Buying a victorian terrace

Andrea92

Hi,
Looking for some advice really on property jobs.
Myself and my partner are looking to buy a new house, a victorian terrace. We went to see the house last week and have planned a 2nd visit.
We think we may need repointing work completed, some new roofing and guttering. Just wondered how much I might be looking at for this work.
We are in Carlisle, Cumbria. The house in a 3 bed terrace, only the back of the property looks like it needs repointed and has caused damp on the ground floor. So not a large area which needs repointed.
Thanks in advice.

Silvertabby

Carlisle? Have you checked the flooding history?

Andrea92

Yeah. Never flooded in the area where this house is. Lived here for 16 years, would not buy in the flood area.

staffie1

I live in a 'flood area', which hasn't flooded in since the house was built 83 years ago.

OldMusicGuy

Make sure you check that the damp is only penetrating from the pointing rather than rising from floor level. It's more expensive to put in a DPC to counter rising damp than to fix some pointing to address penetrating damp.

Boringfrog

What oldmusicguy said, my Victorian terraced house had a slate dpc and damp penetrated in a few areas. A friend is just getting his house pointed, 2K for the full house.

AlexMac

Sounds fun; I've owned three Victorian terraced home and a couple of 19th Century conversion fllats over the years , and all were largely trouble free. Your place sounds as if it will only cost a couple of grand, subject to scaffolding costs unless you need a whole new roof , in which case it's maybe 3-4 times that. But if it ain't actually leaking or damp...

Ironically I'm now in a 1986 house and while I miss the character, I dont miss the draughts or heating bills, and find it hard to get used to interior walls which are plane and vertical; I once had to plane a huge triangle off the back of my kitchen cupboard units to get the fronts vertical as the walls were about 20 degrees out of true

Andrea92

What's the best indicator that it might be penetrating damp?
There is only one wall of the whole house I have noticed the damp on.
I am budgeting for this of course but would like an idea of costs.
I'm not expecting to need the whole roof redone, just some here and there. Guttering I'm expecting to have to do so scaffold will be going up. Also want a window replaced on the roof, which will need scaffold access. So scaffold is a must.