Hi,
I would like to get people thoughts on why house surveys are so important.
Here's my story:
When I bought my house I did all the things I thought you were supposed to do - solicitor checked planning and had a surveyor out etc.
So the surveyor called out and inspected the premises and gave me his report. He did say that there was considerable dampness and would recommend dry lining, insulation etc. and that there was movement in the upstairs floors due to insufficient gapping or bridging of the joists in the two rooms in extension of the property. His report outlined that one footpath needed to be replaced and recommended damp proffing so we decided to buy it based on price and the few jobs that needed doing etc.
Prior to moving in we decided that we would take up the floors in the extension and bridge the joists. As the upstairs floors were chipboard we decided that we would take them all up and replace with water bonded plywood for a number of reasons like to dampness etc. We placed dehumidifiers in every room and started heating the property to dry it out (the house was unoccupied when we bought it).
We took up the floors in the original part of the house we discovered that the original floor boards (original section of the house built in the 40's) were still underneath which were completely rotten and on taking them up all the original joists were still there which were riddled with dry root. At this point we just wanted to move in so we started taking them out and replacing them. I have no idea how the upstairs floors were held up where the wood actually when into the wall had turned to powder.
Downstairs there was really cheap nasty wooden floors in the dining room so we decided to pull them up to replace them and noticed that someone had previously dug up the floor around the heading pips and that the floor was completely wet so I invested by taking up the sand that was been used to fill the hole in. To my horror when we took the sand out there was a fountain coming out of the water pips. The previous owners just poured concrete straight down on the heating pips and burst them. We then started to investigate the heading system which was one quarter inch pip going in the side of the rad and another pip coming out of the other side of the rad which was just to feed the next - no wonder it was cold with the heating on. On digging up the rest of the floors there was leaks everywhere.
So my questions here is why do we give these guys €500 to inspect the property when the only information they supply is stuff that anyone can see and in our case stuff that we already knew about.
I would like to get people thoughts on why house surveys are so important.
Here's my story:
When I bought my house I did all the things I thought you were supposed to do - solicitor checked planning and had a surveyor out etc.
So the surveyor called out and inspected the premises and gave me his report. He did say that there was considerable dampness and would recommend dry lining, insulation etc. and that there was movement in the upstairs floors due to insufficient gapping or bridging of the joists in the two rooms in extension of the property. His report outlined that one footpath needed to be replaced and recommended damp proffing so we decided to buy it based on price and the few jobs that needed doing etc.
Prior to moving in we decided that we would take up the floors in the extension and bridge the joists. As the upstairs floors were chipboard we decided that we would take them all up and replace with water bonded plywood for a number of reasons like to dampness etc. We placed dehumidifiers in every room and started heating the property to dry it out (the house was unoccupied when we bought it).
We took up the floors in the original part of the house we discovered that the original floor boards (original section of the house built in the 40's) were still underneath which were completely rotten and on taking them up all the original joists were still there which were riddled with dry root. At this point we just wanted to move in so we started taking them out and replacing them. I have no idea how the upstairs floors were held up where the wood actually when into the wall had turned to powder.
Downstairs there was really cheap nasty wooden floors in the dining room so we decided to pull them up to replace them and noticed that someone had previously dug up the floor around the heading pips and that the floor was completely wet so I invested by taking up the sand that was been used to fill the hole in. To my horror when we took the sand out there was a fountain coming out of the water pips. The previous owners just poured concrete straight down on the heating pips and burst them. We then started to investigate the heading system which was one quarter inch pip going in the side of the rad and another pip coming out of the other side of the rad which was just to feed the next - no wonder it was cold with the heating on. On digging up the rest of the floors there was leaks everywhere.
So my questions here is why do we give these guys €500 to inspect the property when the only information they supply is stuff that anyone can see and in our case stuff that we already knew about.