Why do you feel you need to do anything to the plumbing? What do you mean by "upgrade"?

Maybe I'm missing something here or just no understanding, but I've never heard of "upgrading plumbing" before in the same way one would upgrade electrics. I would say that providing there are no leaks and the pipes aren't made from lead, there really isn't anything you need to do to it.

When you get round to doing the kitchen and the bathroom, you may need plumbing and drainage moving, depending on what you're having done. At that point perhaps you could look at getting a whole house pump for instance, or looking at a more efficient way to heat the hot water in the house.

But as for doing anything before that, I simply can't see any point.

I think people upgrade plumbing in older houses to get rid of lead pipes. But I would very much doubt yours has lead.
So what are you unhappy with and want t

Hi, thanks for your comments.

I mean replumbing the whole house when I say upgrading. @Ribena, you are right there doesn't seem to be a visible problem with the pipes (I also don't think they have lead). However we want to upgrade the kitchen and bathroom and we thought it's a good idea to do replumbing too (since the house is 50 years old, there could be problems in near future and we don't want to break the newly upgraded kicthen / bathroom if we will need to do replumbing then rather than before moving in). Would you agree with this reasoning?

Well actually no, I don't agree. Copper pipes don't "degrade" and need replacing over time. So it's unlikely that they will suddenly fail in some way in the near future.

One could argue that brand new pipework has a greater likelihood of failing because of the possibility of not properly sealed joints or poor solder work, for instance. But I think it's fairly safe to say that if the current pipes have lasted 50 years, then all things being equal, they should last another 50.

That isn't to say, you will never get a leak in the future, but I'd put money on it not being because the plumbing is worn out.

I'm firmly of the opinion, in this instance, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Save you money for other renovations.

You may need to review the existing plumbing when it comes time to have the kitchen re-done (or bathroom) because the current layout may not be suited to what you want to do. In which case, the plumber will just add and remove pipework where required to facilitate this, with no need to do anything else to the rest of the plumbing.

I'm guessing this is your first house......

I also meant to say, we moved into a house which (in parts) was over 200 years old, with various additions through the past 2 centuries - a lot from the 30s and the 70s and the only time we've re-done any of the plumbing was to make it accommodate the reconfigured new bathrooms and the new kitchen, but the work was purely in the rooms that were being done.

In fact we've had a greater problem with central heating pipework (or is that opening a can of worms for you.....).

All of that said, if there is going to be a period of renovation and upheaval before you move in, perhaps it's worth thinking ahead to what you may want in the future in the bathrooms and kitchen and have any extra pipework put in ready for then, without changing the existing - for instance, we had the bare pipework for a new en-suite put in under the floor, before we had new carpet laid, about 8 years before we actually did the en-suite, it saved a lot of mess and upheaval.

I agree you shouldn’t have problems with the pipes so they shouldn’t have to be replaced.
I would only replace some of the radiators if they are oversized as you can get smaller ones now that give out the same heat. I would change anything ugly. And I would consider using the saved money in pipework to do a different job better such as putting in a more efficient boiler.

Hi, thanks for your comments.

I see your points, and it makes sense now. I'll think about it again. We are currently seeing a few builders to discuss the works and your comments have been very helpful.

I also would like to ask for your opinion another topic. There is also a damp problem in the house I am talking about. There is musty damp smell in the house. There are two apparent damp issues: one is in the converted garage room (one of its walls has dampness from upper part). The second one is in one of the rooms upstair (around the chimney area on the wall). The musty smell is probably caused by these problems, but we are also concerned if there are some other non-visible damp reasons that is causing this smell.

My question is; can all damp issues in a house be detectable and fixable? Damp / musty smell is number one problem / concern for us in this house and we are now thinking about walking away from sales agreed stage (although we like the house in general). So we are trying to understand to what extent we should be worried about damp. Your comments will be helpful.

Cheers,

I would say, from my small experience of damp, as the areas are at the tops of walls, both of those areas sound like water ingress from the outside - perhaps some old pointing work between the bricks or even a leaking gutter of down pipe or a leaky roof, if the garage room has a flat roof.

This type of damp is extremely easy to resolve, once the cause is identified and can be relatively inexpensive - getting pointing re-done or refitting/replacing gutters or down pipes. A competent builder would be able to advise as to the likely source and what would be required to fix it.

