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Bespoke reports covering a specifc defect.
Often required by purchasers or insurers concerned about fractures or obvious past movement of properties or existing building owners considering making an insurance claim or requiring reassurance regarding fractures of other movement that is recently noticed.
These matters can usually be dealt with by a short visit and letter reducing fees considerably compared to a full structural survey of a property.
Building Surveyors Structural Report a 1902 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.
The report on the suspected movement and suggested remedies
Measurement with a spirt level suggest that the top fifteen course of bricks are out of plumb by 150mm from above the point at which two purlins bear into the gable wall. The top ten course of the wall are built with a single skin of bicks and are likely to be unstable. The the likely cause of the leaning wall is failure to ties it into the strcture at the time of construction.
Our surveyors suggested that the top fifteen courses of brickwork should be rebuilt with a 225mm wall that is inherently more stable. Straps set into the centre of the wall can be secured to the roof structure. The straps can be secured to the existing longitudinal timbers and to planks screwed across and perpendicular to the rafters just below each side of the apex. 18mm x 120mm x 2.4m floor boards or similar would suffice.
Sadly in this instance the purchaser had relied on a mortgage valuation for the purchase of the late 1920's house which is thus about nintey years old. The surveyor thus had no duty to report the leaning wall to the purchaser as he was only worried about his mortgage lender. The purchaser will now have to stand the cost of about £250.00 of labour and about £750.00 of scaffold if the wall is to be properly repaired by rebuilding it. A homebuyers survey by Steve Butler Chartered Surveyors Nottingham would have cost about £400.00.