Viewing a house - potential problems

[Ben Blaukopf]

I'm looking at properties to buy, and the one yesterday had the boiler flue pretty close to a window - certainly within 30cm. Which means that if the boiler conked out, I'd need to put the new one somewhere else, which could be tricky.... However, the window it's next too is a three part sash window. Would anything prevent me, if necessary, from screwing down one part of the sash, so that the boiler flue suddenly became more than the requisite 300mm from an *opening* window?

Secondly, the en-suite shower has clearly been leaking onto the living room ceiling. The leak actually looks the width of a waste pipe, and is a few feet long. Does that imply something more serious than a simple leaking connection, or can it simply be that the water is running all the way down the outside of the pipe, wetting the whole ceiling in a pipe-like shape?

Ben

[Christian McArdle]

Modern flues are now very configurable. They can have bends and go up to 20m or so in some cases. You might find it easier to keep the boiler where it is and run the flue somewhere better.

You'll never know until you lift the floor, or the ceiling drops off.

Christian.

[Owain]

If it's been leaking long enough you might have rot.

Owain

[Lobster]

I'd say the 'width of a waste pipe' stain is more likely to be where water has leaked through the ceiling along the junction of two sheets of plasterboard. If water was running along the outside of a pipe it would be more likely to run along the pipe to the lowest point, then fall off on to the ceiling... not likely that water would fall off evenly along the pipe.

Not sure how or if that helps; but maybe it was a one-off leak which dried out?

David

[chris French]

Yeah, I'd go along with that suggestion.

It could well have been a one off leak, we had that happen. If it is persistent leak then the plasterboard should be damp and probably quite crumbly underneath the paper and skim (if applied)

It is possible that it had been happening badly enough to cause some rot in the wood, but it's have to be fair while, and I'd expect the plasterboard to be ready to fall off :-)

Is there access to the trap at all under the shower?

Sellers eh? you'd have though t they'd enough nouse to slap a bit of stain block and and some emulsion over it.........