Alternatively, it may smell damp if the house has been unoccupied for a while or poorly ventilated by the current owners not opening windows often enough.

Rising damp (which yours does not sound like) requires a good amount of remedial work, but you would probably see signs of that quite easily:- lifting wall paper, bubbling & flaking paint, wooden skirting becoming rotten, pulpy and soft.

If you want to proceed with the purchase, a good, full structural survey will highlight any major issues, at which point you could pull out of the purchase. To my mind, if you're keen on the house, it's well worth paying for a full structural survey will set your mind at rest. If they do flag up any major issues, you can always use this to negotiate on the sales price, to allow for the cost of works.

From your questions, I'm getting the feeling that buying a house is quite new to you. If so, you should realise that very few houses, even new builds, are totally problem free. So potentially there is always going to be at least one thing, that may need attention.

Everything Ribena said except that a full structural survey can be alarming for anyone inexperienced with property and should be done with some extra research on how they always read a little pessimistically.
Alternatively you could get a timber and damp specialist to tell you if there are other areas other than the two mentioned that are damp

you are right, we are quite new to buying a house (especially in Ireland) and we have lots of concerns :) Actually we came to point that we are now considering pulling out of the purchase. We'll be getting a huge mortgage and the amount of renovation work is scary for us. We have to make a decision though.

I already got the structural survey done and they actually identified the damp issue. As surveyor put it: "Rising dampness and rainwater penetration was evident around the Ground Floor WC at the time of the inspection. Also, rainwater penetration and mould formation issues were discovered around the flat roofs and flashing details to the converted Garage, main roof and dormer windows. "

Surveyor also indicated the following remedial works:

• Carry out rewiring on selected electrical ring main circuits • Upgrade fire detection around the property • Install additional insulation onto the external walls and at attic level • Carry out minor repairs to external doors and windows • Provide protection to low-level glazing • Carry out review of dormer and converted Garage flat roof installations • Address uneven brick pavior and concrete external surface finishes • Remove wasps’ nests in the attic space

• Install carbon monoxide detection in rooms with heat-producing appliances • Provide fully-functioning mechanical ventilation in Kitchen and Bathroom-type facilities • Install earth bonding onto the metal sink in the Kitchen • Clean down mould formation generally • Install background vents in all habitable rooms and Bedroom Stores

All of these seem a lot to me. That's why we are that concerned.

TBH that doesn't really sound very terrible. But as Jonathan pointed out, it can be quite scary if you have no previous experience of house buying. But as he says, it's worth reading up and researching what all these things are.

To have a small amount of rising damp in a small room such as a WC, isn't a big deal. A damp company can get that done relatively easily. They would take off the plaster to a height of approx. 3ft (ish) on the affected walls, they then inject the bricks and then re-plaster. There may be an issue with the DPC, which they would also deal with.

When we moved in to our house, we had walls in our two sitting rooms, the downstairs loo, hall and in the cupboard under the stairs all with rising damp. It was a bit of a mess, but it got sorted quite quickly and when the plaster was fully dried, we could redecorate.

As I said before the other mentions of damp are from external water ingress - which means you just need to identify why and how the water is getting in and get it fixed (incidentally, flat roofs are prone to leaking), that will fix the damp problem and thus any mould. Again a damp specialist will be able to advise you on this, but this type of problem is quite straight forward to deal with.

Of the remaining points:

Electrics - get clarification from the surveyor about what circuits he's referring to and then get an electrician in to find out roughly much it would be to do.

Upgrade fire detection - this means install some smoke detectors - you can do this yourself, buy then from a DIY store.

Insulation - get clarification of what the surveyor means by external walls, does he mean get cavity wall insulation or similar? If so that's not an immediate essential and could be done later. Insulating the attic - put in better loft insulation - again another thing you can do yourself get loft insulation from a DIY shop or look at other more eco friendly solutions.

Minor repairs to doors and windows - not a great expense and likely a lot you could do yourself - perhaps panes need replacing or blown double glazing need replacing - fairy simple and straight forward.

Clarify what the survey means by protect low level glazing. I suspect this means there is some window/s which is/are vulnerable to breakage (rather than a safety hazard) which would mean either getting a protective grille for it or you can get film to go over glass that makes it less like to shatter.

