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Weird Hidden Faults when buying a house!


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We finally got our hands on our new house today and have found that the toilet is not connected at all to anything, there is no pipe into the floor let alone into the fosse, which had been inspected but failed ot point out this 'disconnect'.  We did laugh as our son had used the loo on our last visit and so we asked him, 'did you flush' to which he said no of course not there wasn't any water!  Nice!  For us it's not an issue, we are not going to live in the house until the renovations are complete but I can imagine that if this were not the case we would not be laughing now.

In the UK we once bought a house and the previous owners had stuck all the coat hooks behind the bedroom doors up with double sided sticky tape and as soon as you hung something on them they fell off the door, now why would anyone do that?  The previous owners were both teachers, very odd!

So come on, what have you found?

Panda

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We found that our 'French normal' ventelation fans, the ones that you normaly find in the kitchen and loo/bathroom, didn't vent outside, but just squirted the damp air into the loft!!

We don't use the one in the kitchen, but the bathroom one is used every time we have a shower. It does now because I have put a pipe through the outside wall and it pumps it to atmosphere??

Very strange!!

We are just putting in our second toilet. I got to the stage where I was just going to cut into the foul drain to the fosse. I had a feeling about the size of the 100mm pipe through the garden to the fosse, so I compaired it with the 100mm pipe that I was fitting. with the aid of my trusty 'very-near' (vernier) I checked the new and the old. To my astonishment the old was 110mm (4 1/4" not 4"). Just as well I didn't cut it or we would have been in the same situation of having nowt to go on, as it were!!

I now have the correct fittings and when 'Big G' stops trying to fill it with rain I will cut and connect it (and hope it don't leak! [+o(]!!!)

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About a year after I bought my house here the first floor began to sag and bounce a bit, and doors started to get difficult to close.  I went downstairs into the basement one day, holding on to the hand rail attached to one of the upright wooden support beams, and the whole thing suddenly collapsed sideways!

Once I'd picked myself up off the floor, I had a look at the large hole that was left, and everything became clear.  When the previous owner had concreted the basement floor, he had left the support beams in situ on a bare earth floor and concreted around them.  They had gradually become damp, and the sections of wood surrounded by the concrete had rotted away to nothing.  So of course they were not actually supporting anything at all.

Good job I had a friend with several acro props to support everything until we could replace the wooden posts.  It's all sorted now, and my floors no longer have that sprung ballroom dance-floor feel to them.

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As one who inspects houses for a living I could probably write a book about the bizarre and sometimes incredibly scarey things that I find. I recall one property that the vendor showed me round but totally neglected to mention that there was a cellar. I knew that there was one because I could see the tops of the window openings at ground level. After questioning about it he grudgingly informed me that there was no internal access because the stairs had collapsed (!) but that there was a small external doorway hidden behind a rose bush! 

'Small' was an understatement. Having squeezed my 6'4" into the opening I quickly realised why he had failed to mention it to me and, for that matter to the buyer also!

The entire ground floor was being supported upon a forest of Acrow props as the result of some rather voracious wood-boring insects who had eaten their way through most of the original supporting structure. There was also the early stages of dry rot present.

Interestingly, he had strategically positioned his furniture around the ground floor directly above to hide the plethora of holes in the floorboards that had resulted from the decay!

  

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When we looked at our house with the agent I asked if the fireplace was in working order, she confirmed that it was.

Later we re-visited and looked at the property from the outside, no sign of a chimney anywhere!

So we went back to our friendly estate agent who was horrified, she rang the vendor and told him in no uncertain terms that he had to put the chimney in again. It seems he was a small time builder and had received the insurance money to repair the roof etc after the tempete (1999 / 2000)  and had decided to just do away with the chimney.

Well he did as he was told and the chimney is now in place and fireplace works.[:)]

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A friend of ours bought a house in the Uk with a new fitted kitchen;when they moved in it had a fitted kitchen but not the one they had seen -a much older one.It turned out that the seller still had the older one standing in his garage and decided to take the new one to his next house-apparently the house description had only said "fitted kitchen" with no description of the actual units.Having said that,we have a friend who has a kitchen fitting businees.A lot of his trade comes from people who are buying new houses-I mean genuine new-at about 500-750K and one of the first things they have done is a new kitchen-he makes a good profit on the ones he takes out.
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When we went back to sign the compromis the owner told us there was no fosse septique.  How could this be - people had been living in the place for years...

