If any of you are approaching retirement and thinking of 'downsizing' your home as the family have fledged the nest, one consideration for you could be a Park Home.

Due to my failing health, we had to sell our house and move into a single storey building, as I could not manage the stairs sometimes. (Breathing problems, suffering COPD and lung cancer) As the cost of bungalows was beyond our budget after selling the house, we looked at Park Homes as an alternative.

The one we settled for was about 18 years old at the time of purchase and needed a bit of tidying up inside.

It is 30' x 20' and has two full size bedrooms each with a double bed in. One does as my computer room and the other is the main bedroom.
Park homes are mainly timber framed and panelled and still have the wheels attached but are off the base that they stand on. They are on stands with a brick skirt round them but the skirt does not take any load.

They come in many varying sizes, single ones which can be up to 14 feet wide and between 30 and 50 feet long. Twins consist of two haves that are delivered on two low loaders and when positioned along side oneanother, one is slid upto the first positioned one and they are bolted together to for a home that is usually 20 to 24 feet wide and as long as you specify if buying a new one.

They are built to last at least 60 yaers and as most pasks will only let residents move on who are 50 years of age or older, the life span of teh home is not a real problem. A good coat of WeatherShield every 3 or 4 years is all that the outside needs. We did ours ourself earlier trhis year with a couple of brushes and a big roller. Took us about 4 days as we had no deadline and the kettle was nearly always on.

Sites come in two varieties. The one you really want to consider are the 'reidential parks' where you live in your home all year round and pay normal council tax. The other type is a 'holiday home park' where yopu can only live in your home for 10 or 11 months of the year and have to vacate it, usually in Jan or Feb. You do not pay full council tax for this type but the site rent is usually double so the site owner gets what you think you would save by not paying Tax.

Other considerations to make are:
Is it connected to mains gas? Bottled gas can be a right pita when it runs out during the night in winter.
Water and sewage charges. Who do you pay for them, site owner o0r utility company and how much.
Electricity,. As above, who do you pay and how much.

Our situation is as follows.
Full residential, so we pay Band A rates but live here all year.
Gas is mains and we get it from which ever company we want.
Electricity is supplied by and meterd by the site owner, but he gets it at bulk comercial price and only charges us at teh rate he is charged. His quarterly bill for the site is displayed in teh office window and it is all at one rate per KWh, none of this 'X units at one rate and the rest at another.
Water is charged in our site rent and is one fortieth of his bill as there are 40 homes on the site.
Sewage is charged by the Utility Company.
Site rent is set in teh agreement and can only be increased once a year by the average rate of inflation over the last twelve months. So this year it did not go up.

As all our neighbours are at least 50 years old ( some are in their 80's) it is usually very quiet and the only children that we see are grand children of resident and Gran makes them behave.

These are some pictures of our home. Remember that the walls are all wood so it is easy to knock them around to how you want it if you purchase a second hand one.

Your residence is fully protected by law and you cannot be evicted without a court of law judgfement, and there are very few things that the site owner can evict you for.

It is the best move we ever made!

Should anyone want to consider Park Home living for retirement, just say so and I will answer any questions that you may have.

dave

That is a fantasic idea Dave, as you point out bungalows are so damn expensive.

Did you say your was out Lytham way?

_________________
DIY | Donnas dream house

We are at Catterall, just south of Garstang in Lancashire.

dave

Don't know where I got Lytham from

I stopped in a caravan once in Garstang, it was alongside a canal. My mate has a caravan and a boat up there!

_________________
DIY | Donnas dream house

One thing I forgot to mention.
As most readers will be DIYers, no Building Regs nor that Part P electric stuff applies to your home. You can do whatever you feel competent with inside, and no Council snoopers, (nor BAS)

If you think the sizes are too small or cramped, add up the sizes of your rooms at home and ignore the stairs and landing, as we don't have them, then consider that ours is 600 square feet of usable space. Which is plenty big enough for us two and the occasional visit and overnight stay by our daughter.

