Owning your own home

Yes, very unlikely to be anything other than cracks in the render, normal on large expanses like that side wall and likely due to the installation of the new window on the other wall.

They could well have let in moisture but I’d not panic, you may well be able to put flexible filler in when you decorate and never see them again. Most cement rendered houses will have some cracks, they widen when you get a bit of water in that then freezes and expands.

They don’t look immediately panic-worthy to me.

If it's a solid wall house, I'd be walking away - unless you fancy stripping the render & starting again.

Seems a bit extreme. Cracks in render can be ground out and patch repaired. If there was no evidence of the whole lot blowing and coming away and no evidence of it causing other issues like damp, I wouldn't let it scare me off. I would be mindful of it though and try to get a discount on the house price based on multiples of the cost of repair.

Show me one rendered wall in England that has no cracks etc...

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Aye, those cracks are very unlikely to be structural

Seems a bit extreme

I render on old houses (unless it's lime etc.)

This isn't always a problem but it can become a significant issue when other factors are in play, I agree.

Understanding the reason why it was done would be beneficial.

In the future, I suspect a lot of old single skin houses are going to have to have stuff applied to their exterior to provide insulation.

Cement render is an issue on timber frame or clunch or something else that naturally moves around a bit because it doesn’t move so will always crack and allow moisture in and ruin the structure. On a masonry house like that one that doesn’t (shouldn’t!) move it’s fine if applied well and maintained so cracks are quickly fixed.

Cement render isn't breathable though. Not always a problem but it's not going to help deal with damp issues.

For sure. I’d never cement render anything, it’s stupid, it cracks, needs endless maintenance, kills the planet and costs more to build with than bricks. But if you keep it maintained and waterproof it doesn’t need to breathe as the structure under it will never get wet.

Interesting, thanks for the tip & will try that.

It could be worse:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/07/kent-family-charged-80k-in-error-after-edf-sent-1m-electricity-bill

I wonder if the mega rich occasionally get erroneous charges like this and just don't notice. The sort of people that keep a few hundred k in their current account as working capital in case they want to buy a painting on the way home from work.

Peanuts. Here’s my mobile bill from a few months ago:

1 Attachment

But if you keep it maintained and waterproof it doesn’t need to breathe as the structure under it will never get wet.

From the outside, yes, but what about from the inside? Oh...

Just wondering, why would people not get a structural survey before a house purchase?

Because the concept of one doesn't really exist?

But reasons for not shoving more money down a RICS person's throat

• it's not your first rodeo
  
• you've got a better alternative (builder etc)
  
• low risk or inability to action whatever they might find (i.e. it's a flat in a purpose built block that hasn't been wrapped in stuff that burns and not made out of out of date concrete)
  
• defects are so terrifyingly obvious that you've already got a structural engineer picking through the rubble
  
  

or combinations of thereof

Interesting, and not unreasonable I think.

Inspection reports from structural engineers do exist though. Edit: comes under (2) in your list I guess.

Someone paid for my broadband bill for 2 years and didn't notice. 50 quid or so p/m.

they can't really do much unless they can peel thing back and have a look or they have access to documentation on what was done and how. Much more involved process than what the RICS folks offer through basically eyeballing a place and using local knowledge etc, which I think is what folks assume a 'structural survey' to be. Erroneously.

Didn't Sting's accountant steal ungodly amounts from him without him noticing for years

Strangest thing about that story is an average family having over 5k in their household current account.

ust wondering, why would people not get a structural survey before a house purchase?

I didn't, but then the house I bought was less than 10 years old, any survey would have be caveated-to-fuck, and I got my father, who's an architect, to have a look at it. He said "yeah, seems fine" which was good enough for me.

Serves you right for getting the No Frills SIM card deal.

Off to the golf club with him!

Eon forgot to charge me for any gas (on what was supposed to be a combined leccy and gas tariff) for 6 years. When they noticed they asked me to pay for the last 6 months' worth and after a little harumphing from me we settled on 3 months.

Yeah. Fucked up there. Thought I was cheating the system by getting four no frills sims and one infinite data sim then sharing the data every month but you can’t share to no frills plans. I think they charged me £43m to punish me for being a smarty pants. Good job I spotted it though, if they’d tried to take that much it would have pushed me over my overdraft.