Just bought a house and found structural problems

el_cloughie

My best friends have just bought their first home, they've had the keys for a few weeks and have been stripping back all the wallpaper. When taking paper off in two bedrooms a load of plaster fell off and chunks of brick near yhe join with the ceiling. Where the partition walls meet the outer wall there is an inch wide gap and the brick wall is bowing outwards, many bricks supporting the roof are loose. It appears that this movement happened a long time ago, decades perhaps. A few builders and people in building trades agree but it hasn't been inspected by a surveyer yet, not since the purchase anyway
So where should they start looking for help. The surveyer who looked during the purchase says this would not have been part of the survey. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Checking with the estate agents in the morning

Excited13

What kind of a survey did your friends have? Valuation, homebuyers or full structural?

martinthebandit

Think you may be getting in a panic a bit prematurely.

How old is the house would be a good place to start, and if the movement happened a long while ago it's not going to fall down tomorrow.

.. and why are you going to the estate agents?

G_M

el_cloughie wrote: »

Checking with the estate agents in the morning

What on earth for? Vendors employed them to sell house. They sold house. Job done!

* Age of house?
* Survey done?
* if all this was covered by paper, how could surveyor see it?
* Sounds like the partition wall has a problem - that's not 'structural'
* how old is the movement?

ognum

it is not unusual in old houses for the plaster to fall off with the wall paper. As said before it sounds like there is a problem with the partition wall or maybe the wall ties have broken and the inner wall is bowing.

Did you get a full structural survey?

The EA they bought through will not be interested, as the buyer they are responsible for checking out the property before exchange, now it's there's to sort out I'm afraid.

motherofstudents

I can imagine your friends being concerned because if you have never seen anything like this before it does look kind of scary. Get a decent builder to look at it and quote. Tell them not to panic, it is fixable. And as others have said, forget the estate agent !

phill99

Gaye_Mann_[Mrs] wrote: »

Sounds like water's been getting in a for a while?

And how on earth would you know?

el_cloughie

My thoughts, based purely on how old the decor appears, is that the movement happened long ago and was decorated over in the 70s and forgotten about. The house is a circa 1940s something ex-council.
It's most definately the external wall that has moved, spirit level shows it to be way out while the partition wall is as near square as you can hope for.

I believe they are asking the estate agents for advice as they have no idea who else to ask, can't blame them really - their new to this and the surveyer and solicitors etc we're all in-house (or at least arranged by the estate agent anyway). Can't answer about the type of survey done - they're flapping a bit too much to get reliable responses at the minute, again I can't blame them for being worried right now.

el_cloughie

Gaye_Mann_[Mrs] wrote: »

Sounds like water's been getting in a for a while?

Funnily enough it's one of the only rooms that's bone dry. Thankfully tje various damp spots and leaky radiators are some things were fairly comfortable with handling

Biggles

I do find it a bit surprising that the surveyor can say it 'wouldn't have been part of the survey' without even having seen it again, especially if they phrased it as you have, ie not about the plaster falling off but about the external wall bowing outwards and bricks supporting the roof coming loose.

olias

Bowing wall can be stabilised using a long threaded rod that is inserted through the affected wall, bonded in place, and then bolted to the internal joists. This prevents the wall moving any further. I can't remember what they are called, but any builder will know, from that description. Shouldn't be overly expensive.

Olias