Jump to content

Suggestions please. Need local builder to give opinion on big crack in the side of my new flat!


sophysearight

Recommended Posts

Hi There,


I'm in the process of buying my first flat, it's on Peckham Rye, I'm very excited. Went round yesterday to have another look at the outside and its got 2 hefty cracks in the 'rear aspect' (back wall). My survey would be going ahead in a couple of weeks time but I'd really like to get a local builder to have a look at it first. So that if it's blindingly obviously subsiding and the whole thing will be rubble within a year, I can avoid paying out ?500 for the survey and head for the hills.(If the crack is thought not to be a massive issue I'll obviously go ahead with the survey and hopefully buy the flat).


The valuation missed it completely and I know nothing about buildings and whether they're going to fall down.


I've put a picture on, if you're a builder or you know a builder that wouldn't mind having a look at the flat with me (just the outside), I'd be really grateful. I have shed-loads more pics if that's any good. I'll be looking for a local builder in due course anyway to put in a new kitchen (if we decide the while place isn't doomed)so all recommnedation welcome!


Thanks!

I know nothing about building, but I'd say from the photo that the cracks were there before and have been either plastered or painted over - presumably to hide them - because the paint around the cracked areas appears to be a slightly different colour from the rest of the wall.


ETA: And judging by the areas of different coloured paint, it looks like you might also have horizontal cracks on both sides which have also been covered up.

Disclaimer - I also know nothing about buildings! However I will say that this looks very similar to my building when I moved in. In our case the discolouration around the cracks was damp from an old leak around the window and was easily rectified by renewing that render. But obviously you need someone who knows for sure :)


Good luck!

Hi guys,


Thanks for your ideas! Yup its definitely been plastered over at some point which is fine as long at the cracks themselves aren't a big deal. I now have an architect's opinion that it's not subsidence or heave but might be thermal cracking. Do we have any surveyors or builders in the room! Ideally who can come and look at it with me and then give me a quote.


Really glad your house didn't fall down HelBel, I'm taking this as good news!


Sophy

Hi guys,


Many thanks for all your suggestions, it turns out it is subsidence and they're actually about to remove the whole back wall of the property, and underpin it (or something). The vendor clearly didn't think this would be of any interest to me so didn't share the info, which is nice! So I wont be buying that one then!


If you want to sell me your flat, let me know!


sophy

Oh dear oh dear.


Surely they are legally bound to disclose that information these days?


Don't they have to fill in a form?


Hope you find something soon Sophy. Look on the bright side, at least you found out before you bought it.


ETA: Not to mention saved five hundred quid on a survey ....

Hi sophie,


Try Kevin at y & j builders. He recently had a look at a property I'm interested in and was very prompt in getting back to me with quotes and advice for how much the work would cost. He did it completely free of charge and even wrote a written report for me. [email protected]/07581166046


good luck with it


Harriet :-)

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Latest Discussions

    • Seriously, how naïve and juvenile is that petition, talk about sore losers. Whether you think Labour has broken any of its pre-election manifesto pledges/commitments etc is all down to interpretation and more likely how you voted at the last GE. But regardless of that, has there ever been a government that hasn't met all it's pre-election manifesto pledges/commitments etc? There were loads of promises made by previous Tory Govs over the past 14 years that they failed to deliver on, where were all the right-whingers calling for a petition then?  Let's start with taxes. Johnson pledged in 2019  not to increase income tax, VAT or National Insurance. By 2023... The current Tory-led parliament will oversee the biggest set of tax increases since the Second World War, the country’s leading economic think tank has said. Tax revenue will amount to 37% of national income by the next election, analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests, up from about 33% four years ago. This is the largest increase since records began in the 1950s. The spike amounts to about £3,500 more per household, though it will not be spread equally. Then there's Brexit and all that promised but failed to deliver, even Johnson's 2019 'oven ready deal' wasn't oven ready and needed to be amended to get round the issues of a border in the Irish Sea (another broken promise). They couldn't even deliver on the promise of controlling our borders, with immigration shooting up post-Brexit. Not forgetting the addition of red tape rather the the reduction that was promised. There's a thesis to be written on this subject alone. Ditto 'levelling-up', remember that?  How about 40 new hospitals that later turned out to be  mainly refurbs of existing hospitals?  300,000 new homes per year were also promised in 2019, a target that pre-election stood at... The Construction Products Association currently estimates the government will miss its 300,000 homes a year target by 40%. And so on. Whisper it, but Govs also do things that weren't in their manifesto like Sunak scrapping HS2 and subsequently trying to 'salt the earth' so that it couldn't be revived by a future Gov. He had no mandate to be PM let alone do something major like that, again, where was the uproar from the right? You can apply the same double standards to all the confected noise around Labour and the so-called freebies. That, along with this petition is purely political and nothing to do with principals being applied fairly...
    • That's a good well  considered letter 👍
    • The Post Offices and the Royal Mail should be renationalised. Massive mistake privatising industries where competition doesn't work properly and certainly does not offer any advantage to end users.  
    • The Friends of the Charter School East Dulwich is selling trees to raise funds for the school. I've had one for the last two years and they've been great (lasting well, too).  You can order here - all pofots goes to the school https://www.pta-events.co.uk/fotcsed/   Edited to add: orders close 02 Dec for pickup 07 Dec
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...