Hi everyone! I am in the middle of buying a house and an outsider perspective is very much welcomed
the house in question is a 2 bed end terrace house. An ex ICI (worker built house) in which the single story extension was built as part of a council scheme in the 60/70s.
the old external wall is now the division between the dining room and kitchen so load bearing. There are two arch ways cut out of this wall. Also, There are zero lintels above windows and doors on the exterior of the house.
we paid for a full RCIS survey to be done in which it was highlighted that the wall has arches for decorative reasons (was in fashion when it was done) and it is “presumed” to have a supporting RSJ above each arch way.
we have since investingated further and with the sellers permission drilled a few cores out of the arches and discovered there are no rsj beams. So the arches were done to save money.
since then I have spoken to the original surveyor and he stated there at most likely concrete lintels above each archway but only on the internal skin.However, there are signs of their being no lintels supporting the external layer as there is cracking on the outside of the house above the extension.
Originally we wanted to buy the house as a short term project with the intention of remodernising and knocking through this wall completely and putting in a full length rsj (no cost cutting) but the survey has highlighted a whole lot of other issues such as Led water pipe, full re-wire, damp and the list goes on. We may have to pick and choose which issues to fix whilst we own the house. This lack of support in the wall has thrown us ..as we presumed if we ran out of funds (or wouldn’t get our money back by doing it) we could leave the arches and maybe square them off to make them more appealing when we re-sell in the next year or so. But apparently this also is a no go and this would still require regs and structural engineer calcs.
so we are 50\50 right now whether to pull out of the buying the house. The surveyor doesn’t think it’s worth getting too worked up over as it’s relatively cheap to keep the arches and insert new concrete lintels above the archways. The house isn’t going to fall down! And this is all irrelevant if we are planning to tear down the whole wall anyway. However as mentioned our ‘cheaper’ alternive was to keep the wall and square them off to save money. Which it doesn’t like it will be. Either way more money will have to be invested into this wall before we re-sell.
i have done a lot of research on houses being purchased without adequate support and the general consensus seems to be..it’s risky and to walk away.
i attach pics of the gorgeous arch ways in question (LOL) floorplan and the pics of cracking above the extension.
Any thoughts or alternative perspective is much appreciated