Turned out that the previous owner intended to increase the capacity, so took out the old one.  Then he had a heart attack and died.  2 years later the pipe was still just sitting waiting for the new one to arrive...

And the boiler had exploded.  So the lady took a plastic bucket, filled in with fioul, draped one of her old skirts on the top, and put the pipework into the still functioning ballon heating system into it.

And the roof terrace had a hole 2 metres by 3 in it, covered with more rags and a coffee table.  Worse was that the roof terrace was saucer-shaped, so when it rained all the water fell in a cascade down the 17th century staircase.

And the electrics were in a box in the barn where water also came in, so we were treated to a spectacular firework display when it poured.  And there's more, but time has kindly drawn a curtain over some of it.

We say, the previous owner would have paved the road to Hell, but he never quite got round to finishing the preparation work...

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When we sold our last house in the UK. The purchaser asked if we were leaving the glued laminate flooring down. I thought it a strange question and asked him why he thought we might not be. He told me that apparently people do remove it sometimes, so that they can refit it at their new address. How weird.
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[quote user="Jonzjob"]

No faults in or house to speak of. The only thing we have removed was the dish washer from under the kitchen worktop and replaced it with something useful......

A wine rack [8-|][:D]!!!

[/quote]

Ah a  man after my own heart [:)]

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WHAT![:-))] A wine rack in the kitchen. NO WAY would we do that. We keep wine in the cave. Wine in a warm kitchen, in my opinion is not good, where as a dishwasher is.

When I see these expensive kitchens on tv with their wine racks I am always flabbergasted. I wouldn't even do it to reds. I would rather get them out, decork them and let them breath in advance, but keep them in my kitchen NEVER!

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tu

i have heard some wine "expert" say categorically that uncorking a bottle and just letting it breathe does not work.  apparently, only decanting will allow the air to properly infiltrate the wine.  have you any thoughts on that?

sorry, back to kitchens and faults.  i personally love my old-fashioned pantry complete with cold shelf that i have here in the uk but can't see a way of achieving that in my french property without siting it somewhere in the old ruined outbuilding.

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I don't know, I just see what people do that 's all. I do not like les grands crus. I know what I like and depending on the wine, in general I like my whites quite cool, but not cold and my reds amibient. I don't think letting a cote du rhone 'breath' would make much difference, but for those who like them it might make quite some difference to say a chateau neuf du pape or the better clarets or burgundys.

I still wouldn't leave my wine in the kitchen comme ça.

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[quote user="Teamedup"]

I don't know, I just see what people do that 's all. I do not like les grands crus. I know what I like and depending on the wine, in general I like my whites quite cool, but not cold and my reds amibient. I don't think letting a cote du rhone 'breath' would make much difference, but for those who like them it might make quite some difference to say a chateau neuf du pape or the better clarets or burgundys.

I still wouldn't leave my wine in the kitchen comme ça.

[/quote]

Well in our wonderful house the garage is COLD in the winter and warm in the summer so the next best thing is to stack (not store, it ain't got a chance in hell of being stored!!) the wine we have ready to drink where it can be got at. And that is under a re-enforced concrete worktop in the kitchen near the outer door. We don't need a 1000€ cave to put wine in that is going to have a VERY short shelf life.. And as for the dishwasher, well if your dish washer ever breaks down the best way to sort the problem is to give her a good smacking [:D][6][6][B]?? (duck John!!!)

One of our favorite wines is a Carbardies organic from a local chateux. You probably won't even of heard of the AOC if you don't live nearby. It is a very dark, rich and wonderful wine. Mind you most of the wines round here, Minervois, Corbiers and a boat load of others would knock the socks off a lot of the other wines in France and certainly the 'New World' wines. They are deep in just about everything, colour, taste, aroma. And if you want a better sparking wine then Blanquette du Limoux is better and cheaper than the stuff they chuck out further North and it has been around a LOT longer too.. Champoo [+o(]

P.S. I know that the worktop is re-enforced concrete, because I have just had to cut it to fit a larger sink and it was bruddy hard!

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Ours isn't fancy and wasn't expensive, we just insulated well  under the stairs, simple, cheap and functional. We buy good but young clarets and keep them for years before serving them. The vin de tables are kept in there too. It is amazing how many bottles we can get in there and the temperature hardly varies, winter or summer.

Dishwashers, well we had a discussion about those recently. They are wonderful things and I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have them.

