Rebuilding front wall - any advice for a novice?

RubyShoes

We are getting my house ready for sale, and one of the jobs is to knock this wall down and rebuild. We are total novices at this, and have watched and read some stuff online, but looking at the wall does anyone have any real life advice on the job? Thank you kindly 

TELLIT01

The 'heave' in the footings has been caused by the bush adjacent to the pillar.  Rebuilding the wall with that still in place is pointless.  The cracks in the driveway are caused by the same thing so are you planning to repair that as well.

I would be inclined simple to remove and level the cappings to make the top look better. 

searchlight123

is it necessary to knock the whole wall down? it doesn't look that bad. why not just redo the pointing where the movement signs are and do the same to the top of the wall.

tbf i've seen a lot worse, and a poor repair could make it look a lot worse and stand out like a sore thumb. personally i'd leave it. it's not like it looks about to fall down.

Doozergirl

tonygold said:

is it necessary to knock the whole wall down? it doesn't look that bad. why not just redo the pointing where the movement signs are and do the same to the top of the wall.

tbf i've seen a lot worse, and a poor repair could make it look a lot worse and stand out like a sore thumb. personally i'd leave it. it's not like it looks about to fall down.

I agree.   I'd leave it.  

You have no idea what your buyers will want to do with the wall.  It's not going to affect the valuation of the property, save your money.  

This is the house where you wanted to spend £1,000 on trying to 'fix' the drive isn't it? Honestly, the next people might be inclined to rip out the whole front garden and block pave it, so what's the point?  

If I bought it, I'd want to arrange it so that I could get two cars on the drive without anyone having to move to let the other out.  I would design it with a totally different hard and soft landscaping layout and definitely make the wall shorter.    That layout comes from a different era when families owned one car.  

FreeBear

Leave the wall and let the next owner repair/rebuild. If they are going to do the driveway at the same time, they will (probably) have a minidigger on site and can add the rubble to the mountain of spoil.

stuart45

Getting rid of the leaves and crisp packets would improve it's kerb appeal.
If you've never done any masonry work it could end up looking a lot worse.

theoretica

TELLIT01 said:

The 'heave' in the footings has been caused by the bush adjacent to the pillar.  Rebuilding the wall with that still in place is pointless.  The cracks in the driveway are caused by the same thing so are you planning to repair that as well.

I would be inclined simple to remove and level the cappings to make the top look better. 

I would incline to leave the bush - so the cause of the cracks is obvious.

TELLIT01

Just a general observation about having a property priced to reflect work required to be done.  My niece is currently trying to sell her house.  She knows it needs rewiring and the agent claimed they had priced it to take that into account.  Offer to purchase comes in and, surprise surprise, the potential purchaser wants the price reduced because it needs rewiring.  Moral of the story, leave it to potential purchaser to request the reduction, don't effectively offer it in advance.

ashe

TELLIT01 said:

Just a general observation about having a property priced to reflect work required to be done.  My niece is currently trying to sell her house.  She knows it needs rewiring and the agent claimed they had priced it to take that into account.  Offer to purchase comes in and, surprise surprise, the potential purchaser wants the price reduced because it needs rewiring.  Moral of the story, leave it to potential purchaser to request the reduction, don't effectively offer it in advance.

Yes we had that in our old house. The kitchen was dated so we priced it in, but kept getting offers of people based on it needing a new kitchen. 

BikingBud

ashe said:

TELLIT01 said:

Just a general observation about having a property priced to reflect work required to be done.  My niece is currently trying to sell her house.  She knows it needs rewiring and the agent claimed they had priced it to take that into account.  Offer to purchase comes in and, surprise surprise, the potential purchaser wants the price reduced because it needs rewiring.  Moral of the story, leave it to potential purchaser to request the reduction, don't effectively offer it in advance.

Yes we had that in our old house. The kitchen was dated so we priced it in, but kept getting offers of people based on it needing a new kitchen. 

How does the viewer know that?

Had you advised that in the particulars or were they expected to get that by viewing, the crystal ball?

Slinky

ashe said:

TELLIT01 said:

Just a general observation about having a property priced to reflect work required to be done.  My niece is currently trying to sell her house.  She knows it needs rewiring and the agent claimed they had priced it to take that into account.  Offer to purchase comes in and, surprise surprise, the potential purchaser wants the price reduced because it needs rewiring.  Moral of the story, leave it to potential purchaser to request the reduction, don't effectively offer it in advance.

Yes we had that in our old house. The kitchen was dated so we priced it in, but kept getting offers of people based on it needing a new kitchen. 

This is where you should be either having 'kitchen in need of modernisation' in the details, or you insist your agent makes it clear to viewers about pricing reasons when they view.

We had no installation certificate for our boiler, and we had a buildover agreement for a sewer adjacent to the extension. Both of which were communicated to viewers so that there was no reason for them to attempt to use either as a reason to make a low offer or reduce an offer after survey.