Sloping Floors in house we want to buy

gb26

Just after a bit advice, we have had an offer accepted on a house we both love. I had my parents come down and have a look at it, my Dad has spotted 2 things concerning him

1) The dining room floor seems to rise in the middle and slope down towards the wall

2) The kitchen (an extension on the house) the floor seems to slope towards the back door, he also thinks the sink wasn't level.

Rather than waiting for the structural survey to be completed and us be out of pocket, would it be suitable to take a builder there to check out the rooms and if there is issues provide us with a price to fix them?

Obviously I think it will be hard to see what the issues are without moving floor boards etc, just wondered if anyone had done something simliar with a builder and if they found it useful?

Thanks in advance

theartfullodger

When looking at property I ALWAYS start by looking outside at the roof line, roof & walls & vertical corners...

If any ain't exactly straight/flat/true there's almost always problems..

What does this place look like from outside??

gb26

The front of the house has had some re-pointing, next to the bay window.

Other than that it looked ok, as much as I can tell anyway.

ukmaggie45

Are the floors solid or wood? If floor is bowing and is a concrete floor you might care to google Concrete Sickness or Concrete Attack.

McKneff

Is it in a mining area.

bosseyed

I think my first question would be how old is the house?

If its an older property chances are theres nothing out of the ordinary with a few wonky lines - mines a 1930s terrace and theres hardly a straight line in the place (built on a friday afternoon perhaps ).

If its a newer property, perhaps more cause to dig a little deeper. The extension floor sloping towards the back door could be a sign of some subsidence (is there any cracking in the walls, or any signs of recent filling work?) or it could just be bad building - my mums house, the people who lived there before her had a bunch of cowboys fling an extension up and its the wonkiest structure you've ever seen, but ultimately solid. Imagine the top of the door is level, the ceiling slopes up and the floor slopes down, its all over the shop - but theres no subsidence, no cracking - just poor building. Which in itself might be offputting when buying but not necessarily an issue. Shes been there for 20 years now with zero problems.

As for getting builders in, I suppose that would depend on the level of invasion they can get away with - might be hard to pin point the cause of say the hump in the dining room floor without lifting floorboards which the vendors might not be willing to accomodate.

So I suppose it boils down to how much you want the house - if its your dream property then you'll just have to fork out for a survey and specifically get the surveyor to look at those issues along with the usual stuff and then await their report.

If its offputting then just walk away.

Norma_Desmond

Our house is 200 years old and does slope a little, but before we bought it we had no less than two structural surveys and were assured that any movement was historic.....hasn't shifted since!
I would obviously be concerned if it was a modern house.

gb26

Thanks for all your replies, it isn't in a mining area, it's built on an old orchard.

It does date from around the 1930's so it getting on a bit, we've not seen any cracks on the walls but it has been recently decorated so they wouldn't be visible.

This was my thinking with the builders as well, it would be some degree of guesswork to decide if anything was wrong because we couldn't investigate fully. But we could maybe find out if the extension is dodgy building work which would be reassuring.

wrightk

It could be normal movement from the joists. If you were to walk around on the floor would everything in the room shake a lot? This could indicate weak, rotting or incorrectly installed joists

The best way to check is to have the floorboards up and visually check the joists. Some properties that are very old or are built incorrectly have an incorrect width between the joists or they are too thin for the floor and to support the weight of a normal room.Others can be rotten and need replacing.

In old properties it is quite common for the corners or the edges of the rooms floorboards to seem a little lower due to the age of the joists underneath and the amount of movement over the years.Like other posters suggested check for signs of subsidence, large cracks in internal and external walls between the new extension and old building.

Id get someone in thats reputable and can give you some proper advice but by the sounds of it its not too much to worry about

mlz1413

Go and view again and see if you can stand in the corners of the room and jump up & down - probably best if vendors and out and EA shows you round!

Weak joists will be shown up by this movement - having them myself only 5 years after a major renovation I'm pretty fed up about it as we now have to move all the furniture, take up the floor boards and replace whatever is wrong underneath. Having to go to this effort we have decided we will also replace the floor boards - which means 2 more days for stain & varnish to dry (I know I could have lino but I don't want it!)

If you know a good general builder I'd def get them to round with you, amazing how much they pick up and probably worth paying them for an hour of their time if you need to.

Ulfar

Take either a level or a ball bearing/marble depending on how confident you are around estate agents/vendors.

Either will show whether a surface is level, I assuming the rooms aren't carpeted.

I generally take a level, step ladder and a suspicious mind.