Heh. Speaking from experience, when I look at old church buildings now what I see is not the sale price but the renovation and maintenance costs. Just heating a big tall empty room costs a lot.
Reposted from Gerd Duerner
You say that now, but in a decade or so you will look back over your collection of churches and curse your younger self for missing this opportunity. :D

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LOTS of churches on one of my fave sights; They also just listed a really cool looking house for $1000. I always check the ceilings first.
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Similar story with castles.
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My house is 110 years old. I know from renovations
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A close family friend lives in a Victorian and I remember as a kid her telling me how the work on it never stops, there's always something that needs fixing, even beyond the regular upkeep on owning a home.
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Similar in NZ as a look for a house. Some lovely old wooden buildings, but they’ll cost to tidy up and maintain.

Fine if that’s your aim, of course, and have the money and time to devote to it. I’m hoping for lower maintenance so I have more time for other things!
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Gal down the street has a church/house & she installed one of those outside, wood-burning furnaces. Keeps it pretty nice now. She's an artist & likes the "open space feel." People still think it's a church & try to walk in all the time, but I tjink they are pretty cool 😎
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I used to have a consulting gig trying to help failing churches. The biggest problem was the shrinking congregation (often due to shifting demographics) had large, and largely ignored, infrastructure matters.
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They should have gone with the medieval method of deconstructing parts of the church that they no longer needed for housing and enclosures
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Medieval builders didn’t face building codes.
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Take a step back. The whole “science fiction author creates lucrative religion” thing has been done already.
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This right here is why small congregations sell their buildings. The alternative is to fire the pastor (personnel and facility costs are the two biggest chunks of most small org budgets.)
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Third alternative: set fire to the pastor, but that's only a short-term solution to the heating problem
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I can’t advise this, many of us are on the fatty side and would burn smoky. 😉
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😂
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Double glazed stained glass!

No, triple glazed stained glass!
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Right?!

I’d love to own one. There’s so many for sale in Ohio. But Laird Jazus, boye, can you imagine what that would cost to make livable?!!!

Which then further impresses you with how much money organizations that weekly pass a donation plate to the poor actually have.
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When we saw there was a church for sale nearby, the first thing we thought about was how many renovations you've had to do for yours.
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You got the better deal in the church you own. This one needs to be torn down.
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I’m the bookkeeper for a church (built in 1867). The heating bills, oh the heating bills.
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Have you looked at solar? Or heat pumps? It has worked very well in many churches.
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You could start a cult to help pay for all that.
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Infrared heating any good?
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You can’t put a price on those acoustics.

Oh wait, it turns out you can, and it’s a lot.
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Can't wait for a rival author to set up shop in the other church, leading to a sitcom archnrmesis scenario that we all love to watch for 6 seasons.
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Schism!
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We could use a good lighthearted sitcom in these dark times...
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I'd rather you buy and renovate churches than *become* a church like L Ron Hubbard.
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I see potential property taxes
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This is good to know. My son had been interested in buying a church.
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What about putting in a drop ceiling?

But, otherwise, yeah, renovation/maintenance costs would seem to be very prohibitive.
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Maybe you could start a cult and charge a tithe to support the building and costs? Wait a minute…. 🙈
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But how can you start a cult devoted to a heaven filled with pies and a hell filled with horrifying burrito creations if you only have one location?
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I think the same when I look at castles... I'd love a castle...just couldn't afford to renovate and heat it!
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And keep it clean! Just cleaning the windows would take days.

There's a tv show about a British couple restoring a French castel. Looks lovely, but who cleans all those large rooms with the high ceilings? And takes care of the massive grounds?
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Oh is that Dick Strawbridge and his missus? I couldn't watch them...they're a nightmare.
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Yupp. I've only watched a few episodes and I'm... torn. The castle is lovely. The inhabitants? Hmm... Sounds like they are fammous in the UK?

I'm also watching the dubbed version so maybe that's a bit better? No idea. But it feels very British. In France. And some of the renovations make me cringe.
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They're not necessarily famous, just notorious...if this is the same couple. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12098595/Escape-Chateau-stars-Dick-Angel-nightmare-work-with.html
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Yes, those are the ones. The show runs on a channel that does a lot of house flipping and that I sometimes use as white noise.
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That's why kings had slaves and serfs. Their wives were too busy dying in childbirth to clean.
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Having just finished a building renovation project at my church, I see where you are coming from. Just getting it to look good is pricey enough. Heating/cooling it is something else. Add in an organ that does not like extremes and its enough to turn your hair gray.
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...and renting scaffolding to dust once a year!

I'm reminded that the oldest soccer ball in the world was found in some beams in an English manor house.

Just a lot of "I ain't going up there!"
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really explains the architecture of presbyterian scotland
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Every time I watch a house search program where the seller is touting all of the wonderfully high ceilings, I find it impossible to not appreciate the roominess created but, at the same time, imagine the never mentioned additional heating and cooling bills they also create.
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Stupid question perhaps, but can you have ceiling fans installed literally blow the warm air back down? We have that in the "great room" part of our old barn-home and it does help. Though cleaning the blades is a PITA. High ceiling is nice in summer, all the heat goes up there haha.
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We have fans in the church, yes
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A historic 100 year old church and its outbuildings in my neighborhood is now being turned into a very large single-family home and two townhomes that will start at $2M.
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I used to live in an apartment in a converted church. The pointy church windows were pretty cool.
These days my apartment is in a castle (okay, Victorian gothic folly) which is also pretty good
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Curious, do you have oil heat or did you all replace all HVAC?
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We replaced it all.
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Depends on the church. A small church would be very workable.
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