I’m looking to buy a house. So far, i’ve always bought new construction, but this time, it’ll likely be an older (50-80 year old) home.
I need quick and dirty numbers on the following - to help me gauge the prospective homes better (and yes I know it all depens on many variables - rough numbers is what i’m after)
so, what’s it cost to:
remodel a bathroom - new tub, toilet and basin, separate shower, and moving a wall)
remodel a kitchen (tile the floor, put in new cabinets)
add a powder room (assume worst possible location relative to existing connctions)
remove non-bearing walls
Who’s doing the work? You or a contractor? This is the BIGGEST variable you’ll have to consider.
Drywall casts about $2 for a 4 x 8 sheet, joint compound (mud) is about $7 for a 5 gallon bucket.
6x6 ceramic floor tiles can be found for $1 each, budget for $2. The glue is dirt cheap as well.
Removing non-bearing walls is free (and FUN!)
The bathroom depends entirely on what fixtures you want. The variables here are on hardware. Wax toilet ring $4 (get the most expensive one you can find!), all new plumbing hardware assuming existing delivery is in good shape: $50.
Kitchen…um, just get ready to spend, go nuts, buy all really neat stuff! (I’m a sucker for the kitchen).
Mostly it’ll cost you time. If you’re doing it yourself, carefully estimate how much the project will cost and how long it should take. Double both of those numbers and you’ll be about right. Same math applies if you’re having a professional do the work.
And don’t forget to price windows! They cost about $150 for an average sized vinyl double-paned bedroom window. This price will vary wildly depending on size.
One more thing. If you’re buying a home as old as you say, SCOPE THE WASTE WATER DRAIN ALL THE WAY TO THE STREET/SEPTIC TANK. You’ll be sorry you didn’t. Make this part of the pre-purchase home inspection.
Size of rooms? Area of the country? Upscale, or bare minimum in terms of quality of cabinets/tile/fixtures? New counters in the kitchen?
Really, even if I were a contractor instead of a do-it-yourselfer, it would be hard to come up with even a ballpark estimate. So I’m just going to say, probably 5-10K for each activity. For the kitchen, the cost of the cabinets and other material will probably dominate. For the bathrooms, I think labor costs are going to be pretty high, as you need demo, framing, installation of fixtures, painting, and tiling. But labor is variable depending on the region and depends on whether you hire full-fledged contractors, or the handyman-down-the-street.
Note that once you start remodeling, you pretty much have to bring everything up to code, so that might mean some electrical work, installation of vent fans in the bathrooms, and other unexpected improvements.
You can remove a load-bearing wall. You have to put in temporary supports, and put in a load bearing beam that spans the area. (So whatever supports the beam has to have sufficient support, or needs to be reinforced.) You may have to get an engineer to do some drawings, depending on your local building code.
Your prices seem very low (drywall is more like $7 at Home Depot). And except for pricey stuff like kitchen cabinets, bay windows, and appliances, labor costs will dwarf materials.
And doing it yourself is possible, but it can take over your life. It’s not for everyone, and that’s speaking as a veteran of a three year remodeling project that I originally thought would take six months, max. Remember that while the remodeling is going on, whoever is living in the house is going to be cooking in the microwave and showering at the gym.
Bath: $3,000 to $6,000 depending on selection of fixtures.
Kitchen: $10,000 to $20,000 depending on appliances and cabinets.
A ceramic tile floor will require adequate support. Ranch on concrete slab is OK.
The normal wood joist flooring support is not sufficiently rigid nor adequate to support the additional weight. Several $k to provide support. Electrical work, rewire entire house, upgrade main entrance box with circuit breakers? Painting?
Be cautious about buying an older house without competent assistance to evaluate the house and your concerns as expressed above.
Signs of deterioration. Roots. Gnomes. That sort of thing. Most (all?) the lines that run from the house to the sewer are metal and will corrode over time. After a few decades they may have small leaks that invite the neighbor’s oak tree over for some easy water. Roots are HARD on these pipes. They eventually choke & crush them. Alternatively they can simply collapse when they get rotten enough. Unless you have a brand new claim representative who doesn’t know his job, this type of damage is typically NOT covered by your homeowner’s insurance (might be an exception if the line runs to a septic tank…technical reasons). Some sewage backup damage might be covered, but the cost of digging out and replacing the old lines is all yours, baby. Just like replacing an old roof or a blown engine. The only exception that comes to mind would be if the pipe were physically crushed by say, a truck or meteorite.
My plumber tells me that the line cleaner chemicals you get from the hardware store that “don’t damage pipes” do actually damage pipes.