Home Insurance & Home Construction

lemon26

Hi all,

I'm just renewing my home insurance and I've got a query about what I should put for the construction part of the policy - the roof is tiled but the walls, I don't know! The house used to be a pre-fab council house but in the 80's (well before I bought it) the council totally refurbished them and gave them brick outer walls whihc, being in Scotland, were then rendered. So do I put brick or pre-fab construction for my insurance?

Thanks, L

huckster

The old council properties were built from concrete blocks, which were reinforced with steel. Unfortuantely, this construction type was fraught with problems making them more difficult to Insure, as they were treated as non standard construction.

In the 80's and 90's the concrete blocks were commonly replaced with standard brick construction and are now considered standard construction.

If this is the case with your house, i.e, the prefab concrete has definately been replaced with standard construction, you would just declare as standard construction. Check the surveyors report that you obtained when you bought the property.

Astaroth

If however they simply put a single course skin of brick infront and left the reinforced concrete behind then you will have to declare the construction as concrete which pushes you down the much more expensive none standard construction route.

lemon26

Hi, in my mortgage survey the surveyor says the walls are 'roughcast cavity concrete block' - does this mean the walls are the gray concrete blocks commonly used so therefore brick/block construction or standard construction or what on insurers websites?

cogito

The property is built of non-combustible materials (except possibly the floors). That's what insurers really want to know.

huckster

lemon26 wrote: »

Hi, in my mortgage survey the surveyor says the walls are 'roughcast cavity concrete block' - does this mean the walls are the gray concrete blocks commonly used so therefore brick/block construction or standard construction or what on insurers websites?

As long as the pre-feb elements were totally got rid of and replaced with the materials you have mentioned, you should be ok.

If you want to extra cautious, you could phone the Insurers or send them a copy of the survey to make sure they are happy with the construction.

lemon26

Thanks to all of you for your replies, I haven't got a clue if the pre-fab elements were removed or not - I doubt it as the neighbours have lived here since they were built and the say the council put a wall around it - I'll give the insurers a call tomorrow.

huckster

Your local authority may be able to provide some information as to how the contractors carried out the work.

I have seen it being done. From what I saw, scaffolding and rsj's were added, with the pre-fab being removed in sections, with replacement with breeze blocks/bricks.

The problems with the pre-fab concrete I believe is that it reacted with the steel reinforcement rods i.e concrete cancer.

For this reason I would think they would have removed the pre-fab blocks.

cogito

huckster wrote: »

Your local authority may be able to provide some information as to how the contractors carried out the work.

I have seen it being done. From what I saw, scaffolding and rsj's were added, with the pre-fab being removed in sections, with replacement with breeze blocks/bricks.

The problems with the pre-fab concrete I believe is that it reacted with the steel reinforcement rods i.e concrete cancer.

For this reason I would think they would have removed the pre-fab blocks.

That's right. This type of property was, in the main, thrown up after WW2 as a temporary solution to the housing problem. As is often the case with Local Authorities, temporary solutions became permanent.