buying an older house

bouicca21

I'm hoping to be able to buy soon (fingers crossed on that). I will almost certainly be buying an older house - probably a Victorian or Edwardian terrace, just possibly one rebuilt after bombing in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

The one thing I can't afford to do is to buy somewhere that needs loads of remedial work, though I'm up for refurbishing if the price justifies it. On houses of this age a survey is obviously a necessity - though I am a bit confused about the difference between a survey and a homebuyers report and also about whether to get separate surveys of plumbing and electrics.

Anyway it occurred to me that one way of minimising the risk of nasties turning up on a costly survey would be to take as many precautions as possible when viewing.

I've already been told to get binoculars to look at the roof. Any suggestions about what sort would be good? There's loads of different specs out there and I haven't a clue about how to distinguish between them.

It also occurred to me that a damp meter would be a good idea. There are several cheap ones on the market for 'domestic' use. Are they any good? Professional ones seem to be about £120 but I'm not sure whether I'd need one that good. I just need a general idea of whether there is a problem or not.

Any tips?

DaftyDuck

Well, there's a disagreement running on another thread, where someone seems to believe you should only look at a property for ten minutes, then get a surveyor to do a Homebuyer's report, and base your decision on the form-set phrases that are used in that.

I'm not in that school. I always take a long, hard look at a property and, if I'm likely to want a longer look I let the agent (and therefore owner) know in advance. This does not (contrary to some of the precious sellers on here ) tend to upset owners; they know I'm seriously interested in their property, and the more careful I am, the less likely I am to pull out suddenly at a later date. They like that, if they are sane.

Be prepared. Take along a clipboard, a copy of the details, a list of rooms, and a list of questions you want to answer yourself about each room. This prevents you forgetting. So, check boiler is an obvious one. Is it working, is it old, ask when it was serviced, note the make and look it up later. But, add to that, check water pressure.

For checking defects, know your limits. (Yes T, that's why I get a full survey done most times ). A damp meter is only useful if you know what to make of the data it spits out. Also, it will mark a wall with two or three small holes, so you should ask before using one. A cheap one (say £12) will do a good enough job. I do use one, but rarely. Normally you can see obvious damp, and less-obvious damp is easier to deal with, in many cases.

Look at the condition of all interior sides of outside walls. Any sign of peeling paper, water marks, damaged plaster, damaged flooring? Use the notes of rooms you made earlier to force yourself to go slowly. Note down any such faults. Lift a carpet corner; is it musty? Look for any other structural changes - cracks, leans.

Go outside. Match wall-for-wall. Are there any signs of damp outside. Where? if it is right beside a gutter downpipe, 9 times out of ten that's your answer. Look up at the gutters. Are they cast-iron (which are EXPENSIVE to repair :rotfl:) and if so, are they in good order. Look at the roof. Binoculars may help, but only if you know what you are looking for. Basically, SLOWLY look along the roof lines. Are they straight? What condition are ridge tiles in? What is the mortar like; crumbly, good, bad? Is there signs of repair?

Follow all the like/slate lines. How many are broken/slipped?

Now, go into the attic. Look at the timbers. Any showing any sign of damp or woodworm? Are they dry and cobwebby (which is good, honest!). Can you see daylight? If there is felt, is it in good condition? If there is overlap in the felt, crumple a bit there.. if it is friable, it may have perished rather elsewhere.

What is stored in the attic? If it is full of boxes of interesting stuff, it's likely dry. If the boxes are damp and smelly....

The key is to look carefully... and slowly, slowly, slowly. Hence, a sheet on a clipboard with rooms and things to check will make you look... Did you check the flooring? Yep. Did you check wall 1,2,3,4. Yep. Did you check if the door was in good condition? Yep. Did you look at the light fitting for age of wiring? Nope.. checking it now, and ... Yep! Old wiring ther, so now let me look closely at any wiring I can see anywhere... Where's that consumer unit? Here? ... Oh... My... God... Total rewire required!

Dukesy

Honestly, if there are problems that you can't see, then a survey is unlikely to spot them either. We had some real nasties that only became evident when we gutted our house, which was ok for us as we were renovating, but which could have caused severe problems for anyone who wasn't expecting to find such nasties.

