1900 style home

ST1991

Semi-piggy-backing from the other thread (1930's home) as there is some genuinely great feedback in there.

We are in the process of purchasing a 1900's built terraced cottage. We've moved in under tenancy during the purchase, but that is kind of pointless to this thread. Nonetheless, it means we can look under things/peel back wallpaper as needed.

We had a damp surveyor who advised us that the damp-proof course is good, but there is a band of damp above the course which they said just needs replastering.

Apart from the obvious (Old house, full of spiders!) Is there anything else to look out for with a house of this age?
It has been tenanted for 7 years not been updated at all during this time...

staffie1

Ref the spiders - my previous modern 1980s house was full of spiders all the time - big ones too! So its not just old houses :-)

ST1991

staffie1 wrote: »

Ref the spiders - my previous modern 1980s house was full of spiders all the time - big ones too! So its not just old houses :-)

Glad it's not just me! I hate them, and house was empty for 2/3 months before moving in so it is literally crawling with them...

phoebe1989seb

staffie1 wrote: »

Ref the spiders - my previous modern 1980s house was full of spiders all the time - big ones too! So its not just old houses :-)

Agree about the spiders - although we've never experienced living in anything that new - in that they're not picky, lol!

Our worst spiderfest was in a Tudor house, but as it had been dismantled and rebuilt in the late 1930s, it wasn't all murky nooks and crannies for them to lurk in. Without fail though we saw at least one huge specimen every evening <<<shudder>>>

In our last house - Georgian rural - there were slightly less of the hairy beasties and in our current place (1853) that was empty for two years before we bought it, we rarely see them.

Look for interesting period features that have been hidden - fireplaces, panelled doors and staircase spindles. We've bought houses where none of these were immediately apparent but were there hidden beneath layers of plasterboard, chipboard etc etc......

Happy hunting (not for spiders :eek:)

Chanes

We bought an old house like yours. We needed quite a bit of renovation work and during that it was found that a supporting wall had been built on a plank of wood and we had to have the thing propped. Cowboys have built houses for centuries. Your survey will be your best guide but they can read like horror stories because surveyors don't want to be sued and so they seem to scare the bejesus out of the potential buyer!

ST1991

Interesting turn of events - the previous buyer pulled out and it was re-marketing with us being accepted. As the survey was only done a matter of months beforehand, the estate agent forwarded us a copy (not sure this is the done thing... but it helped). This turned out to be just a damp report and quote for repairs (which we didn't initially realize, being silly ftb's and all) and we're beyond the point of pulling out now as we're 7 months in (still not exchanged) but willing to take on the house.

Slap me now...!

AdrianC

ST1991 wrote: »

We had a damp surveyor who advised us that the damp-proof course is good, but there is a band of damp above the course which they said just needs replastering.

It's coming from somewhere - the most likely suspect is high ground levels on the outside, breaching the DPC. A happy weekend with a shovel will sort it properly, leaving any replastering as a cosmetic finish-off. OTOH, replastering without sorting the actual cause will just waste money.

rach_k

Our 1900 terrace showed damp on our survey and a company we got to look at it agreed (and gave us a nice quote for fixing it, of course) but we've been here 4.5 years now and the only damp we've seen is when the roof needed fixing.

We're the middle house of three so we haven't had to do it but I know one side had to have some significant work done recently to stop the end wall pulling away from the house. The other side apparently had the same done several years ago.

We don't actually get many spiders, but we've had lots of other creepies and crawlies. Slugs in the living room (coming in through the airbricks, up inside the walls and out under the skirting!), mice (coming in through the airbricks and also from next door), carpet beetles, moths, silverfish in the kitchen, squirrels in next door's attic, bees in next door's attic... oh and evidence of a previous woodworm infestation. Old houses do tend to have lots of little gaps for things to get in, but thankfully none have been too hard to deal with so far. Mouse-proof covers for the airbricks are the BEST invention ever and cats are great! Round here, where the houses are all of a similar age and style, it's accepted that you need a cat if you don't want mice. So we also have a problem of a neighbour's cat coming in to steal our cat's food!

Other than being mentally prepared for a few creepy things (they always seem horrendous for the first few days after you realise and Google will tell you you're all going to get the plague, but after a week it won't be such a big deal), I think you should just enjoy it and be prepared for any other style of house to seem soulless and inferior to you from now on!

AdrianC

rach_k wrote: »

...cats are great! Round here, where the houses are all of a similar age and style, it's accepted that you need a cat if you don't want mice.

I wish... The only mice that we get inside this house are brought in by the sodding cats. Alive. Then released.

moneyistooshorttomention

True that jerrybuilders didnt just crop up for the first time in our era.

So - yes...check that any doors that have been knocked through (even if they were there in the first place/subsequently bricked up/then put back) have been done properly (eg proper lintels over them). I'm guessing the windows are no longer the original ones? Check that the lintels over the windows are there - it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that they might not have been put in in the first place and come the time the windows were replaced with modern- era ones then that might not necessarily have been put right at the time and therefore the lintels are still missing.

Damp - oh definitely check re damp. There is a pretty high chance of that for houses of that era.

See what state the roof is in. If it's not been replaced since that era - then take a look at neighbouring houses of that era. If their roofs have been replaced - then it won't be that long before yours needs it too.

There may be hidden original features that you like and would wish to uncover. For instance - finding that an internal door seems to be thicker/heavier than a modern era door. If so - that probably means it's the original door - but someone has plasterboarded over it to make it be "modern" style. Maybe there might be nice fireplaces hidden on exterior walls.

Another thing that might be hidden is the original stair rails - which might have been plaster-boarded over (yep...a fact that eluded me in my last house - until I came back from work to find my father had just taken it into his head to rip the plaster-boarding off - when I would have kept it:cool:).

If you need to replace skirting boards - then, unless all the house has had skirting boards replaced with modern-era ones, I would think it's best to do replace any that need it with ones that are the high height of original era ones - but absolutely flat/no curve at the top in line with current fashions. That would fit in that little bit better imo with "traditional" ones - but not have the intricacies of style to consider come time to paint them.

Brewerspride

AdrianC wrote: »

I wish... The only mice that we get inside this house are brought in by the sodding cats. Alive. Then released.

Same here. I am however becoming an expert mouse catcher with the inner bit of a loo roll and an empty Felix box.