THE IMPORTANCE OF WET AREAS IN YOUR HOME

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Good Home Maintenance

There is one area of your house that is more critical, in terms of home maintenance than any other. The wet areas in your home, specifically, the bathrooms.  

Your bathrooms cop a beating day in and day out. They are wet a lot of the time - during a shower and then afterwards until the humidity clears, the seals and waterproofing membrane in that room are working hard to make sure that your bathroom doesn’t wreck the rest of your home.  They need to be maintained and when they aren’t, they start costing serious money.

Most issues in a bathroom come up due to regular wear and tear – cracks in the grout and worn sealant at the joins. Sealant and grout wears pretty easily, even after just 5 years of use, so even if your bathroom is not that old, keep an eye on the seals and joins. Tile abutments require maintenance before moisture gets a chance to get into the wall substrate.

Another reason your wet areas might need refreshing of the flexible sealant is (ironically) if your home is brand new or you’ve just completed an extension. A house tends to settle. Settlement in the footings or slab can cause the seals at the tile abutments to separate just enough to let water in.

Cracks that let water through can turn your subfloor into wet Wheatbix (pole home with cracked waterproofing membrane and plywood subfloor), or merely rot your structural framing (slab on ground construction).

By keeping and eye on the area and applying a flexible sealant when you spot problems, you can save yourself a lot of money.  The cost of a mid-range bathroom renovation tends to be about $15,000+.  The cost obviously goes up if there’s structural damage to rectify around the shower cubicle.

If you weren’t planning to renovate your bathroom, a tube of sealant from the hardware store and a Popsicle stick is a pretty attractive option.

BEWARE THE LONE BUILDING AND PEST INSPECTOR

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Combined Building and Pest Inspections Gold Coast & Tweed Coast

For Arguments Sake: Could one building and pest inspector be better than two? A disturbing trend broke a little while ago with pest and building inspections – the Lone Inspector.

In challenging economic times (and lets face it, most times, when buying property are economically challenging) people come up with various ways to cut costs to attract more clients, knowing that people often make buying decisions based on price. One of those perceived economies is The Lone Inspector – getting a one-man-band to inspect your home instead of two trained professionals.

This one combined building and pest inspector is meant to save you money (only a matter of $20-$40) by covering both the pest and building inspection himself. In reality, this inspector is usually

These three simple questions will easily put rest to the perceived advantages of the one combined inspector:

1. Have you ever heard of a lawyer who is also a mechanic? What about a plumber who runs an MRI machine at the local hospital? Not many people are an expert in two fields.

2. Even if this person is both an experienced pest inspector and a licensed builder, are there many people out there who can multi-task? It’s been proven that multi-tasking is a myth.

3. If you were shopping around for a brain surgeon, would you look for the cheapest, or the best? And would you want a surgeon who had a specialist team around him, or a one-man-band who was doing the anesthetists job too? Okay, we know that it doesn’t work that way, and it is hard to perceive a building or pest inspector as being as specialised as a brain surgeon, but just think about the average cost of a property these days. For a house, you will never be spending less than $200,000.  I don’t know anyone who would happily gamble $200,000+ for the sake of a couple dollars off the price of their due-diligence.

For the sake of $40, wouldn’t you want the best possible pest AND building inspections carried out? Don’t skimp on the inspection phase of purchasing a property – it is almost guaranteed to cost you more than $40 in the long run.

PLANNING TO SELL YOUR HOUSE?

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Pre-Sale Building Inspection

If you’re thinking about selling your house, chances are you’re busy. You could be selecting a real estate agent that you feel will get the job done. You might be contacting your conveyancer to let them know you’re putting your home on the market.  Possibly you’re looking at your house trying to de-clutter and decide what to do about “loose ends” with a view to making your sale more straight-forward.

If you’re selling your home, you might want to carry out a pre-sale building and pest inspection to catch defects (or pests!) before someone else does!

All houses have things – a wall that was damaged then never got patched, a mark on the carpet that you can’t do anything about…

Often, home sellers opt to sell their property “as is”. This is a good idea, if you don’t want to carry out a lot of DIY work that may not make any difference to your final sale figure. A lot of things won’t improve your bottom line anyway.

A smart option, in this case, is to have a pre-sale building inspection carried out.  That way, you have a document that itemizes all the various maintenance type issues as they are at present within the home for potential purchasers. It also gives you, as the seller, a head’s up if there are any major defects that you weren’t aware of.

