Replacing a brick wall (effort and costs involved)

[jamboz]

Hello! My first post, but will probably be on here a fair bit in the coming months, getting advice and hopefully sharing some stories.

So I've had the survey results back on a prospective house, and one of the concerns noted by the surveyor is that the garden wall that separates the house from the neighbours will require "rebuilding" in the near future, as it's basically leaning to one side and is "out of true". This is on the side of the garden that is our responsibility, unfortunately.

I know people on here won't be able to give an exact cost for this, but I literally don't have a the first clue as to what this type of work will cost, and the time/effort involved. So basically I'm wondering if someone could give me a very broad steer toward the rough costs involved here, covering both demolishing the wall and rebuilding it. I don't know if there are any foundational issues at play, but let's just assume the foundation is fine just to keep things simple.

The wall is 28ft (8.58m) long, and around 4ft high. I've attached a photo to give an idea of what it looks like, but obviously it doesn't show the full length.

Would £5,000 be a reasonable guestimate for something like this, or £10,000 maybe? As I say, not a clue!

If it's simply not possible to even have a stab-in-the-dark guess here, then purely out of interest how much would it cost to build a wall from scratch that meets the rough dimensions I mentioned above? Again, just trying to have a reasonable figure in my head for what these kinds of things cost.

Thank you!

 

[Charlie George]

£5000/£6000 is in the right ballpark, depending on access and your location.

 

[jamboz]

Thank you, that's a very helpful steer! Also glad to see my completely random ballpark guess was not that far off...

 

[smashpotato]

I wouldn’t even think of replacing it, unless it’s cracked and bits dropping off.

Ask a bricklayer for a quote for remedial works such as replacing pointing and maybe capping the top off.

Surveyors speculate, if you plan to use this a a way to get money off the property, it’s different to actually needing the work done.

 

[jamboz]

Thanks Smashpotato. Yes, you might well be right -- surveys often read as very alarmist, and it's hard to know what we should be paying attention to. One reason to listen to their concerns though is for future scenarios where we want to sell the house, say in 10 or 15 years. I guess we want to just get the house in as tip-top condition as possible when we're doing other renovation work, so we don't have to revisit this a decade from now.

Noted on the remedial work though, it's something we will consider.

Thanks!

 

[^woody^]

There's a block of flats in Italy that's leaning and out of true, but no surveyor has recommended rebuilding.

That's a substantial wall and it may take more knowledge than that surveyor possess to actually determine that it needs rebuilding.

Generally, if its not cracked don't fix it. If it becomes cracked, claim on the insurance after the next storm.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

Almost every garden wall is out of plumb if you stick a spirit level on it.

It's hard to tell from one photo, but it looks absolutely fine from here.

Move in and forget all about it. I doubt that any future surveyors will know whatever random things your surveyor happens to have an obsession about.

I saw surveyors in action when I sold our last house, I supervised their inspection. They were clueless, have probably done a one week course and have never built anything in their lives. I didn't even bother with a survey on our house after seeing their performance, it would have been a waste of money.