Afternoon all,
Firstly, neither I nor my husband are DIYers.. my mind is willing but I don't have the skills or confidence and sadly, no peers to ask. So, I'm on here looking for some advice on a property that we have made an offer on however, following two surveys - full structural and an independent damp survey (IDS), we are unsure whether to proceed. Main concern is that once we commit, any works we might start uncover more than we bargained for and costs will just spiral.
We provided reports to EA as requested and based on cost to bring property up to standard we were able to reduce sale price by £20k. It's a 1900 end terrace with the main two problems being:-
1) Damp to ground floor, lounge, kitchen and dining room which we've been advised by the IDS is due to salt-contaminated plaster and lack of ventilation, air bricks covered up so ground level at front will require lowering, and internally, removing salt-contaminated plaster back to bring and replastering; additional air bricks installing
2) No fire party wall in loft (or kitchen extension).
Additional works required:-
3) Guttering needs a couple of new stop-ends, no guttering to rear porch
4) Roof is only slates on roof timbers, i.e. no covering so that would have to be done at some point, timbers are good though,
5) Repointing to house exterior walls
6) Replace porch flat roof and repoint
7) Replace outhouse corrugated roof and repointing outhouse
8) Repointing to chimney, cover one chimney, put cowl on another, increase ventilation of closed chimney in dining room
9) Gas and electricity - inspections required (concerns here are that we are told heating system is old although boiler is fine but no service certificates); or that place needs to be rewired.
10) Remove door to stairs, replace door from dining room to kitchen
What tradesmen would be needed for the above, builder, roofer.. plasterer?
And there's other smaller jobs, and of course then redecoration, new flooring, shower, possibly new kitchen if damp works means taking out the existing kitchen units.
We have had a very rough estimate from the =surveyor of £16k to get the above works done and we would have £20-25k max, however we appreciate that this may be optimistic and need to get realistic trade quotes for the works. What our main concern is, that we start getting work done and then find out this or that needs replacing which we never budgeted for.
I started researching yesterday fire party walls in lofts and the paperwork/time/work involved and had a bit of a wobbly. Also, there would be very little DIY that either of us could do so it would be all work for trades. Plus, with us both working full time, how can we fit all this work in when we might not be able to get time off to deal with tradesmen at the property?
So now we're both thinking - perhaps we just don't have the experience to go through this project, both mentally and financially. Hubby is not from the UK so not au fait with how things are done here, so it falls to me to basically sort this all out. The house is a good size for a 3 bed end terrace and suits us - that's why we don't know what to do and the market currently where we are is lacking in suitable houses in our price range - they keep going way over asking/guide price and we're outbid every time.
Jobs may not seem a big issue to others and perhaps we're just being overly concerned?? Any advice please? Thanks so much.
