Please help - Wall ties??

suzieq

We've just had our house valued to have the mortgage renewed, and they have said that we need a wall-tie report to be completed as a condition of the mortgage. We can't see that there are any issues, and neither can our IFA. He has suggested getting a builder friend of ours to say it's ok, and send this to the new lender.

Is this the right way to go about it? How can they demand we have something investigated, when there isn't anything to suggest an issue??

suzieq

No-one?

WestonDave

If you've had the house valued it would probably have been done by a surveyor who has picked up some sign (true or false) of wall tie failure. He will have included that on his report to the lender with a recommendation that it be investigated. Hence they have asked you to investigate!

I suspect the builder friend route isn't an option especially as the lender will want someone they can hold liable if the wall ties are a problem, and they have to repossess and find they can't get their money back. Geta surveyor to do it - they'll need the specialist kit to do it as they'll need to drill holes and look inside the wall cavity - don't get a wall tie replacement company to do it because they'll always say you need it doing.

Alternatively just find another lender as their surveyor might not notice it!

(Wall ties in case you didn't know are the butterfly shaped pieces of wire they put in when the build to hold the two walls together. In the bad old days they didn't use stainless steel ones, with the result that they can rust and break - this in turn means that wind pressure can suck the outer wall away from the inner one - although I'm not sure how likely that is but its the theory that seems to be quoted!)

TJ27

The tell tale signs of wall tie failure are horizontal cracks about every 6 brick courses apart. So if you've got horizontal cracks running parallel spaced roughly two feet apart, your ties are rusted.

It happens because the ties corrode, expand, and push the mortar joints apart.

As WestonDave says, surveyors tend to use boroscopes to look inside the cavity. This involves drilling a hole in the wall and sticking a camera into the cavity. There can be problems with this method. For example the corroded part of the wall tie genarally isn't in the cavity, it's in the mortar joint! It's also no good if you've got cavity insulation.

A better method is to locate a tie with a metal detector, remove a brick (perhaps by stitch drilling around it) and have a look at the tie within. Pick a tie close to base of the wall. The bottom of the wall is likely to be the wettest part of it, so that's where the worst corrosion should occur.

It's a job which can be tackled by somebody with a bit of DIY knowledge, although taking bricks out and then putting them back as they were can be a little bit tricky. On the plus side it costs almost nothing to do. (I bought a kids metal detector for a fiver in Toysrus to locate my ties.)

This doesn't particulary answer your post but I hope that it makes sense anyway. Good luck.

Oh, and I can't think of any other obvious tell tale signs of wall tie failure other than the horizontal cracking. If your house hasn't got the cracks, the surveyor might have noticed it in similar houses nearby or perhaps s/he's guessing that it's imminent because of the age of the house. Just a thought.

TJ27

If you find that the ties are not corroded why not send it in to the mortgage company and say, "How's that for a report on the wall ties.":D

I'm sure that's what Ken Dodd would do.

clutton_2

if this is a terraced house and other houses in the street appear to have random 3" blobs of concrete thrown at them, this may well be an indication that they have had wall ties replaced already. The surveyor may have picked up on this. Other evidence is looking at the wall to see if there is any evidence of a "bowing" outwards.