survey report....what to do now?

dwhl

hi everyone,

am looking to buy a house and have had my offer accepted. just had the survey report back and found several problems.
1. there are several areas of brickwork which need repointing. the surveyor suggested that it would be advisable to have the whole elevation repointed rather than have it done in patches
2. the detached garage has a roof which appears to be sagging in the middle and the surveyor felt that it needed extra support from inside although he wasn't able to view inside (the key was not available at the time)
3."upgrading of the electrical installation"

what do you think i should do? am unsure of whether to just speak to the vendor and get a few quotes and renegotiate or ask the vendor to sort out the problems....
i know it's difficult but what is a ball park figure to sort out the above
1. repointing (1 wall of a semi detached house)
2. putting extra beams into a garage roof to support it (it has asbestos gutters, does this make a difference?)
3. rewiring a house

thanks for your help

david

snowmaid

dwhl wrote: »

hi everyone,

am looking to buy a house and have had my offer accepted. just had the survey report back and found several problems.
1. there are several areas of brickwork which need repointing. the surveyor suggested that it would be advisable to have the whole elevation repointed rather than have it done in patches
2. the detached garage has a roof which appears to be sagging in the middle and the surveyor felt that it needed extra support from inside although he wasn't able to view inside (the key was not available at the time)
3."upgrading of the electrical installation"

what do you think i should do? am unsure of whether to just speak to the vendor and get a few quotes and renegotiate or ask the vendor to sort out the problems....
i know it's difficult but what is a ball park figure to sort out the above
1. repointing (1 wall of a semi detached house)
2. putting extra beams into a garage roof to support it (it has asbestos gutters, does this make a difference?)
3. rewiring a house

thanks for your help

david

What is 'repointing'?

dwhl

hi there snowmaid

think that re-pointing is taking out the old mortar that holds the bricks/stones together and refreshing it with new mortar. think that after time it cracks and needs replacing.....
am sure that someone will be able to correct me on this

cheers

snowmaid

dwhl wrote: »

hi there snowmaid

think that re-pointing is taking out the old mortar that holds the bricks/stones together and refreshing it with new mortar. think that after time it cracks and needs replacing.....
am sure that someone will be able to correct me on this

cheers

AAaahhhh....ok.....thanks!

dwhl

any ideas.....anyone?

Doozergirl

You need to obtain quotes and you can either ask the vendor to do the work, or renegotiate and have it done yourself. You can probably renegotiate a bit, but it's hardly a damning survey.

Getting in to the garage to actually look at it would be helpful!

Repointing costs about £25 per square metre. It's not the sort of work that builders cherish though, so you'll have a bit of a time finding someone to do it!

Supporting the garage roof, assuming it's a fairly simple structure won't cost more than a couple of hundred quid.

To rewire, you're looking at a very rough ballpark of £4000. However, 'upgrading the electrical installation' doesn't necessarily mean rewiring. You need to have an electrician come in and test the electrics. He'll give you a report saying what he thinks.

I wouldn't even try renegotiating on what I say. Prices very widely from house to area!

Tiger_greeneyes

dwhl wrote: »

hi there snowmaid

think that re-pointing is taking out the old mortar that holds the bricks/stones together and refreshing it with new mortar. think that after time it cracks and needs replacing.....
am sure that someone will be able to correct me on this

cheers

Spot on

I'd get quotes for all of those elements, dwhl. It'll give you more weight behind you when you broach the subject of price reductions with the vendor.

The things you asked for ball park figures on isn't really possible to estimate without seeing the house. For instance, the electrics may just need a bit of updating and not cost much. You couldn't really ask the vendor to reduce the price if you're going on how much it would cost to rewire from scratch, for instance.

Also, the repointing - is it a two up, two down, or a five bedroom detached? There would be a vast difference in the costs. Also, you may well have to factor in the cost of scaffolding.

With the garage - you mentioned asbestos. If the surveyor hasn't made an issue of it, then it's bound to be the type that isn't a hazard. I doubt very much if it would cost a lot of money to support the garage roof, although it depends on the extent of it. Is it tiled, or is it felted?

