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House with solid not cavity walls

I am in the process of dealing with my late father's estate and putting his old house on the market. It was built in the early 1960s but has solid rather than cavity walls and no one has been able to explain why this should be the case. Does anyone here have an idea why the builder chose to do this?

Comments

  • greatcrested
    greatcrested Posts: 5,925 Forumite
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    Lots of houses have solid walls. Less common in the 60s, but.... so what?
    Why do you need to know the builder's motivation?
  • Tiglet2
    Tiglet2 Posts: 2,606 Forumite
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    A previous property I owned was with solid brick walls.  House was built in 1963 so not unusual - apparently you can tell which are solid walls and which are cavity walls by looking at the pattern of the bricks.  Cavity walls are bricks showing the long side only whereas solid walls have bricks showing alternate short and long side:  

  • seven-day-weekend
    seven-day-weekend Posts: 36,755 Forumite
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    I have lived in three houses and none of them have had cavity walls.  It's quite common in older houses.
    (AKA HRH_MUngo)
    Member #10 of £2 savers club
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  • Lots of houses have solid walls. Less common in the 60s, but.... so what?
    Why do you need to know the builder's motivation?

    People ask the question:"has it been cavity wall insulated" The neighbouring houses - built in the 1920s - have cavity walls.
  • eddddy
    eddddy Posts: 17,757 Forumite
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    edited 23 May 2020 at 8:47PM
    I am in the process of dealing with my late father's estate and putting his old house on the market. It was built in the early 1960s but has solid rather than cavity walls and no one has been able to explain why this should be the case. Does anyone here have an idea why the builder chose to do this?

    Is it a 'system built' house - perhaps built in concrete? Quite a lot of those were built in the 1960s.

    A concrete house might still have a brickwork skin, but in that case the brickwork isn't structural. i.e. The brickwork isn't holding the house up, it's just there to make the house look 'prettier'. And it's likely to be stretcher bond brickwork:


    Edit to add:
    And a system built / concrete house would be considered to be 'non-standard' construction - which might introduce mortgage and insurance issues.  So if that's the case, you should really be making potential buyers aware.
  • daveyjp
    daveyjp Posts: 13,323 Forumite
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    Post a link of a similar property, or streetview.  A picture paints a thousand words.

    Some areas had large numbers of non standard homes built in the 60s.  My parents estate has lots of metal framed bungalows.
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