Should I pull out?

mark_cycling00

The radon example was just an analogy about how this would come up as something really scary in a survey but yet we would never actually worry about it when choosing a holiday destination. And you'd look ridiculous if you arrived with radon gas detector! Noone in a high radon area worries about it for more than a few weeks after purchase 

Fwiw, our house apparently had radon, "very high damp", subsidence, rotten floorboards, all sorts of illegal drainage, woodworm, iron pipes, unadopted road, blah blah.

None of this was actually correct. 

RHemmings

infectedeggs said:

dinkylink said:

infectedeggs said:

For what it is worth my home of 30 years - built in the 1930s - has no felt under the (original) slates either. It has never been an issue and I doubt it will be until I am long dead.

Many older properties have rising damp but the proofing for over £3000 is very expensive. I would get some more quotes if you decide to go ahead and buy.

The electricity will need looking at of course but a new fuse board can be bought for about £50 and an electrician will fit it for about the same.

I my view - which is worthless - the right "feeling" - means alot. Listen to your gut.

Please let me know where you can get a new fuse board for 50 quid, and the sparky you use to fit it for another 50!

eBay. Amazon. Take a look yourself.

To my non-expert eyes, the £50 fuse boards on ebay look well dodgy. 

ThisIsWeird

And the £50 Sparkies even more so.

infectedeggs

RHemmings said:

infectedeggs said:

dinkylink said:

infectedeggs said:

For what it is worth my home of 30 years - built in the 1930s - has no felt under the (original) slates either. It has never been an issue and I doubt it will be until I am long dead.

Many older properties have rising damp but the proofing for over £3000 is very expensive. I would get some more quotes if you decide to go ahead and buy.

The electricity will need looking at of course but a new fuse board can be bought for about £50 and an electrician will fit it for about the same.

I my view - which is worthless - the right "feeling" - means alot. Listen to your gut.

Please let me know where you can get a new fuse board for 50 quid, and the sparky you use to fit it for another 50!

eBay. Amazon. Take a look yourself.

To my non-expert eyes, the £50 fuse boards on ebay look well dodgy. 

Really. New branded ones? Oh well. To each his own. Anyway we are digressing. But even if you are prepared to pay twice that (I am not) we are still looking at £200 fitted.Screwfix do a

British General Fortress 16-Module 8-Way Populated High Integrity Dual RCD Consumer Unit with SPD

for £102.49 including VAT.

But maybe that - and Screwfix - are dodgy too.

infectedeggs

Though the

British General CFSW07 9-Module 7-Way Part-Populated Main Switch Consumer Unit

for £27.49 including VAT would be better suited to a terraced house.

RHemmings

infectedeggs said:

RHemmings said:

infectedeggs said:

dinkylink said:

infectedeggs said:

For what it is worth my home of 30 years - built in the 1930s - has no felt under the (original) slates either. It has never been an issue and I doubt it will be until I am long dead.

Many older properties have rising damp but the proofing for over £3000 is very expensive. I would get some more quotes if you decide to go ahead and buy.

The electricity will need looking at of course but a new fuse board can be bought for about £50 and an electrician will fit it for about the same.

I my view - which is worthless - the right "feeling" - means alot. Listen to your gut.

Please let me know where you can get a new fuse board for 50 quid, and the sparky you use to fit it for another 50!

eBay. Amazon. Take a look yourself.

To my non-expert eyes, the £50 fuse boards on ebay look well dodgy. 

Really. New branded ones? Oh well. To each his own. Anyway we are digressing. But even if you are prepared to pay twice that (I am not) we are still looking at £200 fitted.Screwfix do a

British General Fortress 16-Module 8-Way Populated High Integrity Dual RCD Consumer Unit with SPD

for £102.49 including VAT.

But maybe that - and Screwfix - are dodgy too.

Thank you for backing up your claim.

I didn't see new branded ones on ebay for £50. What I saw looked old and dodgy. 

The ones on Screwfix look good to non-electrician me, and should be legal and safe given that Screwfix is an established and reputable company. Nothing dodgy there that I can see. 

How did you calculate the fitting cost? When I looked up the average fitting cost of a consumer unit the numbers I see are about £300 or more. https://www.homehow.co.uk/costs/fuse-board-upgrade

Murphybear

mark_cycling00 said:

It's your first purchase so you're going to be anxious and easily worried.

People generally pull out of a purchase because the survey answers questions such as..

1. Why is this house so cheap?
2. Why did the previous people who made offers pull out?
3. Why doesn't the owner live there?
4. Why is someone selling after only a few years?

Things are never as bad as the survey sounds. 

Consider - have you been on holiday to the southwest or west Wales? Did you take your radon gas detector and open the windows every morning? Of course not, but most properties there would get scary radon gas warnings in the survey/conveyancing process.

Every house has some radon.  It occurs naturally in the ground.  It varies around the country and from property to property.  There’s an official website ukradon.org.  It’s very informative,  it gives you information on every aspect of radon plus a useful map which indicates the levels of radon around the country.  You can get it measured in your home, it costs about £52 and they send you a kit which has to stay in your home for 3 months then you send it back for the results which take (at least) another month.  Obviously you couldn’t do that until you’ve bought the house  

RHemmings

Murphybear said:

mark_cycling00 said:

It's your first purchase so you're going to be anxious and easily worried.

People generally pull out of a purchase because the survey answers questions such as..

1. Why is this house so cheap?
2. Why did the previous people who made offers pull out?
3. Why doesn't the owner live there?
4. Why is someone selling after only a few years?

Things are never as bad as the survey sounds. 

Consider - have you been on holiday to the southwest or west Wales? Did you take your radon gas detector and open the windows every morning? Of course not, but most properties there would get scary radon gas warnings in the survey/conveyancing process.

Every house has some radon.  It occurs naturally in the ground.  It varies around the country and from property to property.  There’s an official website ukradon.org.  It’s very informative,  it gives you information on every aspect of radon plus a useful map which indicates the levels of radon around the country.  You can get it measured in your home, it costs about £52 and they send you a kit which has to stay in your home for 3 months then you send it back for the results which take (at least) another month.  Obviously you couldn’t do that until you’ve bought the house  

For me ukradon.org redirects to: https://www.phe-protectionservices.org.uk/radon which then can't be reached. 

I found the map here: https://www.ukradon.org/information/ukmaps

BungalowBel

bouicca21 said:

I’m no expert but I’ve lived in several 1930s built houses, none had felting under the tiles - they just didn’t do that back then.

just to reinforce this fact : My 1930s bungalow has no felt under the tiles.  That was how they built houses then.  

JReacher1

Yes my last house was a similar aged terrace. No felt under the roof as that didn’t exist then. 

Got my roof redone after three years and cost me £3k for a new slate roof with felt underneath