BUYING AN ESTABLISHED HOUSE
As a roofer with 50 years in the roofing industry when buying an established house I would advise you to look up. Obviously there will be a building inspection report, well my experience is that a lot of building inspectors do not get up and inspect the roof of every home. Some don’t and some do, however it is not always obvious to the untrained naked eye. Sometimes you can see obvious need for maintenance to the ridgecapping and to the gable ends of tiled roofs and sometimes the ridgecapping and gables look really good from the ground but to the contrary you may have a big problem. It’s a catch 22 to whether the roof needs work or not, so my advice would be to get an experienced roofer to check the roof of any established home you may be considering buying. What needs to be looked at on the roof is the ridgecapping mortar, mortar to the gable ends if the roof has gables, all the flashings to penetrations through the roof and parapet or adjoining walls, any broken or cracked tiles etc. The other major roof problem is the guttering - it may need realigning or replacement.
SO MY ADVICE IS BUYER BEWEARE MAKE SURE YOUR BUILDING REPORT INCLUDES A THOROUGH INSPECTION OF THE ROOF OR GET A ROOFING CONSULTANT’S REPORT
Then you also need to know the state of the roofspace – is the ceiling insulated is there enough insulation, is the insulation damaged from water ingress or condensation – worse still is there a condensation problem in the roofspace. By finding out about any problems on the roof from an inspection, you yourself can do a bit of detective work inside the home by looking for brown stains around the corners of the ceilings around the light fittings and the cornices. Brown stains are usually an indication of a leak in the roof or more than likely a condensation problem in the roofspace. The other problem can be darker even black stains this is generally an indication of a mould problem. However, in saying that, an overzealous seller will usually clean up the ceiling and paint these problems over. So when you smell fresh paint all about the house it may not be a tidy up to make the home look spick and span, it may well be a cover up of a leaking roof or a condensation problem.
SO LET’S DO THE ARITHMATIC
On an average it’s going to cost around $3,000 to have the ridgecapping redone (rebed and pointed) on average if the guttering needs to be replaced its going to be around $6,000 of course this figure may fluctuate depending on the size of the house anywhere from $3,000 to $12,000. Then of course you may only need to have some removal and realigning of the guttering average from $500 to $3,000.
SO YOU CAN SEE IT CAN BE QUITE EXPENSIVE IF YOU DON’T DO YOUR DETECTIVE WORK OF AN ESTABLISHED HOME
As I said I have 50 years experience in the roofing industry and it is my experience that if a seller can pass his problems onto the buyer he will generally try his darndest to do so.
However I have also done work for many people who want to give the purchaser a home without problems and they spend a lot of money to do so notwithstanding that the previous far outweigh the latter.
SO WHAT ARE YOU TO DO
Well once you have a price or an estimate of works needed generally I would advise the buyer to make an offer and ask for the obvious amount of repairs to be done by the owner or the amount knocked off the price. Generally some middle ground can be found between the buyer and seller to come to an agreeable amount for repairs needed.
THERE MAY OR MAY NOT BE ROOF VENTILATION INSTALLED ON THE ESTABLISHED HOME YOU ARE PURCHASING
Generally if there is any roof ventilation it is usually a whirlybird that will do nothing to alleviate a condensation problem, check out Case Studies & Reports on this site “Whirlybirds Don’t Work”. However it is small insurance for your new purchase to have an effective roof ventilation system installed and we have the best roof ventilation systems in the world to cool your home in summer and keep your roofspace dry from condensation and/or humidity problems 24/7 365 days a year.
ANYTHING ELSE IS A COMPROMISE
PREPARE TO BE AMAZED
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