Jens

It seems that in NRW you are not under the thumb of the Heritage Police, known officially in the UK as English Heritage.
Almost all old houses are what is known as "Listed" This means that you cannot do what you want, but must "work with the local conservation expert in the building control department" to ensure that the essential character of a house like yours would be preserved.
At your expense.


That would most probably mean that the old infil, here known as wattle and daub, a woven willow pannel in the middle, covered by a clay/lime/horsehair mix must be used. This is specialist work and an approved craftsperson must be used. They would demand that the modern bricks be removed and replaced by period recycled bricks, using lime mortar, not cement. Any original timber that could not be reused would have to be replaced with recycled old oak, not modern new timber. You may not be allowed any double glazing, depending on what was there.
In their strange mind originality trumps eco efficiency.

The roof tiles would also need to be period, unless you can prove that the ones on the roof were a replica of the original tiles.
Probably a 3 year project and costing far more than a new house.

My sister in law has a listed cottage, from the mid 1700s. When the oak beam across the dining room ceiling started to fail she was told it could not be replaced, but she may put a steel support in the middle of the dining room, with a metal saddle on the top of the pole to take the beam. It was not allowed to bolt the support to the beam. She now has a steel 3cm pole in the middle of the dining table, which had to be modified. Me? I'd have let the beam fail and then claimed on the house insurance.
The final insanity is that whilst they can stop you doing anything they don't like they cannot force you to do anything, so if you let the building fail they can't force you to repair it.

In my opinion it is bureaucratic insanity driven by PC Woke Civil Servants who live in an uncontrolled parallel universe!

A nice little accidental gas explosion is the the answer. Of course I would not suggest a broken gas pipe and a table lamp on a timer switch after the glass had carefully been broken on the light bulb. That would be against the law!

Clipped Teddy today so that he can work without getting excessively sweaty.

A fur-gone conclusion

Paul,

neat clip, if that is DIY you should be proud of yourself!

Fitted a wickes kitchen into our utility room.



If it looks straightforward I’m very pleased as three of the four units had to be extensively modified to fit. One had to be reduced in width by 50mm including the door, another reduced in depth by 25mm. The under sink unit also had to accommodate the boiler flue outlets.

Much more of A job Than it should have been

Hello Peter J.,

there is such a thing in Germany, too, but it doesn't seem to be as strict as yours and is called " Denkmalschutzbehörde" ( "monument protection authority"). My house is not a listed building, but I have received a certificate from the office that my house has a "building fabric that is particularly worthy of preservation" and therefore does not have to comply with the current strict energy saving standards.

The modern roof tiles can therefore remain on the roof for the time being ... Otherwise, I myself have an interest in preserving as much of the historical as possible or restoring it in a timely manner. I only ordered the glazing bar windows yesterday...

There's another layer in the UK - Historic Conservation Zone. If your property is within a zone, you are still restricted on what you can do, even if your property isn't 'listed'.

When I lived in Wales, I did some work with a bloke who did bespoke wooden windows and stuff. One of the buildings in Aberystwyh had UPVC double glazing put in the two floors above the shop front (it was a HMO student accommodation).

As the area was a Historic Zone, the council made them rip them all out and replace them with single glazed wooden sash windows at their own expense. Del used 3mm glass rather than the required 2mm as it gave a smidgen more insulation. The windows weights he used were perfect - they were the original ones that had been given to him by the company who ripped out the old windows and fitted the UPVC ones.

One of the advantages of living where we do is that there are so many old Cotswold cottages that it's impossible to list them all, so our pre-1600 hovel has survived the attentions of the authorities so far. But this doesn't stop them from inflicting pettyfogging bureaucracy on us.

As we are in an AONB (Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty) when we had our garage built we weren't allowed to install standard Velux rooflights at £300 each and available off the shelf, we had to use 'Conservation Grade' items, costing £900 and a special order. Ho Hum.

My house is from 2017. So no issues within the shell of the house to change things.

My house is from the mid 1700s as well and listed.
That was the way I could afford it as it is not interesting for professional investors.

It is the second listed one we restored so we are trained to discuss with the heritage guys and kind of love it as it helps to understand the building´s history.
As we also like to preserve things we were able to realize nearly everything we had in mind. Just the PV was rejected although it does not destroy anything of the historical substance...

In some cases life is even easier with the heritage department. As they are the strongest department you don`t have to ask anyone else;-)