 

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[quote user="Teamedup"]

Dishwashers, well we had a discussion about those recently. They are wonderful things and I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have them.

 

[/quote]

I agree entirely...would you go back to washing your clothes by hand once you've had the use of a washing machine?!

Matt

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Our house had broken windows replaced with plastic sheets, not very neatly cut to fill the space, and put in with an excess amount of putty; Electric heaters wired straight into the mains bypassing the fuse board and a host of other disasters. I had been told that it had been rewired and indeed the owner had invoices to prove it - except that the work had never been done. The main beam across a bedroom had been cut (why?) and allowed to rest on a thin plaster board dividing ward  that wobbled when you touched it. So now the whole house will be gutted and renewed. Its a two-year job so we've got to wait before we move in.
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[quote user="mmaddock"][quote user="Teamedup"]


Dishwashers, well we had a discussion about those recently. They are wonderful things and I just don't understand why everyone doesn't have them.
 

[/quote]

I agree entirely...would you go back to washing your clothes by hand once you've had the use of a washing machine?!

Matt
[/quote]

Do you really wash your clothes in the dishwasher?[8-)] We always use our washing machine... As for the dishwasher, ours was used once in the almost 2 years we have been here and that was by one of our visiting friends. after that it has ALWAYS been easier by hand.

No we would not go back to washing clothes by hand, but dishwasher, no thank you. Same thing with a micro wave cooker. We would not have one in the house. They are not good for your health apart from cooking food badly... [6] I would not stand next to an HF transmitter ariel on an aircraft either, not would I stand in front of a radar ariel that is transmitting either... But it is a less painful experience than a vasectomie (spelling?). Does the same job!!!!![8-)]

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[quote user="Jonzjob"]

Do you really wash your clothes in the dishwasher?[8-)] We always use our washing machine... As for the dishwasher, ours was used once in the almost 2 years we have been here and that was by one of our visiting friends. after that it has ALWAYS been easier by hand.

[/quote]

I don't understand how hand washing can be easier?!  What could make it easier than sticking everything into the machine and pressing the on button!?  Mind, our family does get through a lot of pots - it is not unknown for the DW to go on (full!) twice a day at the weekends.

[quote user="Jonzjob"]

Same thing with a micro wave cooker. We would not have one in the house. They are not good for your health apart from cooking food badly... [6]

[/quote]

Well, I tend to agree, but they are useful for the porridge, custard, babies bottles / food (and I'm afraid to say re-heating coffee) tho!

[quote user="Jonzjob"]

I would not stand next to an HF transmitter ariel on an aircraft

either, not would I stand in front of a radar ariel that is

transmitting either... But it is a less painful experience than a

vasectomie (spelling?). Does the same job!!!!![8-)]

[/quote]

Now there's a thought...how reliable is that as a procedure?!  Maybe a trip to Poitiers is in order [:D]

Matt

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When we purchased our house a few years back we found that the waste pipe from the bath went uphill which resulted in horrible drain smells.  The electric water boiler's thermostat didn't work so we had to be careful with extremely hot water.  We had central heating although we never attempted to fire up the solid fuel boiler, that was a bit scarey.  We had an electric socket in the the bathroom which had not been attached to the wall and had exposed bare wires.  The electrician who came to quote to rewire the house nearly had a heart attack when he checked out the wiring.  He was a retired fireman and was not amused.  My husband suggested that perhaps the wiring was DIY but he disagreed, he reckoned it was homemade!  The fosse was in the stables which is an integral part of the house so was completely illegal.   We have been incredibly lucky in finding great artisans and a brilliant builder who has never let us down, in fact he and is wife have become good friends.
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Pierre wot do you want for nuffin? Yer money back?????[8-)]

If you stand under an aircraft when a fairy (radio bloke, not [John, don't go there]) is doing HF checks it ain't going to cost a centime! If you stand there long enough then even if it cost s fortune it would be your next of kin that would get any rebate![+o(]

Radar, well about the same applies. After all it would be the same as standing inside a micro onder. It would have to be a bruddy big one though!!![:-))]

No mate, you would be better off having the snip and wiping yer eyes afterwards!! That way you get the best of both worlds, a reimbursment from SECU and the assurance that you ain't going to have any more sleepless nights from babies??? Not that I have anything against babies (blimey, I think I managed to get away with that with the PC brigade?[:D])

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