BISF House

luke123456

Hello everyone

I would love a bit of advice please.

I have found a BISF house in a very good location, good price and well looked after.

Is there anything to worry about? Would the home insurance cost more? i.e. what does it mean to buy a BISF house, risks...?

Please advise

Thanks

hazyjo

Do you need a mortgage? Might be a problem...

Jx

kingstreet

Can you give us any further details of the property if you do need a mortgage? I have an old guide for one leading lender, which says;-

Acceptable up to 85% loan to value in original condition
and normal terms on completion of acceptable repair
scheme, eg, BISF houses and other Steel systems.

Now, this may be out of date and in need of refreshing, but you may have a problem if the property hasn't been repaired. You'll probably need an "invasive" structural engineer's report and a certificate of repair at the very least.

ed110220

I bought a BISF house last December and am very happy with it.

You need to be a little careful when choosing insurance as not all insurers will cover it.

In terms of mortgages, I found all of the big lenders would consider a BISF house provided it did not have its original asbestos roof. Most lenders will not accept any type of house with an asbestos roof. However, Halifax did. It is very easy to tell whether the roof is asbestos as it is grey and corrugated.

Halifax did not need any invasive structural examinations as BISF houses are generally unproblematic. I think the other poster may be confusing it with a precast reinforced concrete (PRC) house, which is a different kettle of fish and in need of specialist repairs, without which it is generally unmortgageable.

Have a look at https://www.bisfhouse.com which is a very helpful little community of BISF dwellers

ruggedtoast

luke123456 wrote: »

Hello everyone

I would love a bit of advice please.

I have found a BISF house in a very good location, good price and well looked after.

Is there anything to worry about? Would the home insurance cost more? i.e. what does it mean to buy a BISF house, risks...?

Please advise

Thanks

BISF houses are of non standard construction, so broadly mortgages and insurance are harder to arrange, buyers are fewer and prices are lower.

Criticisms I have heard of BISF are that they are difficult to heat, have zero insulation or noise proofing, and most are reaching the end of the period of life they were designed for. Nevertheless apparently there is a certain type of BISF property that seems to last well and not be subject to the corrosion that effected earlier builds.

They were basically, chucked up after the war to try and house people quickly.

Proceed with caution.

ed110220

ruggedtoast wrote: »

BISF houses are of non standard construction, so broadly mortgages and insurance are harder to arrange, buyers are fewer and prices are lower.

Criticisms I have heard of BISF are that they are difficult to heat, have zero insulation or noise proofing, and most are reaching the end of the period of life they were designed for. Nevertheless apparently there is a certain type of BISF property that seems to last well and not be subject to the corrosion that effected earlier builds.

They were basically, chucked up after the war to try and house people quickly.

Proceed with caution.

Not my experience at all, and I would advise luke123456 to seek advice from people with actual experience as there are a lot of misconceptions.

There is essentially only one type of BISF house, though some internal non-structural details varied. In terms of insulation, it's certainly not up to modern standards, but better than traditional solid-walled structures, and can be retro-fitted more easily. All internal walls are dry wall, so noise transmission from room-to-room is there, but that's pretty standard for most houses. The party wall is a double layer of concrete blocks with dry lining on each side so noise from the neighbours is reduced more than in most attached houses.

One should remember that a BISF house is a steel-framed structure and as such is a tried and tested system that has been used for over a century for everything from the Empire State Building to your local supermarket and so has nothing to do with the more experimental systems such as PRC which did not perform well. Severe corrosion of the steel frame is rare (where I've exposed mine, it's been practically as good as new) and repairs are not particularly difficult or expensive, if not trivially so.

Technically it's correct that a BISF house is reaching the end of its design life of 65 years, but then most older houses are reaching or have reached the end of their design life and are expected to last a lot longer if maintained properly.

When the government looked into problems in system-built houses in the 1980s, the study concluded that a BISF house should be expected to last as well as a traditionally-built house of the same age. Lenders share the same opinion and Halifax was happy to provide a 40 year mortgage.

kingstreet

If "BISF" is taken to mean "BISF Types A, B & C" I'd tend to agree with you, ed.

However, "BISF" has come to be used as a kind of cover-all for steel framed properties of lots of different designs/builds.

For example, Arcal, Arcon, B-J, Braithwaite, Bunton, Canister, Cathcart, Clip Slab, Craig-Atholl, Dorlonco, Douglas Cottages, Eastwood and several others can be described as "BISF" incorrectly, leading to confusion. These would be subject to a repair regime and certification before being mortgageable.

ed110220

kingstreet wrote: »

If "BISF" is taken to mean "BISF Types A, B & C" I'd tend to agree with you, ed.

However, "BISF" has come to be used as a kind of cover-all for steel framed properties of lots of different designs/builds.

For example, Arcal, Arcon, B-J, Braithwaite, Bunton, Canister, Cathcart, Clip Slab, Craig-Atholl, Dorlonco, Douglas Cottages, Eastwood and several others can be described as "BISF" incorrectly, leading to confusion. These would be subject to a repair regime and certification before being mortgageable.

Technically BISF types A, B and C were the prototypes built in Northolt in 1944. Only one pair of each (ie a semi-detached unit of each) was built. Only one type was ever put into production, based on one of the prototypes. The prototypes are still there, but as there are only two of each are of little relevance.

I agree that if you term any steel-framed house a BISF house it gets a lot more complicated, but that I think is very misleading because BISF refers to a particular "model" of house. For example a Dorlonco house I know is a lot older and doesn't have much in common with a BISF house apart from the steel frame, also it can be a lot more problematic to repair.

So yes, check it really is a BISF house! The design is fairly distinctive.

ruggedtoast

ed110220 wrote: »

Not my experience at all, and I would advise luke123456 to seek advice from people with actual experience as there are a lot of misconceptions.

There is essentially only one type of BISF house, though some internal non-structural details varied. In terms of insulation, it's certainly not up to modern standards, but better than traditional solid-walled structures, and can be retro-fitted more easily. All internal walls are dry wall, so noise transmission from room-to-room is there, but that's pretty standard for most houses. The party wall is a double layer of concrete blocks with dry lining on each side so noise from the neighbours is reduced more than in most attached houses.

One should remember that a BISF house is a steel-framed structure and as such is a tried and tested system that has been used for over a century for everything from the Empire State Building to your local supermarket and so has nothing to do with the more experimental systems such as PRC which did not perform well. Severe corrosion of the steel frame is rare (where I've exposed mine, it's been practically as good as new) and repairs are not particularly difficult or expensive, if not trivially so.

Technically it's correct that a BISF house is reaching the end of its design life of 65 years, but then most older houses are reaching or have reached the end of their design life and are expected to last a lot longer if maintained properly.

When the government looked into problems in system-built houses in the 1980s, the study concluded that a BISF house should be expected to last as well as a traditionally-built house of the same age. Lenders share the same opinion and Halifax was happy to provide a 40 year mortgage.

Well fine, but they are as ugly as hell and look like they've been made out of asbestos and mechano.

ed110220

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Well fine, but they are as ugly as hell and look like they've been made out of asbestos and mechano.

Personal opinion. I rather like them, especially when painted in a nice colour. They were designed to look like Scandinavian houses with their profiled steel upper storey which was intended to loom like wood.

Makes a nice change from a ten-a-penny boring Dickensian red brick house!

ed110220

The other thing I've noticed here in Bath is that all the BISF houses I've seen for sale have been snapped up quite quickly (within a few weeks) which seems unusually fast, and is probably explained by the shortage of affordable, reasonable sized houses with reasonable sized gardens.

If there are lots of other similar houses in the town, then it may be different.