I would advise you to take a good amount of time viewing the place - get up into the loft, ask if you can check the state of the walls behind furniture (don't bother with a damp meter - if the place has damp to worry about, you will more than likely see the signs of it, PARTICULARLY behind furniture.)

Plumbing and electrical surveys aren't a bad idea - your average surveyor is not qualified to deal with electrics or plumbing, and if you can't afford to rewire and replumb a house, it'd be worth having it all checked out. On our place we were rewiring and plumbing anyway, but the original wiring was actually genuinely dangerous - something our survey, of course, made no mention of. Bear in mind that just because wiring doesn't meet the modern standard, it is not necessarily dangerous, and be careful that the person you employ to check it all out isn't just taking you for a ride in the hope of getting your custom further.

In all honesty, in older properties there is always a good deal of risk that there will be hidden issues, but if you're careful you should be able to avoid massive and unexpected bills

bouicca21

Thanks. I think what concerns me most is the thought of finding too many problems and then having to start all over again on another house. It's the thought of paying for multiple surveys if you see what I mean. And in the neighbourhood I'll be looking at it's pretty obvious that well over half the houses with front gardens that have been concreted over to provide a parking space have compromised damp courses. Question for a numpty like me is how much to worry about such things - if the air brick is visible is it OK even if it is literally sitting level with the concrete.

Dukesy

In all honesty, my forte is really stone built cottages, so I don't know all that much about airbricks etc.

However, I'd be a bit worried about an airbrick being level with the concrete outside - I'd want to make damn sure that water didn't pool on the concrete.

trailingspouse

I think, if you're buying an older place, you can assume that there are likely to be issues with damp, probably some electrics will need sorting, probably the roof isn't perfect. Etc, etc. Save your money - put the cost of the survey towards the cost of remedial work. If you're scared off by this sort of problem, go for a newer house.

DaftyDuck

I wouldn't agree with putting off a survey to spend the money on expected repairs. The saving of £500 to £1000 won't go far should you need remedial work for subsidence, have a serious roofing issue, or other structural problem of that order, and s surveyor will spot those (and if he doesn't you do have comeback with a full structural survey). Anyway, if you've spotted problems, you should try and negotiate these off the price, even before survey.

I'd say do thorough homework to start with, a thorough look-over, costing up as best as you can what you can see needs doing. If it is within your budget, move on to a survey. If it is vastly exceeding it, move onto another property and save wasting money on a survey on that house.

Mojisola

bouicca21 wrote: »

Question for a numpty like me is how much to worry about such things - if the air brick is visible is it OK even if it is literally sitting level with the concrete.

If the air brick is level with the concrete, the surrounding land has been raised. You may find yourself, like us, having a pond under the floors of the house because, every time it rained, the water poured in through the airbrick.

I would look for an older house that has had some updating done rather than a late 40s/early 50s property. The country was really struggling after the war but was very short of housing and there were some very shoddy places thrown up.

DaftyDuck

There's a very, very useful tip I forgot to add: it's been bugging me.

If the neighbouring houses are similar age and style (whether old, or new), look at what work they've had done recently/what's different to the one you are interested in. If yours has cast-iron guttering, and the three similar-aged neighbours have plastic, you can guess your gutters are rusted through. If they have been re-roofed, and yours has the older tiles, you'll need a new roof in a few years.

Anything they've had to do to theirs, you are likely to have to do the same soon.

bluep

Another thing to ask about is the water pressure/supply. We bought an old victorian house that was on the end of a row of 4 coming off of the same supply pipe (then the next 4 houses shared the next supply pipe off of the main etc...). As a result, our water pressure was RUBBISH when everyone else turned their taps on (which obviously wasn't at the time of day when we did our 2 viewings because they were all at work) - I mean so bad that it barely trickled some times during the evening. We eventially teamed up with our next door neighbours and got a separate supply pipe put in which saved all of our problems.

bouicca21

Water pressure is an interesting one. There's a small development of 1960 type town houses in the neighbourhood. One has been for sale for well over a year. I think it is over priced and it doesn't have a bathroom or toilet on the top floor, which seems very odd to me, and I can't help but wonder if the water pressure precludes getting water up that high.

And thanks to Dafty; I've certainly been looking at roofs (very few original ones, lots have replaced slates with concrete tiles though) and will now add gutters to my list!