passthevalium

Hi everyone, we could do with your advice please. We are very interested in a house which has polystyrene cladding, or monolithic cladding, which is one of the cladding types implicated in leaky homes. The house is great, 10 years old, large eaves, treated timber, really well maintained but no cavity. We have researched this within an inch of it's life and our heads say no but our hearts say yes. The sellers have had thermal testing and invasive timber testing all of which show that there are no problems at all at the moment. We are very cautious as we lost money on our home in the UK and don't want this to happen again. So my question is, have any of you had any experience with this type of house either buying or selling and if so what were the problems you experienced?
We asked a UK estate agent working here what he thought and although he hasn't seen this particular house, he said I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole without it being reclad and that they had a few on their books that they just couldn't shift. The weird thing is that the house has an offer on it already, $100,000 below RV with someone else waiting in the wings, and it was only on the market for 4 weeks. What would you do?

concretepump

hi once upon a time all the experts, said you need a cavity, to allow for air flow, to stop damp, well lots of houses, now have foam filled cavitys, so you dont get the air flow, as long as you have insulation, dont think it would matter two much, if you like house and area you could always replace over time as theres nothing wrong yet, me if i liked it i would buy it hope this helps

Bo-Jangles

Honestly it's not weird, if you ruled out the monolithic clad houses in Auckland you would have very little left to look at. As many thousand of houses are like it and have been built according to standards and have been trouble-free.

Ours is partially as you describe and like many houses is a mixture of cladding, partially brick veneer and some kind of plaster board. Ours has has all the 'right' features - wide eaves, straight up and down walls with no fancy built in additional features such as balconies where water can get in. If it were a leaker I am sure we would know by now. If you've looked at lots of houses you'll begin to figure out quite quickly the ones to avoid that have the classic leaky signs; no eaves and fancy 'tuscan style' efforts with built in balconies, handrails and balustrades.

Ours must have some cavity as we do have enough depth of walls to have windowsills, many don't. If you're looking at very slim walls. i.e. no wider then the window frame then I would have a bigger concern about the cold and lack of insulation.

We had similar dilemmas in choosing to buy this house but have had no issues; I still do fear the worst though and daresay it may well have a bearing some time down the line when it comes to selling.

Stephen Jones

Good advice on what to look for.

Genesis

We own such a house and alas it has features that lend itself to leaking. However I have done exhaustive invasive testing, have had a specialist watertight accredited surveyor all over it and another one too some time back and they all agree it is NOT a leaker. It was not built in the 'bad times' but in 1990. They reckon that 7 out of 10 of my type of house will leak, hopefully we do have one of the 3!!!

The cladding you mention is fine IF it is put on properly. Our house was apparently built by the woman's brother who was a builder so I hope that maybe he was looking out for her!!

The problems with this type of cladding are the application of it, if it is done properly it will be fine. We have been here 8 years and had no problems, as Bo said after that time one would know eh? People will be wary of these houses and in some cases with good cause. Hearts are always a tricky thing with houses...this one was bought with a 'heart'!!!

You always should be thinking of resale when you buy a house though eh?

You could employ the services of a weather proof accredited surveyor, not cheap at around $1200+ for a visit and report but it could put your mind at rest. Even then they also say the only real way to find out if a house has rot (where you cannot get to see under it or behind the walls) is to deconstruct it.

Genesis

Agree with you on this and funnily enough we are thinking of selling now as we are looking to live life on a large, flat section. However I wonder how our house will be met by perspective purchasers. That said our has been bought and sold a number of times and no one has ever has even asked for a LIM!!!

It is a very quirky house and an agent came last week and said he is not sure how to value it as he has not seen anything like it in all his years!!

Not sure about selling up being the right thing though as little on the market has double glazing, central heating and all the other assets that we have put into the house to make it what it is today and in a beautiful cul de sac of two other cul de sacs, maybe we should stay?????

chris the property man

It sounds like you have done all the homework and the investigations that you ever could. Being from the real estate worls in Auckland I can only agree with Bo-Jangles as far as the sheer amount of properties in Auckland that are monolithic clad. We certainly don't steer people away from them or steer away trying to sell them. What we do is make sure that everything has been done to find out what, if any, problems the house has had or could have. The buyer then takes that into account as far as how much they are willing to pay for it. As long as you get it for a good enough price, if the crap hits the fan and it does start showing leaky problems then you will not be ober-capitalising the property by getting it treated/re-clad. Once that was done it's value would increase by, usually, what you have spent on sorting the problem out.
My advice - if you really want it, set a realistic price that you know you want be overpaying for it if you do need to re-clad and go for it. No house can be classed a totally watertight - it's how you deal with any leaking issues that really matters.
I've seen many monolithic cladding homes sell, but always at a fair price under the circumstances. The owners that don't accept that they might have to take a hit are the ones that are still sitting on them years after putting it on the market.

Good luck with it, whichever way you decide.

bdglm3

I would get a surveyor to look at the property first before making the final decision. Also I think that you should have something in your budget for re-cladding and upgrading. If you really want it then the advice about making a realistic offer is the best one. If you can't get it for the price you want then, whats for you won't go by you, there will always be another one.

Kiwikaye

As a general rule, if its only 10 years old you should be ok as by that time they had discovered the "leaky house" problem and changes had been made to the various building systems. I agree with getting all the checks done and doing your research, as you have, and make your decision based on that. I'm not a builder or tradesperson, but would consult those who are.

As someone above said, if you discount all the monolithic-clad houses in Auckland its not going to leave you with much. I used to work in real estate in ChCh and there is still a bit of a stigma around these houses, but generally speaking anything built later than about the mid-90's you should be ok.