Survey results, advice on chimney, hot water, electrics

datimms

We’ve had our survey report back on a house we’vre buying near Crawley (West Sussex). As first time buyers a few things highlighted but are a bit naïve to their true consequence, given other advice we’ve seen that suggests the surveyors often want to cover themselves. The house is 1950’s built 3 bed end-of-terrace, we understand the area and possibly the house are ex-council. We believe the house has been owned by the same person for many years and the sale is a result of old age, the house has been redecorated by the family. These are all things that have been recommended to investigate before committing to legal completion. There are other things mentioned which are more annoyances than anything (eg shower not working).

Chimney
Red:

• Stack requires repointing.
• Damp detected in breast at loft level.

Ambers that may be related:

• Breast has been sealed at ground floor without ventilation. [Unknown when this was done.]
• The roof has no ventilation. [Specifically mentioned no sign of condensation, however. No other property in the terrace has any installed that I can see.]

Obviously chimney needs looking at. Which trade would I need? A roofer?

Services (Red items)

• Loft - plastic feed & expansion tank requires lid [assuming hot water feed but report is not clear). Overflow pipe needs re-routing to make effective.
• Loft - Cold water storage tank to be inspected for galvanic corrosion
• The electrical system needs inspection as No previous records available.
• The gas system and appliances needs inspection as No previous records available.
• Boiler to be serviced before exchange as No previous records available.

Is this required? How much would it cost typically? Is this something it's reasonable I ask the vendor to complete? I think it's a fair assumption when we made an offer that we expected this to have been maintained.

Amber items I am also concerned about:

• roof- "some" repointing required to main roof verges
• roof - investigate underlay condition at verges
• walls - Areas of spalling brickwork
• walls - Areas of repointing required

They are amber items but I guess I should seek a quote for these for peace of mind as they sound expensive. Can the same contractor as the chimney do this stuff or would i need another trade? I'm also assuming since this probably all needs scaffolding it would be cost effective to do the chimney, wall and roof repairs all together?

Lastly, it turns out the downstairs WC is not original. The surveyor included a note that local authority records should be checked for this. My question is, what is our recourse if not compliant? Surely that affects the value?

Many thanks
Datimms

Davesnave

As you have discovered, surveys tend to raise more questions than they answer and err on the cautious side. This one doesn't sound too scary to me for the age of the property.

If the house is a probate-type property those selling may know very little and they may just focus on decoration, rather than skilled work or servicing. It's your call whether you pay extra for reports/servicing of the boiler and an electrical check. They don't need to. If serious deficiencies are found, you might renegotiate, but equally, the sellers may say the price already reflects a need for some replacements.

For the structural/maintenance issues you can afford to take time if there's no sign of serious water ingress. The report doesn't detail any. A good general builder can do and quote for all, and scaffolding will probably be required.

Does the additional toilet flush properly? There are no toilet police working for the council and it could have been installed decades ago, so that's an optional drains survey .....(you can go on forever).....if you really want to know and be 100% sure.

What you are not telling us, is whether the house represents good value. Did the surveyor value the house at or above the price you've offered? If so, you may have difficulty negotiating anything further off the price.

xyz123

It all sounds quite normal for the age of the house, except for the mention of damp. If it is just in chimney breast it's almost certainly down to ventilation and you can look into fixing it. I would be tempted to discuss with seller (or representative) to get some token amount (maybe around £500/1000) off the sale price...

J_B

Don't most folks who have had a survey, then go back to the vendor and say 'look, they've identified these X problems, so I will have to offer you £X less'???

shaun_from_Africa

xyz123 wrote: »

It all sounds quite normal for the age of the house, except for the mention of damp. If it is just in chimney breast it's almost certainly down to ventilation and you can look into fixing it

A damp chimney breast at loft level could very well be due to the flashing between the stack and the roof being damaged, leading to rain water seeping down.
I had exactly the same problem in my house and getting the flashing replaced totally solved the damp issue.

Davesnave

J_B wrote: »

Don't most folks who have had a survey, then go back to the vendor and say 'look, they've identified these X problems, so I will have to offer you £X less'???

Of course they do.

And equally, vendors may reply, "It's priced to allow for its condition" and politely tell them to do one, especially in places like Crawley, where there is good demand.

(As pointed out earlier, we haven't been made aware of how the valuation stacks-up.)

jingles8384

We had a similar issue with a house we completed on last Monday - built in 1966 and nothing done it it since (we've done a lot to it in terms of minor demolition work since then though)!

Re the boiler, this cost our vendor £70 + VAT and we got a certificate etc to confirm it had been done (we made our offer conditional on this being done).

We had a full structural survey completed and LOADS of things came out (around 30 from memory) but if you can ask the estate agent to arrange for the relevant tradespeople to have a look and provide estimates before you complete/exchange, you'll have an idea of what you're getting yourself into (as well as formal estimates you can use in future if you want to)...

datimms

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

A damp chimney breast at loft level could very well be due to the flashing between the stack and the roof being damaged, leading to rain water seeping down.
I had exactly the same problem in my house and getting the flashing replaced totally solved the damp issue.

Thanks, presumably if I get someone to quote on the repointing they will highlight this if it's damaged. Out of interest, how much did your work come to? Was an access tower required?

shaun_from_Africa

The job cost £720. Quite a bit of this cost was for the lead strips.
When the place was built (I think it was in the late 60's) they didn't use lead for the flashing (it seemed to be something like soft tin sheet covered in heavy paint) so everything had to be replaced.
At first, I thought that the quotes I received were a bit on the high side but after checking around, this seems to be the going rate for the SE of England.
http://quotationcheck.com/average-cost-replace-lead-walls-chimney/
I didn't need any scaffolding as I have a bungalow and the roofers just used a couple of ladders.

If you want to get someone around to give a quote, I could send you the name of the firm I used. (They are based in Horley).
They didn't give the cheapest quote but their reviews were very good and I had no problems with the work they carried out.

datimms

Davesnave wrote: »

(As pointed out earlier, we haven't been made aware of how the valuation stacks-up.)

The valuation referenced the "agreed price of x" (surveyor obviously knew the price), with a comment "as long as you are prepared to accept the cost and inconvenience of the repair work". To be honest, we aren't asking this with a view to knock the seller down. We budgeted for a few surprises, but just not 2k for one thing - and on top of the things we were already aware of.

As first timers, we just want to know whether we should be unduly concerned, and curious how to proceed/next steps.

Hope that clarifies, thanks for everyone' answers so far. I think perhaps having paid for a survey it would be silly to ignore the recommendations so will at a minimum seek estimates for most of it. Just not clear what trade to approach, whether to split it up or provide as one big job.

datimms

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

The job cost £720. ...
At first, I thought that the quotes I received were a bit on the high side but after checking around, this seems to be the going rate for the SE of England.
http://quotationcheck.com/average-cost-replace-lead-walls-chimney/
I didn't need any scaffolding as I have a bungalow and the roofers just used a couple of ladders.

That website is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Several of the recommended jobs are listed and the explanations and considerations are clear.