hi everyone,
I'm not sure this is the right forum, or even where to start but here goes. A brief synopsis of the situation:
My father had been living on his own in our family house up until July of this year, where due to a sudden & very severe deterioration in his health, he had to move in to a nursing home.
The house is in the countryside, its an old bungalow with rubbish (if any) insulation. Also there is only single glazed windows, and the inside plastering is a bit haphazard (thick cottage walls, not smooth).
There is an oil fired range in the kitchen (that is over 30 years old and on its very last legs), which is connected to a back boiler for hot water & to heat the radiators.
There is an open fire in the sitting room.
The extension which was built on 30 odd years ago has always tended to be cold, there is 1 radiator in each room in the extension but the rooms are quite large & the rad makes little or not difference.
There are 3 of us children (Very loose term
) who take it in turns to come home each weekend & stay in the house. However, this is becoming a huge problem because the house is freezing, old & also (and I know this is totally our own fault), despite having grown up in the house, we know nothing about the workings of it. Right now, my sister is at home with a few days & since last night she has had no cold water (so no shower) and cannot get the gas cooker to work (she got gas drum refilled but maybe pipe is frozen?).
Its started to sink in that in order to keep the house in some sort of shape, we need to do something to try & heat the place up a bit more, and fast - already there is a smell of damp around the place.
Problem of course is that we dont have a lot of money as we are all living in other houses that need our input/money also.
Another thing we considered is putting in an alarm system as while there isn't much of value in the house, there is a lot of sentimental items in there.
Has anyone been in a similar situation, and if so, how did ye tackle it?
I should state its not an option to sell the house, and being realistic its not looking likely that anyone will be living in it full time for quite a few years to come.
I guess I'm looking for short, medium & long term suggestions/solutions. I imagine you would be looking at spending thousands of euro if we were to get the whole place properly renovated - do you think we should get a builder in to give us an estimate?
Any ideas/solutions would be appreciated - at the moment, its just getting run down very fast & the thoughts of spending any time there (especially during this cold weather) is seriously not appealing.
Thanks in advance
I'm not sure this is the right forum, or even where to start but here goes. A brief synopsis of the situation:
My father had been living on his own in our family house up until July of this year, where due to a sudden & very severe deterioration in his health, he had to move in to a nursing home.
The house is in the countryside, its an old bungalow with rubbish (if any) insulation. Also there is only single glazed windows, and the inside plastering is a bit haphazard (thick cottage walls, not smooth).
There is an oil fired range in the kitchen (that is over 30 years old and on its very last legs), which is connected to a back boiler for hot water & to heat the radiators.
There is an open fire in the sitting room.
The extension which was built on 30 odd years ago has always tended to be cold, there is 1 radiator in each room in the extension but the rooms are quite large & the rad makes little or not difference.
There are 3 of us children (Very loose term
) who take it in turns to come home each weekend & stay in the house. However, this is becoming a huge problem because the house is freezing, old & also (and I know this is totally our own fault), despite having grown up in the house, we know nothing about the workings of it. Right now, my sister is at home with a few days & since last night she has had no cold water (so no shower) and cannot get the gas cooker to work (she got gas drum refilled but maybe pipe is frozen?).Its started to sink in that in order to keep the house in some sort of shape, we need to do something to try & heat the place up a bit more, and fast - already there is a smell of damp around the place.
Problem of course is that we dont have a lot of money as we are all living in other houses that need our input/money also.
Another thing we considered is putting in an alarm system as while there isn't much of value in the house, there is a lot of sentimental items in there.
Has anyone been in a similar situation, and if so, how did ye tackle it?
I should state its not an option to sell the house, and being realistic its not looking likely that anyone will be living in it full time for quite a few years to come.
I guess I'm looking for short, medium & long term suggestions/solutions. I imagine you would be looking at spending thousands of euro if we were to get the whole place properly renovated - do you think we should get a builder in to give us an estimate?
Any ideas/solutions would be appreciated - at the moment, its just getting run down very fast & the thoughts of spending any time there (especially during this cold weather) is seriously not appealing.
Thanks in advance