Dormer & garage roofs - just check to see if they are water tight and sound - a builder or roofing specialist could advise you.

Uneven paving etc - really absolutely nothing to worry about and likely something you could leave for a while - unless it is dangerous.

Wasps nest - simple we've had 5 removed from our property THIS YEAR (it been a bad year for us for wasps!) It cost us £66 per nest.

Carbon monoxide detectors - same as smoke detectors - do it yourself

Fully functioning mechanical ventilation - get an extractor hood for the kitchen when you re-do it and you could just open the bathroom window when required. These are not vital but are good to have in the long run.

Installing earth bonding - its a piece of wire! check on Google to see what you need to do, you can do it yourself. (I have a feeling it is no longer considered a necessity, but I could be wrong on that.)

Clean down mould - you can get special cleaner to use to clean mould off, so get a some and sponge and do it yourself!

Background vents - don't appear to have any in my house. I would say if you regularly open windows, doors don't over fill rooms with furniture, these are not immediately required (if t all) especially if there are trickle vents on the windows.

It really isn't that scary when you break it down and understand exactly what it's talking about. Don't get too concerned, damp specialists deals with those types of issues every day, so it's not an enormous insurmountable problem, its quite straight forward. A lot of things on the list are very, very minor and simple, quick & easy to do - for instance it takes 10 minutes to put up a smoke detector.

I think if you can get a damp specialist or a competent builder to look at the property, I think you'd feel a lot better about it all.

I agree with the above that a lot of issues can be dealt with and there will always be something...

I think in terms of the large mortgage and considering pulling out, you need to consider what else you’ve seen...

Is this the best long term prospect? Did you hate all the others? Or did you have 4 you couldn’t decide between?
What’s the location like? And the amount of space around it?
Those are things you can’t change and will determine how long you could potentially end up staying? (We bought a house that I imagined would be 5-7 years but now we’re at 5 we wanted extra space but loved the location and fortunately had enough room to build an extension which is what we’re doing currently which whilst a lot of money is cheaper than moving, couldn’t have done it without the space or location which is something that I hadn’t specifically looked for when buying)

Other thing I’d consider who’s selling, can you ask them to do any of the jobs? (we made them finish some snagging points and change part of the roof!) But left other things as ones we’d do.

If you’re the only buyer interested or they want a quick sale they’ll be more inclined to do the work!

Alternatively you could say we’ve had all this come back on the survey and are going to need to do more work than we originally planned so we want to knock off a couple of thousand off our offer.... again it’s a negotiation and depending on speed desired and other people’s interest will determine how successful you’ll be...

But generally there is no harm having the conversation, worst that will happen is they say they won’t drop the price. Or won’t do the work themselves!

@Ribena, thanks a lot for your comments on items. This is relieving for us. As you said, it sounds scary for us as we don't have the experience with a house.

@Gabby, these points about other options is all we are thinking about, but we feel we are stucked :) We've been looking for a house for the past a few years and couldn't get closer to any of them before. This one is in Blackrock (closer to Deansgrange) and agreed price is €570K. It's relatively big (120sqm) and is ticking lots of boxes for us (location and space wise). As the house is 50 years old, we estimate closer to €100K cost to upgrade it (after hearing comments here from Ribena and Jonathan, the immediate upgrade need could be less). So we are not sure if it worths to spend around €650K for the house. As you say I am now considering to renegotiate the price with the survey report. I'd rather do the work with my builder. I don't think there is a big interest at the moment. We were the only bidders and had a deal after just one round of negotiation (that was also a question for us; why was the owner rushing to have a deal and didn't wait for any other bidders! And now they are not rushing for some reason. We also know they wanted to sell the house last year but didn't (or couldn't) do it after all. Estate agent told us that they didn't sell it last year because the owner couldn't find the house they were looking for, and now they found it. Well, we don't know the real story though if it's different).

We have a drain survey this Thursday, and I should have the valuation report from the bank this week. Depending on these I will consider renegotiating the price and make a decision. I hope it will be the right one! If we'll pull out, our alternatives will be keep looking for buying or going on rent again into a house (for a short period, and to experience the life in a house).