe would then run behind the other WC.
The basin over the stairs works well because you don't need space under a basin but you need the headroom there for the stairs.
However, all in all, I would guess that the extra expense and lack of a bath mean it's not worth adopting this plan. You may wish to get the agent's input; if you were thinking of selling the house it might end up on the wrong side of £250k if you've spent the extra for the extra shower room.
I agree that swapping the shower and the loo over would be a sensible improvement to my plan.
The alternative is to macerate. This works well if you buy one with a timer - then it stores the stuff until (say) 11am, and gets rid of it then. So you get 30 secs of noise at 11am, which is not an issue.
I originally devised the two bath scheme because I saw that the bedrooms were both drawn with double beds, and therefore assumed that the aim was to let it out to young professionals. I think that this type of people would prefer 2 ensuites. In general young professionals are a better target rental market, and young families a better target sale market. It depends on the aim: to rent out or to sell.
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