Hollow sounding external walls?

[chris765]

Dear all,

Me and my girlfriend are fortunate to be in the position to buy our first house. We have seen one we like but I'm curious to the construction.
We believe it was built in the 60s, 70s.

Most of the external walls have a hollow tap to them, the joining wall to next door sounds very solid, and the wall between the house and the garage sounds very solid.

The rest of the walls, including any partition walls have a hollow tap to them. (it seems all partition walls are stud). Now I wish I had taken note of the depth of the windows at a door or window but I didn't. edit: it didn't have window ledges. Where I live with my parents it has a 30cm deep external wall, so you get a nice side ledge on the inside and out. This house if I remember right just almost had the window frame.

Can anyone shed any light?
Thanks.

 

[stuart45]

That looks like a typical cross wall construction house. It means that the weight of the roof and floors is taken on the party walls, and the walls under the windows are usually 4x2 studwork .
This type of construction allowed for larger windows which were popular at the time.

 

[chris765]

Ok, thanks so much for your advice.

In your experience do you know if there are any downsides to this and also do you think it will have any implication on our mortgage application?

Thanks again.

 

[stuart45]

Should get a mortgage no problem. Main thing is joint between the timber frame and the brickwork, as they move differently. Sometimes there can be a weathering problem there. Usually though they are OK.

 

[handyman77]

We bought a very similar, we had a problem with noise at front of the house, due to poor insulation behind the tiles below the window. Wasnt a huge issue, but sometimes it seemed very loud, whereas the back of the house was blissfully quiet. There should be no problems with the mortgage. Good luck!

 

[^woody^]

It does appear to be of cross wall construction, and therefore it may be classed as 'non traditional' by a lender.

Bear this in mind first, and make enquiries before committing to any mortgage broker or suchlike where up-front fees are involved.

Try and get the seller to confirm construction, or try and get a free valuation or survey. But ask your proposed lender what its policies are on non-traditional construction

If it is cross wall, then that bit of brickwork between the first floor windows may not be original. Typically, these sections get replaced by the window installers, so things to check are if it has been built off a timber frame, and what are the damp barriers and insulation qualities ..... sometimes these are just brick and plasterboard internally, and so suffer condensation/damp/mould issues.

Generally though, there would be no problems with this construction, just make sure all the normal basic checks are done.

Any issues should/would be fairly obvious by now

 

[chris765]

Sorry for not getting back on here sooner.

Thanks all for your help and advice. I am speaking with the mortgage lender this afternoon so fingers crossed they might see this as a traditional building.

A customer of mine happened to once have had a cross wall construction house. They had issues with getting a mortgage with HSBC until a) they had a structural survey done and b) they reminded HSBC that their office in shanghai is built by this method!

Thanks again.

 

[stuart45]

I don't think cross wall houses are too much of a problem with the lenders.
Non trad houses that are on the designated defective list can be a problem, but they were mainly built for the public sector.
A lot of cross walls were put up for the private sector as starter homes, so they must have been mortgageable at the time.