My house won't stop breaking!

[Peepeeouch]

I'm losing the will to fix this place anymore. Does anyone else have this? We have owned this shed of a house (don't buy timber framed!) 7 years and so far..

removed old timber cladding and replaced with fibre cement.

new boiler and radiators.. that led to taps and showers needing new faucets.. it also made a pinholed copper pipe blow in 9 places.. pipe up one end of the house to the other.. holes in floors put back badly by plumbers had to get a carpenter to redo. Holes in floors also in both bathrooms.. had to rip those out and one of those doesn't work as the plumbers were bodgers.

After that.. roof started leaking.. 7 roofers and no one would touch it as it had asbestos tiles, we needed new fascias and soffitss so we bit the bullet and did a whole new roof.. those tiles are now so light that they rattle.. roofer cant work out why.

New front door, kitchen french doors and lounge french doors because they were leaking.. turns out they were not leaking and the ones put in are a pile of poop.

Now we have a damp patch growing on the skirting under a window and they are 25 years old.. we can't afford to replace them all.. there's too many..so there is water in the cavity and that means a wet timber frame which holds the house up!!

Great!!!

Holy God! Is there anything left of the original house at this stage? Sounds like an absolute money pit! Speaking of, have you seen the movie The Money Pit? Might make you feel a little bit better...

Me! I’m 7 years in too and have 6 various leaks in my money pit, I left a new build as I wanted something old with character, I’m over that now 😂

Also whenever you get quotes for anything it’s always tens of thousands, we need a new garage desperately or need to repair the current one and both options are coming in at 40k ish I’ve had 5 different builders quote and the are all about the same so I don’t think it’s a case of being ripped off.

We are only a quarter of the way through the renovation and I’m now over it, we can’t sell it as we’ve need to do work to make it legal to sell as we’ve done some major changes but the work to make it sellable will be 40/50k 🙄

I’m now just living with leaks and don’t notice them anymore, well I do notice the big one in the middle of the brand new kitchen, when it’s heavy rain outside , I get heavy rain inside too, I do have several buckets handy but the smaller leaks I’m just ignoring, the various builders we’ve had can find out why we have several leaks so we just think sod it

I'm sorry you're feeling the same way.
How do you just ignore it.
I see the wet wall and just know that inside the insulation and timber frame will be soaked and that holds the house up!

It's so hard. We're dealing with me having endometriosis, adenomyosis, IC, spinal conditions and nerve conditions which are awful, so we're currently surviving on one income.

The house has far more issues than we ever expected and some feel like our own fault, like changing the boiler leading to pipes blowing.. forgot to mention the multiple gas leaks!

I might have to look at the movie.. it has to be a horror.. like the one I am living in.

I just can’t deal with them, mine are external leaks so i do occasionally go out with silicon and try and cover over the blown split render and see if that helps, the house needs completely new render but it’s so expensive so I just ignore it or do temporarily fixes, luckily our house is 1820 so brick so I don’t have to worry about the timber so I do genuinely feel sorry for you, you must panic everytime you see a leak

Yep. Spent ££££s on damp proofing when I moved in 7yrs ago. Still have damp. Spent ££££s on a new bathroom in October, still not finished, everything leaks including the toilet. I sacked the guy fitting it last week. I have no money left to get anyone else in.

Floor joists needed to be replaced. Soffits, fascias, guttering, all had to be replaced. Had the front render painted and the block who did it cocked up and now it looks like patchwork.

I could go on and on and on...

You have my sympathies.

Just got back from elderly relatives house to talk to a man about a damp patch . His opinion is that the whole place needs to be stripped back , damp proofing and then replastered . Then decorating, etc. No idea how to afford this.

I wish we had never bought this house. Leaks are scary, but when they are coming in from outside via the walls, that's really scary because it means the structure of the house is wet.
My partner doesn't care, literally given up caring and leaves it to me to fix and i have no clue how to start apart from redo the silicone and hope that is where it its coming from.

I'm so sorry. It's just hellish. I'm an anxious person as it is, but this house is going to give me a heart attack.

Did you get a damp company to look or a surveyor? At our old house we had a patch.. it was brick so not as scary as the one in my wooden house that is currently being ignored! The patch at the brick one, we got a damp company and paid out for the injectable dpc and it did nothing.. we got a surveyor in who said it was salt in the plaster and it needed hacking off and replacing. We did and had no further issues.

That sounds so stressful OP.

Do you think a lot of these issues are because it’s timber framed? We’re looking at a heavily discounted timber framed house to buy - is that why?!

That sounds neverendingly stressful OP.

Two of my neighbours have timber framed houses, one is about 100 years old and the other only 20 years old. Both have issues with temperature control - too hot in summer, too cold in winter - which has put me off buying timber framed (ours is brick).

I wouldn't say that they are to be honest. Is the one you are looking at full brick skin or render or cladding? Our is brick skin at the bottom and cladding at the top which we had to replace. It will make it hard to replace the windows. For me, the worry is the wet getting to the frame. All of the houses in our road are timber frame and they are all still standing. It's just our luck to get the one that got issues.. but it wasn't looked after and I know we saw it through rose tinted glasses going from a 2 bed semi to a 4 bed detached, we saw the space and needed to move asap to keep our buyer.

I'm losing the will to fix this place anymore. Does anyone else have this?

Yep. I love our house (Victorian terraced) but honest to god, the amount of issues with it make me want to sell up and go and live in a motorhome (or perhaps a canal boat....🤔)

If I bought a boat it would spring an effing leak!

Timber and water = rot

Partner who doesn't care = stress

Both together = internal meltdown and anxiety meaning this is all I can think about.