2nd viewing - problems found

frafferty

We went to see our new house for the 2nd time yesterday and my husband became concerned with a couple of issues that he found. Can anyone tell me how worried we should be about these? The house is 10 years old and was originally the showhome on a new development.

In the master bedroom as you walk in through the door the floor creaks and moves about 2cm. Obviously without lifting the carpet it was impossible to find out why. No other floors creaked and moved in the house. Is it something we should be concerned about?

The central heating had a very old analogue programmer and none of the radiators had thermostatic controls...?

There was lots of wires going to the junction box in the understairs cupboard. Never seen anything like it! The current owners said it was like that when they bought it.

Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated before we make a very costly mistake.
Thank you

anselld

frafferty wrote: »

In the master bedroom as you walk in through the door the floor creaks and moves about 2cm. Obviously without lifting the carpet it was impossible to find out why. No other floors creaked and moved in the house. Is it something we should be concerned about?

2cm seems a lot, but probably just that at some time somebody has lifted some flooring and not properly supported the join when it went back down. Not hard to fix if so. Could you ask the vendors to investigate / repair?

frafferty wrote: »

The central heating had a very old analogue programmer and none of the radiators had thermostatic controls...?

Not the end of the world if in good working order.

frafferty wrote: »

There was lots of wires going to the junction box in the understairs cupboard.

What sort of "junction box"? Presumably you dont mean the main consumer unit.

What sort of wires? Mains? How thick?

Are there any redundant wall outlets? I am wondering if it started life as Economy 7 / Storage heating and there has been a conversion to gas central heating.

natman

Hi,

House buying full stop is riddled with hurdles and obstacles, sometimes we over analyse the minimal of things and dont get too bothered about major things- its a very stressful time.................. Lets try and get things into perspective.

Ok - A house 10 years old will of course have certain things that are not in it as standard than that brand new house.
Your radiator controls, we moved from a house that was 8 years old, and it did not have thermostatic valves, of course thermostatic valves are more cost effective etc, but nothing to get too worried about in my opinion.

The creaky floor, many houses are now built with floor panels rather than floor boards, our 8 year old house creaked upstairs, nothing was wrong it just creaked.....................
Your moving of about 2cm, may be a small issue it may be a bigger issue, it may require a nail /screw to be tightened up etc or something else.
You can either ask about it and lift up the carpet etc,or get a homebuyer survey which should pick stuff up like this and give some advice.

The wires in the understairs cupboard will again be looked at, at homebuyer survey stage, if it was built 10 years ago, the electrical regulations would have been adhered to, and would generally be ok in todays electrical standards

At the end of the day no property is perfect, theres always little problems, in my opinion you need to ensure major things are satisfactory -
Roof, walls , foundations, gas, electrical etc etc.

In my opinion a house 10 years old, would not be needing an intensive amount of structural or major work, unless there was a major problem or the owners have botched up some work .
We bought a brand new house 1 year ago and there was a few niggles , but hey nothing today is perfect. You need to make sure you get a decent survey to hopefully pick up any issues, and speak to the seller about the issues and have a nosey at the faults.

Good luck

Ditto

If you get a homebuyers survey they will just say there "may" be a problem with the electrics and advise you to get an electrician to look at it.

natman

Ditto wrote: »

If you get a homebuyers survey they will just say there "may" be a problem with the electrics and advise you to get an electrician to look at it.

I agree completley, but if the wiring is what is expected in a 10 year old house, very little will be said about getting it checked out by an electrician, unless there is a problem or something look perculiar

The original poster is concerned about the wiring therefore to actually get it analysed properly would be to have an electricain look at it. All I am saying about the survey is that there are things in place to try and protect the buyer, I know its not 100% failsafe, but it is there for the banks and the buyer to look at risk and potential problems.

poppysarah

Get a survey done on the electrics and get a surveyor to look at the bedroom floor. It might be a lifted floorboard where heating has been accessed or might be a sign of bodged jobs.

A 10 year old house should be all ok surely? If it's not then maybe someone who has lived there is a diy nightmare.

frafferty

poppysarah - that is my instinct but my husband is a bit more pedantic than I am I keep reminding him how bad this place was when we moved into it 11 years ago and how much we have done to make it perfect for us. Unfortunately the current owners of the new house seem a bit less bothered about things like lumpy plaster and paint being only on the wood and not the brasswork etc :rotfl:All things that we had to correct here too!

He's currently compiling an email to the solicitors asking their advice. He still wants to buy the house but he has a lot of concerns and I think he would like some of those concerns addressed / corrected before we proceed.

He's just informed me that the pump on the hot water system was completely corroded up too and there was sludge on one of the pipes which was tied up with a scarf....hmmmm. There was also some issues with their DIY HIP pack being wrong (which we decided to ignore) I'm just wondering how many more surprises we are going to get?

Thank you everyone for your replies, I think we will decide later on how best to move forward with this now

penguingirl

If the house is 10 years old, does it still have a valid NHBC warrenty (valid for 10 years)- that might help sort out some of the problems (such as the hot water system).

Things like the radiators don't matter- we don't have thermostats on ours (and we have an old/cheap timer too), and although it's inconvenient it's definitely not a deal breaker!

HappyMJ

penguingirl wrote: »

If the house is 10 years old, does it still have a valid NHBC warrenty (valid for 10 years)- that might help sort out some of the problems (such as the hot water system).

The warranty after the first 2 years is very limited really only covered the structure and the land for subsidence and then they will only pay the excess on the home insurance policy. It won't cover anything to do with electrics, plumbing or heating.

muskoka

Get a periodic inspection done on the electrics. Think it only costs about £60