Anyone can get caught out buying a leaky home – even the experts.
In this situation, the Real Estate Agent knew the builder who built the building in question. Once it was built the agent sold the property. She then sold the building again – then the third time it was sold she bought it herself. She then found out the building had a high number of leaks and timber damage – from detailing and design problems that were likely there since construction.
This shows that anyone can be caught out by this issue – despite having a deep involvement in the industry.
The lesson for potential buyers of monolithic or plaster clad houses is that they must understand what they are buying. Many houses look fine to the untrained eye, and even experienced professionals can get caught out and miss signs that lead to expensive mistakes. Buying a house with monolithic cladding in the height of the summer means that traditional tools used for finding leaks, such as surface scanning moisture meters and thermal imaging can easily miss picking up problems.
If you are considering buying a monolithic clad house have a look at this page.
Buying a house is likely to be the biggest investment you ever make so make sure that it isn’t also the biggest mistake you ever make.
When Moisture Detection Company installs moisture probes as part of a pre-purchase inspection, we are not only using the most accurate moisture detection system available, and testing for timber treatment, but we are also examining timber samples from every probe location for evidence of decay.
This means that before you finalise your offer, or go through with the purchase, you have actual evidence of leaks, decay and timber treatment.
If you buy a plaster clad house without this, then you are gambling that the house is good. Can you afford to be wrong?
A recent client had already bought their house – without getting it properly inspected first. When the moisture probes were installed and the timber analysed the client was then given the bad news that there is extensive decay arising from faulty windows, ranch sliders and flashings. The red dots signify very bad decay, the orange dots show partial decay.
The wall at one of the locations looked pristine. No signs of dampness, or damage. But when we opened it up to see what the probe had found, we saw this. Moisture Probes don’t lie. The client now has an expensive project ahead to get the house safe and habitable. If we had probed the house beforehand he could have negotiated a substantial discount, or just walked away.
