Potential structural issues after purchasing GII listed house help!

stuart45

Have you got any photos of the cracked arches?

Section62

oldswanste said:

The cracks we're experiencing in this house though seem different and a little more sinister. After doing a bit of research, cracks forming in archways or above wi dows and doors are not a good a sign.

Openings are typically locations where a structure is weakest, and 'corners' can lead to concentrations of stress.  If a building is moving then the most likely place to find cracks is around openings such as windows and doors.

I'm not sure who says this is 'not a good sign', but in reality it is just a reflection of how cracking typically first appears.  There needs to be understanding of why movement is happening before anyone can tell whether it isn't a good sign.

Personally I'd rather see a crack near a window or door than I would in the middle of a wall.

Doozergirl

Fwiw, it can be quite difficult to find a Saniflo specialist.  We used these people in our last house to service ours yearly.   They should be able to diagnose for you as well. 

www.pumpmaster.co.uk 

I have no connection to them, just appreciated their work.  

Ours was boxed in and painted, but had screws to remove the panelling and make it accessible.   Hopefully yours have removable panels of tiles, otherwise you'll have some additional work to do. They do need to be accessed yearly. 

youth_leader

I agree Doozergirl, all my local plumbers were saying they couldn't fix it, they could only replace for £500 plus labour.  I was doing a 'sparkle' clean ready for a viewing, and absent mindedly threw the cleaning wipe down the toilet.  Blocked it immediately.  I googled for 'saniflo approved engineers' and there is an 'insecure site' listing various areas.  Someone very kindly travelled fifty odd miles from Durham to come and unblock mine, although I hadn't expected him to hand me the wipe when he'd finished!

london21

oldswanste said:

Hi all, not sure how much detail to go into initially but I think I'll start with the question I need answering so it doesn't get lost in my ramblings. If anyone can help but needs more information then please let me know.

We have recently purchased an older (Georgian) propert which we had a level 3 survey carried out on prior to purchase. The surveyor picked up no structural issues or signs of structural issues but we are experiencing things that make us think otherwise. 

The question.
My question is, if the property does have structural issues, do we have any avenue to reclaim any repair cost from the previous owners, the surveyor, our insurance company etc?

The details.

The house is a Grade II listed, Georgian, 4 storey with basement, ground, first and second floor. It's a very tall and imposing house and my wife a children fell on lo e with it the moment we saw it. It was finished inside to a very high standard in terms of the decoration and furnishings. When we viewed the house there were freshly painted rooms and antique paintings on the walls with a grand piano in the drawing room. We were blow away! 

We purchased the property for £500,000 and I can ho entry say this is the very extreme of what we can afford. Normally I'm quite a reserved person and don't like to stretch when it comes to finances but some health issues in recent years has made me look at life a little differently and whilst I wouldn't say this was an impulse purchase (we asked so many questions and had all the right surveys carried out). It's definitely nota house I would have considered purchasing a few years back.

Anyway, prior to purchasing we had a full, level 3 survey carried out and whilst this did pick up things like a fee missing tiles on the roof, elevated moisture readings in the basement and reports on damaged or inoperable sash windows. There was no reported signs of structural issues.

Since moving in we have had our confidence knocked. The 1st morning, my son used his shower and it overflowed in the shower tray and leaked into hallway below damaging the ceiling. This is when we discovered that his bathroom has a macerator fitted rather than a standard soil pipe fitted to the stack. His macerator was switched off and we now know the reason for this. If it is switched on, the pump continuously runs even if no water is running.

We then discovered that our bathroom in the master bedroom also has a macerator.

After resolving this we then decorated the hall and also painted the living room and dining room to get the house ready for Christmas just gone. Like most people we hadn't seen our families for a long time during Covid  so wanted to all get together.

After painting my other son had an issue with his shower in that a flexible pipe connected to the trap of his shower tray split and this leaked through to the newly decorated dining room below ruining the ceiling and walls.

After having several plumbers out the entire bathroom floor was taken up and the plumber discovered joists with notches taken out of them that are greater than 50% of the joist depth!! He told us this was a structural issue and we needed to have it inspected.

The house does not have a family bathroom as a traditional Georgian house might  I stead, it has 4 bathrooms each with an ensuite so, this work to install these ensuites was done in recent years. We knew this before moving in and as we couldn't find too much information on this work prior to purchase, we insisted on the current owners providing an indemnity policy to cover us for this.

After living on the house for several months we are now noticing cracks in the walls and ceilings. Floorboards are loose under the carpets and very springy in so.e rooms. If you softly jump up and down in some rooms, everything shakes. 

The house has some retired arches which ate original to the design and feature on every floor just off the stairs. We have noticed cracks in these arches and previous repairs. We're not sure if these cracks are new or ifs simply because we are tuned into them but we are finding new ones all the time.

The stairs rising to the 2nd floor are also now creaking and the stringer appears to be coming away from the wall. A crack running the entire length of the top two sets of stairs has started to develop exposing a previously repaired caulk line. The underside of these stairsets are cracked where the plaster meets the wall.

We love the house but are now petrified that we have invested all of our savings into something that we will not likely see a return on unless we invest further. We have no idea were to start with putting this right. 

Any help would be massively appreciated. Happy to post pictures etc if required.

Thanks for taking the time to read and thanks in advance for any help received.

Try not to overly stress.

You now know more than you did during the buying process.

A structural engineer that specialise in Listed building might give you some reassurance.