We have a shed, and the space underneath the home (about 1'-6" high) is all storage space for things like the lawn mower and other gardening tools.

dave

thats a great looking place dave

and a quality worcester boiler to keep it warm

These are just a few of the pics when we started the alterations.

In the living room was an 'orrible gas fire with a back boiler stuck through into the kitchen. There was also the hot water cylinder in a cupboard next to the boiler and the whole boxed in area was about 6'-6" x 2'-6". So you can imagine that it was taking up a lot of space in the kitchen.

We decided to remove the lot and have the W/B Combi fitted by a Corgi friend of ours. (It certainly pays to have pals). We also boarded up the old kitchen doorway which came in from the passage. This gave us a continuous wall/worktop area instead of having a break. We cut an archway through from the living room to the dining area (remember that the walls are wood so it was easy) and boarded up the opening where the old gas fire had been. A coal effect fire from B&Q with the surround came in very handy as a focal point and provider of instant heat if we ever need it.

Looks great Dave, and being for over 50's
the silence must be golden.

_________________
People forget how fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it.

I no longer skinny dip, i chunky dunk these day's.

Nice work Dave.

_________________
Dreams contain the seed of success..... (if you manage to wake up.)

Hi Dave

My partner and I live in something quite similar, although ours had only 1 large bedroom.

We are currently adding an additional 2 rooms. We have to cut through the external wall in order to access the 2 new rooms. We would like to make the walkway through into an archway as you have, but on a much smaller scale... say approx 1200mm wide.

I would like to know how you managed to do yours? what materials did you use and how did you finish it off?

Thanks

Miff.

Miff,
As the walls are timber, we just cut through next to the 1" x1" uprightl noggins and then used a bit of 1" x 1" to put cross pieces in from front to back of the opening and used the ply that we had cut out as the trim around the opening.

The ply was just laid out in the garden for a couple of days with a few buckets of water thrown over it every so often to keep it soaked, and it was very pliable when we came to form it around the arch and nail it to the cross pieces and the uprights.

Once the ply had dried out we just wall papered it.

Before fixing the ply to the arch, I ran some 2.5mm cable up and back down to extend the ring main so that I could wire up two x 2gang sockets for the entertainment set up that we proposed to have. You can just make them out in the pictere 'Living room 3' in my second set of pictures.
It made it easier running the cables up the hollow rather than trying to feed them between the inner and outer skins with insulation in the way.

dave

_________________
You can always tell a Yorkshireman,
But you cannot tell him much.

I have just been playing with the Microsoft Picture Stitcher and some photos I took last week.
I stood in the road outside our home and took seven pictures whilst turning around. The pictures just overlapped and covered 270° of view.

The first two are parts of the panorama and the last one is the complete picture.


Our home is the second from the left.



The base for another new home is clearly visible in the centre, this is across the road from us.



The complete view.


I liked the software ('cos its FREE) as it was so easy to use. Just get several photos that overlap and drag them to the window. It uploads them and finds the links and stiches them. You do not have to pinpoint bits on the pictures where they overlap, it does everything itself.

Image Composite Editor

_________________
You can always tell a Yorkshireman,
But you cannot tell him much.

wow...so amazing, i can't stop moving in...

I never heard of this, Is this house rolled of a truck in sections and pieced together then fixtures and fittings?

The services as you describe are just like normal houses it appears

Looks goods and nice area.

John,
The smaller ones, up to about 13' wide come complete on a transporter and are rolled onto the concrete base and jacked up and lowered onto stands. Then the services are all connected.

The wider ones come in two halves and one is positioned in place, put on stands and leveled. Then the other half is put alongside, about 3" away from the first one, and jacked up and lowered onto four towers made up of concrete blocks topped with two metal plates that have grease inbetween them.
They then use clamps to pull it sideways towards the fixed one. It slides on the metal plates. When butted up, it is jacked up to remove the towers and stands are placed under it. The two halves are then bolted together and the services are connected between the two (central heating and electric circuits.

Hope it doesn't bore you but this is one I did earlier.

They come complete with ridgetiles, strips for down the walls where they join and internal coverings where the walls join.

_________________
You can always tell a Yorkshireman,
But you cannot tell him much.