All these things will be worth doing if you like the house - they'll not need doing again in a hurry!

real1314

As regards the elecs, it could be as little as recommending a RCD/MCB consumer unit to replace an existing fuse based supply?

I doubt the surveyor will have checked the wiring, in which case they'll have just looked at the fuse board supply and recommended updating, although this is not a legal requirement.

A new consumer unit would be about £200-£400 depending on where you are.

Tiger_greeneyes

The surveyor will likely have randomly checked the wiring - he'll have had a screwdriver with him and will have had a look behind a light switch or socket because it's a homebuyers report. Sockets (for instance) have much more strict guidelines these days as to where they're placed. That will give a surveyor an idea of how long they've been there - and indicating the age of the installation.

They can also tell a lot by looking at the light fittings - ie the pendants, the lighting in the bathroom - for instance, pendants aren't good practice in the bathroom these days.

As far as a qualified electrician goes, you should be looking for NICEIC qualifications - domestic electricians must be Part P registered before they can 'sign off' the certificate to prove your home is electrically sound.

dwhl

hi everyone,

sorry for not replying earlier.....been snowed under for a while.
thanks for all the replies.

have been doing some research on what has been said by you guys but something else has come up as well!!

The house is next door to a electricity substation. It's housed in a wooden and brick building about the size of a shed. It lies between two semis......

When I viewed the house initally I wasn't concerned but now the more I think about it the more I am having doubts. The surveyors report mentions that there has been some research that suggests there may be a link with leukaemia although it has not been definitively proven.

I know that it is in the surveyors best interest to write the worst case scenario and that there is probably more radiation emitted from microwaves and mobile phones.

I personally am not concerned about the perceived health risks but what does everyone else think? How does it impact on the sale and resale value and would it put a lot of people off buying? Is it worth buying?

thanks for the advice

CFC

It might or might not put me off buying. Can you hear a hum from it?

If I could hear a hum from it, it'd put me off. If I couldn't, it would depend on how close I was to it.

Substations generate low frequency EMFs such as those which are found near powerlines. Magnetic fields can extend out for some distance, depending on the size of the substation and the type of demand for electricity that it supplies.
Underground cables run from the substation to the house, businesses, etc. that it supplies. The cables give off very high levels of magnetic field close by. This can be a particular problem for houses with small or no front gardens, or where the cables pass near the garden. If there is no front garden or the property is a basement flat, the magnetic fields could be quite high even without net currents, but should fall off rapidly as you move away from the cables by a couple of metres.
The way that substations are connected can sometimes give rise to 'net' currents which can produce very high fields indeed in the houses between them. The electricity supply is unaffected and the electricity company does not usually see the high fields as a problem.

Several studies have suggested an increased risk of depression and suicide associated with magnetic field exposures above 0.2 µT. These are mentioned in the IARC and California reports and are discussed in more detail in a recent paper in the journal Medical Hypotheses (Vol. 59, 39-51, 2002). At the same time magnetic fields as low as 0.2 µT have been shown to reduce the nocturnal production of melatonin in the pineal gland in human populations (Davis et al, 2001; others). 1.2 µT fields have been shown to inhibit the oncostatic action of melatonin on breast cancer cells in vitro (Ishido et al, 2001; others). Such fields have also been shown to reduce the effectiveness of Tamoxifen, a drug widely used in the treatment of breast cancer (Liburdy & Harland, 1997; others). Here is a summary of adverse health effects associated with magnetic field exposures.

From transformers (substations), the field levels will reduce to an eighth at twice the distance. The fields from cables fall away somewhere between linear (twice the distance, half the field level) and square (twice the distance, one-quarter the level).

Maybe get someone to test the magnetic field, or hire a meter (such as the Elmfield Pro) to test what the field strenght is in the house and garden as it's that which may cause a problem - and if you are then reassured by your research you will be able to reassure any future buyers