UK Compared to US Homes

That's a steal. What's the catch?

The chickens, horses and cows live inside the 19th century farmhouse?

Ha! Funny you should say that. We've just found out that the kitchen/breakfast room in the house we have made an offer on used to be an open-air barn attached to the house. Many, many years ago. Don't care. It has beams. Beeeeeeams!

That's a steal. What's the catch?

No catch. Its in the area of Lampeter, Wales.

The chickens, horses and cows live inside the 19th century farmhouse?

OK. It has three large stables a stone barn and a timber loose box. It comes with the 19th century Welsh farm house.
It is a village of Llangeitho, SY25.
When I win the California lotto I will be right over with my checkbook.
You can look it up on rightmove.co.uk

I live just outside the lake district and up here you can get a farm house huge barn stables etc with 10 acres for around 300k where as somthing similar in essex would rack up a good mil :S

The U.K. often seems to suffer from the idea that anything other than bricks and mortar is not a "real" house, despite the fact that timber construction is quite normal in North America and Scandinavia.   In fact if you look through the real estate ads here, you'll find the term "non conventional construction" applied to anything which is not brick built.   My house would be under that designation, since the original part is 1930s pre-fab construction -- Cast reinforced concrete sections bolted together with timber uprights between. 

Personally, I feel that timber construction has many advantages, not least of which being that it's much easier to work on.  I'm handy enough with power saws, chisels and other tools to take on most household woodworking jobs, but brick-laying and cementing are a different world.   When it comes to things like adding exhaust fan vents and the such like, a quick half-hour job with timber construction can soon become a long, noisy, and horribly dirty and dusty job with brick. 

After years of installing electrical and telephone fittings, I can also say with some confidence that attaching to masonry of any kind generally makes the job quite a bit harder as well.   Some of the old Victorian places can be a nightmare as you either hit masonry filled with flint which is very difficult to drill, or you find crumbling old mortar which falls around your feet in a pile of dust as soon as it sees you coming toward it with a drill bit.   You don't get those sort of problems with timber, unless it's started to rot away due to damp.

Brickwork is also not impermeable to moisture as many people seem to think.  If you look at many old houses here which have a single skin, damp on the inside is often a problem, and it's not always rising damp.  That's why all modern brick construction here uses a double skin with a cavity between.

Of course, on the other side of the coin brick isn't subject to the attentions of termites and other wood-chewing bugs, and it's inherently fire proof.

in Chicago almost everything is block, you can't use wood because of the Chicago fire

The local electrical code in Chicago also requires all wiring to be within metallic conduit, which increases material and labor costs considerably.   Most other places in the U.S. allow wiring in a single private residence to be carried out with NM cable (commonly called Romex, just insulated conductors within an overall PVC sheath).

Paul, when hanging pictures, can you hang them anywhere you like on the wall? I did that in our current house and nothing has fallen down. I am just wondering if that's how I should have done it and if I should do it differently in the new house.

You should avoid nailing or drilling in the areas directly above, below, or horizontally in line with any switch, socket, wall light, or other electrical accessory, as there may be cables just below the surface.    (That doesn't necessarily mean that there won't be cables elsewhere, it's just less likely!)

Other than that, it's pretty much a case of going wherever you can get a secure enough hold for the intended weight.   In modern homes you'll most likely be going through a thin layer of plaster into a composite board behind (plasterboard in U.K. terminology, commonly known as sheetrock in the U.S.).   In older places you might find plaster directly over brick, or on internal partitions you might encounter lath and plaster construction.  These walls were made by nailing thin strips of wood (laths) horizontally between the uprights then just plastering over (similar construction was also used in the U.S.).

When I win the California lotto I will be right over with my checkbook.

Being in the midst of a house hunt myself I have to say that I agree with Helen - that's a GREAT price for all of that!!!

I prefer U.S. homes to U.K. homes. For one thing, they're much, much, bigger; almost always include a dishwasher and a washer and dryer; have refrigerators sized for normal-sized people, not for dwarfs (and ice trays, if not icemakers); have central air conditioning or at least window units; have electrical sockets in the bathroom so you can actually dry your hair or put on makeup there, in front of a mirror; have big back yards; are not ridiculously overpriced for what you get; etc. A lot of them on the East Coast are old, as balmerhon said, but overall, I would live in a U.S. house any day.

I think the main problem here is that US nationals come on asking for impartial opinions, and while usually they get them, sometimes they don't.

Most people will realise that the UK is better for some things, and that the US is better for others, and discussion on this is useful, especially when people have differing opinions, and when the OP's are (as in this case) genuinely torn.

But Suzanne, there is little point in you posting in these threads when every post will always start "I think the US is better..."  We all know that you think the US is better in every single way, you don't need to keep telling us!  You have also been massively offensive in the past, not just to US nationals who actually love it here and call the UK their home, but to the UK nationals who look on this site, and by implication to the spouses of most of the people who post here!  For you to accuse others of being rude is laughable.

Vicky

Hopefully anyone who spends a little time on UKY will come to know that opinions differ widely on US v. UK topics.  Yes, long-time posters may be able to predict who's going to be negative or positive in a response, but newbies won't, and that's where things sometimes get frustrating.

It's all down to personal experience though.  Generally speaking, yes, UK homes are smaller than US homes, but we're living on a small island here, so one wouldn't expect everyone to live in mansions on dozens of acres.  

Living in a UK home isn't really that much different than living in a US one, in my opinion.  Yes, my house is smaller than the houses I lived in back in the US, but it's brand new, backs onto a moor full of horses and farmland, has a washer and dryer (we don't want a dishwasher), a full-sized fridge with ice (!), I dry my hair in the guest room (in front of a mirror, no less), and we bought our house for a good price in 2006 (and the value has risen by 20-30% in that time).  And air conditioning?  Who needs it over here?  It's never hot in my house in the summertime, and it's oh, so cozy during the winter.

So no complaints from me.  

Off-topic posts have been removed.  Please respect different opinions whether you agree with them or not.


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My differing opinion - I prefer a home with love in it.

I think some of the issues are very subjective.   There are people who like a 20 ft. long bedroom.  My view is that so long as you have enough room to make the bed and get dressed, how much bigger does a bedroom need to be?    Given a limited overall square footage, I would much rather have the extra space in the main living area(s) where it will be better used.    Some people like compact, well-defined living and dining rooms while others prefer an open-plan approach.   Whether the small living room in an old "two up two down" British home is cozy or just plain cramped is then very much a matter of opinion.   

While one can find 600 sq. ft. homes in the U.S. and 4000 sq. ft. barn conversions in the U.K., it's certainly safe to say that on average the typical American suburban home is more spacious.   When it comes to value for money, British real-estate prices have become so crazy that there's no contest.   A friend has just decided it was time to get out of metro Chicago and has moved out to Portage, Indiana.  He's bought a spacious 3-bedroom, 2-bath home on a large corner lot -- $130,000.  That wouldn't even buy you an empty lot half the size in Britain these days (not one you'd be allowed to build on anyway).   

On wiring and plumbing, my technical opinion is that these are superior in the U.S. without a doubt.  (I'm comparing what's considered acceptable, code-compliant installations; one can find sub-standard "hack" jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.)   

There are electrical arrangements which are considered acceptable here which would simply never be permitted under the electrical code in America.    As for no outlets in the bathroom though, that's easily remedied!