Exactly what will a structural survey assess?

L

Lynnie

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Hi,

Just in the middle of trying to organise a structural survey [as opposed to valuation] for a 3-year-old house and wondering if anyone can give me an idea of what will be assessed in this... Do they usually just look at the literal structure of the house for soundness/damp and the like? Would they check out sewerage/plumbing/electrical things also or could you request that they do?

Thanks :)
 
I think it depends on what you want them to do. I have been looking at this myself recently and it seems to vary.

I think the correct name is now a 'Building Survey'.
 
Just a word of warning - I recently had a structural survey on a house that I will be buying , i also got the bank valuation report done with the same crowd they turned out to be a bunch of cowboys - They are advertised on myhome.ie so I thought that they would be reputable enough. The report came back and said that there was subsidence -'beyond normal' on the 3 year old house and told us to get the sellers to contact HomeBond- The vendor got a separate survey done by a different firm and the 'subsidence' was NOT noted by them - We rang the first firm and told them and they said to go with the second report (ie not their one) Apparently , the first firm were covering themselves from any risk of being sued and therefore would never give any property a clean bill of health ....
 
I have had two engineers reports in the last couple of years on two different houses. The report seems to be very basic and full of bull.
The first engineer missed a lot of smaller points which I fixed after I moved in (not structual) He kept quoting building regulation in his report. The second engineer that I did not meet, seemed to be inexperienced and was just writing to cover himself.
To be resonable, there is not a lot they can do visually unless they start puling things apart.
I wonder if it is worth the cost
 
There are lots of posts up on AAM to the effect that it would be foolhardy to buy a second-hand house without having a building/structural survey done on the property, but it doesn't sound to me like you get all that much for your money.
 
Just to say we recently got a survey done , it was an engineers report. It was an A4 booklet , that went into great detail, he investigated everything, got up on the roof and into the attic, he even checked out the shed and garden. In this instance, he did check the house was rewired. The best thing was he told us excatly what was wrong and how much work it would need to fix it. Also, he enclosed 50 photos , to illustrate the points, as I have yet to see the house this was great for me. Good Luck.
 
bubbasmama said:
Just to say we recently got a survey done , it was an engineers report. It was an A4 booklet , that went into great detail, he investigated everything, got up on the roof and into the attic, he even checked out the shed and garden. In this instance, he did check the house was rewired. The best thing was he told us excatly what was wrong and how much work it would need to fix it. Also, he enclosed 50 photos , to illustrate the points, as I have yet to see the house this was great for me. Good Luck.
Click to expand...

That sounds like an excellent service - was this done in the Dublin area - if so would you mind letting us know the name of the company and the price they charged. I am looking to get a survey done and would especially like the electrics checked over but I understand that is not normally checked (which is fair enough as they are only checking structure).
 
Sorry, I should have said he was based in Enniscorthy. It was 600 euro. We found him through the RICS, as we are not yet familiar with the area.
 
We got theses guys - [broken link removed]

Cost 350ex vat, and was very thorough, a nice 10 page report on every aspect.

I'd recommend them, they give a list of observations as well. And details of what needs to be fixed up and approx costs.
 
We have retained a company called M.T. Molloy & Associates who are based in Portlaoise for the job as the house we're buying is in Portarlington. Hopefully everything will be ok with it but I'm just trying to be sure we'll be getting as much info as possible about its condition before we sign contracts etc
 
Check out the Society of Chartered surveyors web site www.scs.ie great general advise and will give you a list of chartered surveyors in your area.
 
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