I recently bought a seven year old house and noticed soon after that the ingoes around the doors and windows were in pretty poor condition, ie, cracking and hollow in places. Subsequent checks (by myself and a surveyor) have identified areas of the pebbledash render that have also blown.
I had a guy up from the NHBC (before I had a survey done) and he only really looked at the ingoes and pretty much dismissed the matter. He said it would be below their excess and I would need to get repairs done myself. (This seems to be pretty much a standard NHBC response. My neighbour contacted them a few years ago over left-overs from snagging and got the same brush-off.)
I think the survey results maybe puts a different complexion on things. There are big areas of blown render above the front door, under the living room window (at the rear of the house), along the bell cast (also at the rear) and above the master bedroom window at the front. There could well be even more because the surveyor didn't venture much above ground level.
The big concern I have is how far I can push for redress. I don't want to live in a house that looks like a patchwork quilt; that would pretty much put paid to any chance of selling it on. And I don't think I should accept that - it is only seven years old for goodness sake!
I think it is reasonable to expect it to be in good condition and so I am thinking of going for a re-render of the whole house. The fault obviously lies with the render process when it was built; something went badly wrong for the walls to be in such a poor state now and I feel I need to go back to that stage to put things properly right.
Is there anyone out there that has had a similar problem and, if so, how they got it rectified.
Also, any advice on how to take the issue forward would be helpful. I feel pretty much alone just now and I know that the building trade is notorious for walking away from problems of their making.
I had a guy up from the NHBC (before I had a survey done) and he only really looked at the ingoes and pretty much dismissed the matter. He said it would be below their excess and I would need to get repairs done myself. (This seems to be pretty much a standard NHBC response. My neighbour contacted them a few years ago over left-overs from snagging and got the same brush-off.)
I think the survey results maybe puts a different complexion on things. There are big areas of blown render above the front door, under the living room window (at the rear of the house), along the bell cast (also at the rear) and above the master bedroom window at the front. There could well be even more because the surveyor didn't venture much above ground level.
The big concern I have is how far I can push for redress. I don't want to live in a house that looks like a patchwork quilt; that would pretty much put paid to any chance of selling it on. And I don't think I should accept that - it is only seven years old for goodness sake!
I think it is reasonable to expect it to be in good condition and so I am thinking of going for a re-render of the whole house. The fault obviously lies with the render process when it was built; something went badly wrong for the walls to be in such a poor state now and I feel I need to go back to that stage to put things properly right.
Is there anyone out there that has had a similar problem and, if so, how they got it rectified.
Also, any advice on how to take the issue forward would be helpful. I feel pretty much alone just now and I know that the building trade is notorious for walking away from problems of their making.
