If you have it, flaunt it
Great teeth, lousy gums
The dark horizontal line at the chimney base shows a gap, a break, in a folded strip of lead that should be smooth and unbroken. This 'flashing' will no longer guide water safely away from the house.
The tiles have also seen better days.
A few years ago, a brand new house had to be demolished. The bricks were fine; the mortar was rotten. The only remedy was to raze the entire structure and do it all over again.
I did not know about this sort of catastrophe when I was property hunting, but I was sufficiently nervous to require the comfort of a survey.
But when my surveyor's report arrived, it might have been in a foreign language. In fact, it was a foreign language.
Purlins. Pointing. Flashing. Flaunchings. What are these things?
And some of the flashing and flaunching, were concealed. If I did not know how to deal with the ones that I could see, how could I possibly cope with those that were invisible.
Was it really as bad, as challenging, as all that?
Yes and no. Many property and architecture books, and even a standard dictionary, could help the average homebuyer wade through the technical terminology. Today, it is much easier, thanks to the internet. Plenty of websites define and describe purlins and flaunchings and provide illustrations.
But surveys contain a lot of information to digest, and this deluge arrives at a time when the buyer is also trying to cope with documents from banks, solicitors and others.
PWP Tip
There is a real danger that your survey will be filed - never actually read or only skimmed - never to see the light of day again.
Read the surveyor's report as soon as you receive it. If it is complex, re-read it and highlight the important sections. Contact the surveyor if you need further explanation.
If the report indicates that maintenance will be required, make sure you know what will need doing, and what it is likely to cost. If you buy the property, itemise the things that need to be done in your To-Do List.
Keep the survey handy, to consult as need arises.
When I was househunting in 1992-93, I commissioned a House Buyers Report and Valuation (the forerunner of today’s Homebuyers Survey and Valuation).
The survey notes that the property was “in a reasonable condition at present” but “it will require raking out and repointing to top courses of chimney elevations in the next three to five years.”
Repointing? Yes, the mortar between the bricks would need to be gouged out and replaced with new mortar. “Course” refers to a continuous layer of building material, usually horizontal, usually brick.
The house also had “general unevenness along ridge and gable junctions.”
Flaunch refers to a cement or metal slope around chimneys and other objects to repel water. ‘Flash’ and ‘flaunch’ often appear together and the words look and sound as if they should be related. Actually, ‘flaunch’ is a variation on the word ‘flange.’
Cladding. Parapet walls. Zinc linings. Flashing junctions. Flaunchings.
If much of the survey was over my head, it at least told me that I could go ahead with the purchase. No major disasters were lurking. It also enabled me to negotiate a lower price based on work necessary to bring the property up to scratch.
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