Our Derby RICS surveyors inspected this terrace house. The front and rear walls of this property had been badly damaged by water because of failure to undertake a few hundred pounds of gutter and down pipe repairs. Intruders had damaged the kitchen and bathroom and run off with the boiler as well as damaging central heating pipes. An extension containing the bathroom and kitchen was single skin construction and likely to be cold and prone to water penetration. An attic conversion had dangerous stairs and no fire protection and probably no insulation of the ceiling.
This Derby surveyor's report related to an Orangery constructed in the place of an existing conservatory that was relocated. Unfortunately when relocating the conservatory very shallow foundations were just poured on to ground that had not been prepared leading to a high risk of differential settlement. The new Orangery floor was laid at too a high a level with a sudden slope down to meet a door opening. However even this level was too high to accommodate under floor heating. Channels retrospectively cut to house the heating were set too far apart to enable the floor to heat properly and much heat was likely to be lost to the ground due to inadequate insulation under the heating elements. The frame of the roof structure had not been bolted to the house or substantial timbers to each other. Steel lintels were sitting on out of plumb bearings which are likely to cause the bearing to try and rotate. A bock wall rocked when pushed with a hand. Our Chartered Surveyor thought that the Orangery would have to be demolished.
This otherwise immaculate Derby house was written off by insurers following cracking due to a leaking lead pipe. Insurers refused to carry out repairs as the leaking lead pipe was in an adjacent uninsured property. The insurers paid the owners of the house its market value before the cracking and also let them keep it! The adjacent property was made subject to an order prohibiting habitation.
This case explains why surveyors check properties for good under floor ventilation of suspended timber ground floors in structural surveys, building surveys or home buyers reports. Our Derby surveyors found suspected dry rot and beetle infestations due to a failure to provide simple under floor ventilation, a damp chimney and substandard floor. The Beetles are encouraged by the poor under floor ventilation as they like damp timber that is encouraged by high humidity. The dry rot likes areas with poor ventilation as it prefers to grow in still conditions. Most dry rot decay is however triggered by a large increase in moisture levels such as a broken rainwater pipe or flood. The surveyors also found black mould in the living caused by high moisture levels and lack of heating and by lack of heating and ventilation.
Our Derby surveyors found that structural movement and cracking of this property had occurred in three locations. The types of movement had three different causes and were all unrelated to each other. The first type of movement was cause by poor foundation on what had been an outhouse that had been converted to a utility room. The structural movement probably occurred just after the property was constructed. The second type of structural movement appeared to approximate to a drain. The cracking also appeared to be old as our survey inspection showed that the drain had been replaced with a modern plastic one. The third type of structural cracking reported on was due to thermal expansion of a long wall. If a wall is too long and does not have expansion joints bricks move with heat on hot summer days until they snap because they have exceeded their elasticity. As the property was in an area of underground lime stone mines our surveyors suggested that a mining report be obtained as a precaution against mining subsidence.
Derby RICS Chartered Surveyors prepared a CPR 35 report for court on a breach of the boundary causing damp at a property. Here the neighbour had constructed a raised paved area and rather than construct their own retaining wall has used the neighbour’s garage. Fortunately our boundary surveyors were able to demonstrate that the paved area projected beyond the boundary line.
In this case both parties were trying to deny ownership of a collapsed retaining wall. Our boundary dispute surveyors were easily able to resolve the question of ownership by reference to the title deeds. The owners of both properties abutting the boundary wall then blamed the other for its substantial and expensive collapse. As the boundary wall remains unrepaired and unstable it is likely that the property on the lower side of the wall is not mortgagable knocking many thousands of pounds off its value. Our surveyors were able to demonstrate with a few trial pits constructed against the wall that the movement of the wall had occurred entirely above ground level on the lower side of the wall. This confirmed that the wall had collapsed because it had been unable to cope with the weight bearing against it rather than because the foundations had rotated due to supposedly leaking drains on the adjacent property as the owner of the walls structural engineer had tried to claim.
In this case a rouge trader could not find the cause of a small roof leak and after several visits to the property advised the owner that the battens were rotten and that it would need to be recovered at a cost of £4000.00. The trader then only recovered one face of the roof but charged for two. One the face of the roof he did recover he did not carry out any work to the actually area of the roof that was causing the leak. The recovering was so badly done that the roof will have to be recovered again. The actual cause of the leak was where the small front gable over the bedroom window joins the main roof and could have been repaired at a cost of a couple of hundred pounds. The two valley liners that run either side of the gable did not meet at the apex and when a mortar joint between the covering tile and main roof had fractured water was able to enter.
Here's what £700.00 of bathroom tiling looks like. This was the worst tiling job that our Derby RICS Expert Witness Surveyors had ever seen! There was nothing good that could be said about it. All will have to be scrapped. Failure on such jobs are invariable caused by failure to think for a few minutes before starting work and failure to use simple tools such as a tape measure, square, level plumb line or spacers. If engaging any contractor start to worry at early stage if they rush into the job and do not make frequent use of the simple tools mentioned above. A good building or construction job always starts with good planning which almost always involves ten minutes with the tape measure!
Matters our Building Surveyors noted included a leaking car park roof, penetrating damp, an eroded wall damaged by a tree. Our Derby RICS surveyors had particular concerns about the high cost of having to repair the wall and leaking car park roof.
This property was of concrete panel construction. At a later date the substandard panels had been removed and replaced with brick. The property had a leaning chimney, cold concrete floor and missing stair rails
The property had been built on a filled in sand pit. The property had moved significantly probably because an escape of water had undermined the foundations on which the property was probably built. For whatever reason the movement was missed in the mortgage valuation and the purchasers had to sell the property to a builder at a £20,000 loss. This is an excellent example of why you should have a RICS Homebuyers survey or Building survey and not reply on a mortgage valuation.
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RICS SURVEYORS BUILDING, STRUCTURAL, HOUSE AND PROPERTY SURVEYS IN DERBY
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An RICS Structural or Building Survey will tell you about the condition of the property including the state of the chimneys, roofs, rainwater goods, roof edges, walls, floors, ceilings, partitions, windows and doors. We can tell you whether there is any structural movement or settlement, wet rot, dry rot, woodworm or damp problems. We give you an overview of the services such as the electrical installations, boiler, central heating, hot and cold water.
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