You should think about a pre-sale building and pest inspection if your home is:

• 25-30+ years old and mostly in original condition

• If you have had previous timber pest activity

• If there have been extensions or renovations done

• If it has been a tenanted property in the past

Also, if you do plan to do a small renovation “facelift” to tidy up the house, a professional opinion could be the difference between a good renovation and a bad one, so use the opportunity to get some honest advice from our building inspector.

If you are selling your house via the auction process, you really should have a pre-sale inspection report on hand to show buyers. They might not trust it 100%, because it will be coming from you, the seller, but they will at least know you are serious about selling.

More than likely, people who are interested in purchasing your property will probably get their own pest and building inspection carried out anyway, however if they are aware in advance of most issues, they are not likely to come back to you afterwards and ask for a lesser purchase price.  And if they do, you have something to come back with.

BUILDING AND PEST INSPECTIONS FOR FIRST HOME BUYERS

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Pest and Building Inspections

Ask anyone who’s interested in investing and they’ll tell you the best time to do it is…Right Now.

And that includes investing in your future in the form of buying property. Right now is probably the best time in years for first home buyers – interest rates are at an all-time low, there are still pockets of opportunity for reasonable prices on the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast, and if you have a good mortgage broker who can steer you through the bizarre lending landscape, you’ll be winning.

Come along with us, we’ll help you through the complicated and sometimes daunting process.

Here are 3 Tips to Get You Started:

1. Don’t Cut Costs: We realise that at this time in your life, you’re probably having second thoughts about taking on so much debt, worried about money and don’t want to over-spend in the buying process…but if you try to cut costs on your “team” you could do yourself a serious disservice. We’re talking about “online only” conveyancers and “one man band” pest and building inspectors. Always use professionals you trust. In your team, you will need an experienced solicitor/conveyancer, a mortgage broker, and a licensed pest inspector and building inspector.  Don’t be afraid to call around and actually talk to people about the service they provide, make sure you are comparing apples with apples before committing.

2. Don’t Discount Ugly: There are a lot of houses out there that are ugly. But then miracles happen: you buy an old fibro shack at auction for $300,000, slap some paint on it, put in a new kitchen in and presto-chango, you’ve got a really nice house. Our building and pest inspections can save you thousands of dollars in the long run because you get a chance to have a full consultation with our inspector (who is a master builder) on site. He will give you insight into renovation potential as well as let yo know what needs to be done to maintain your dream property!

3. If you don’t trust real estate agents or are not confident negotiating…you’re not alone. There are other options if you’re not sure you can do the deal yourself. There is such a thing as a buyers agent. They are licensed real estate agents who are actually working for you and who will guide you and negotiate on your behalf. They have their fingers on the pulse of the current market and can be worth their weight in gold if you really don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t have the money for that, get a friend or family member to help you. Think about all the people you know – is anyone a real estate agent? They could help you by sussing out properties for sale and negotiating on your behalf. If not, pick a stiff-necked uncle and go in there swinging with someone on your side…it’s not embarrassing especially once you’ve go the keys to your new home in hand.

Good luck and happy house hunting!

Dwell Building Services is your pest and building inspection expert on the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast. Our qualified and experienced inspector will ensure that you are armed with the best possible information going forward with your purchase! 

BUILDING INSPECTION ON THE GOLD COAST

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | A Building Inspection Case Study

You wouldn’t think that a brand new concrete high rise on the Gold Coast would need a building inspection prior to purchase.  Theoretically, if everything has been done to code and approved by Council, it shouldn’t.  However.  March 2012 we were engaged to inspected a unit in a new complex in Coolangatta – at the time approximately only 1 year old.

It’s worth blogging about because buyers can get complacent about buying into a concrete block of units and might not think they need a pest and building inspection done at all.  The initial inspection was pretty good, as you would expect with a practically new unit, but there was a retaining wall with cracking to the base, and water was leaking through it all over the entry patio.  The body corporate (via the builder) was taking care of it for our purchaser before his contract went through.

It’s important, as a purchaser that you get at least a building inspection done, even if you don’t think you need one.  Any defects present to the block of units will, in time, end up costing you through your body corporate contributions. Your initial reaction to external issues may be “that’s a body corporate thing” but remember - it’s your money that goes into the body corporate, and eventually gets spent on those issues.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that if a complex is only a year old and already has a couple of problems showing up in a building inspection report, there might be more to come sooner than you’d like.

Best to do what our property purchaser did, and hold off on the transaction until the problem was fixed.