Woodworm: Buying a 17 C cottage

[Claire23]

Hi, I am looking to buy a 400 -500 year old property that has quite a bit of woodworm damage in exposed beams throughout.
I will get a survey and if necessary request it is all treated before completion, however, I’d like to understand all the dos and Don’t s? I’m hoping @Matt Green ( seems to be the guru on here?) can advise as the property has signs in most rooms, and I’m concerned that this will give issues with insurance and ongoing maintenance.
All advice welcome, and any affect on ongoing sale in years to come?
Best wishes
C

 

[Claire23]

I should add it is grade II listed. Wonder if this will bring mortgage challenges also?

 

[Lacan07]

Hi, I don't know anything about the rules regarding Grade II listed properties but there's two approaches to tackling woodworm. Do you know if the issue is a current one? I would have thought most houses of this type have had woodworm issues at one point or another.

The natural approach is to assume that if the house is dry there's no way for the woodworm to survive. Outbreaks usually occur in damp houses, correct the damp issues and the woodworm will die. If you go down the chemical route they usually say you need to do the whole house and not just cherry pick the parts you think are infected. That will mean a number of floorboards up, access to rafters, etc.

 

[Cubist]

Mortgage lenders are not even remotely interested so long as you comply with any requirements for structural and timber surveys.

The timbers in such old houses have been at risk from woodworms for all the years they have stood and that risk will continue for their foreseeable future. The larvae responsible for the damage tend to limit their interest to the softer, outer, layers of the grain structure and will not attack the denser woods nearer to the middle of the timber. Often times the visible damage they do is restricted to very small depths and do not threaten the structural integrity of the beam and posts.

The key action to prevention of woodworm is to keep the timbers from getting, and remaining, wet.

 

[Mrs McG]

Get a surveyor with experience of listed properties, this will include specialist knowledge of things like thatch and woodworm. My cottage, also 400-500 years old and listed, has loads of historic woodworm and the surveyor said that it would be more unusual for anything that old to not have any signs. As long as it’s not active and hasn’t had any structural effect it’s just part of its history.

 

[Athers1971]

Hi. this may be of use to you. Our mortgage lender completed their own survey and valuation of our 300-400 year old Grade II listed cottage, and commented:

Valuer has marked the property as unsuitable security & not readily saleable with the following comments -There is damp to the walls, and chimney breasts and signs of wood boring insects to a number of the exposed timber, beams and lintels. A report on the whole property, including loft space and sub floors, is required from a Property Care Association damp and timber specialist, with all required work to be carried out to Property Care Association standards. Given the age of the property and its Grade 2 Listed status, no valuation can be provided until I have seen the requested reports.”

We had to obtain the dreaded 'PCA' report and that enabled the valuer to give a valuation (now less than the agreed purchase to take into account the 'costs of remediation') which subsequently allowed us to get the mortgage, albeit slightly lower than originally requested/approved.

The mortgage company did not insist the works work done in any way, i.e. there was no retention of funds, and so we bought the house and needless to say have ignored the contents of the PCA report.

Some mortgage lenders may act differently however.

We have no intention of moving (forever home!) and so not really concerned just yet of any issues around selling it when we are old and grey.

 

[Lacan07]

Hi. this may be of use to you. Our mortgage lender completed their own survey and valuation of our 300-400 year old Grade II listed cottage, and commented:



We had to obtain the dreaded 'PCA' report and that enabled the valuer to give a valuation (now less than the agreed purchase to take into account the 'costs of remediation') which subsequently allowed us to get the mortgage, albeit slightly lower than originally requested/approved.

The mortgage company did not insist the works work done in any way, i.e. there was no retention of funds, and so we bought the house and needless to say have ignored the contents of the PCA report.

Some mortgage lenders may act differently however.

We have no intention of moving (forever home!) and so not really concerned just yet of any issues around selling it when we are old and grey.

How frustrating, sounds like the valuer didn't know what he was talking about. Damp on a chimney breast in 400 year old house, who would have thought!

 

[Kearn]

A mortgage valuer will sadly know very little, but some like ours then feel capable of saying they have seen ‘evidence of live beetle infestation and active woodwork’. This obviously spooks the lender and requires a damp/timber survey by the PCA who are a fraudulent body who look to push their snake oil sales agenda of damp proofing, tanking, chemical injection etc … if the lender insists you have their survey, jump through the hoops to get a mortgage but by no means do anything that the PCA report states as it will almost certainly be detrimental to the property and cause further issue.
The lender may without the value of the remedial work quoted by the PCA, only play here is suck up the lower loan.

You talk about having it treated before completion, which means you need to do some more research on old buildings to understand why this is a pointless, and toxic approach. Chemicals cannot penetrate into oak (assuming you are oak not elm?) so only work with any creatures exiting for a short period. But they are not good for any inhabitants of the house. The heartwood of oak will be untouched by beetle, they can only nibble the surface softwood so structural integrity is still fine. If the wood is elm, that is a different story as the entire cross section of the timbers can be eaten and from within causing catastrophic failure rather than the slow movement you see with failed oak.

The approach here, as with most things, is to create and maintain a dry non humid environment. The little critters can only survive in damp, wet, moist conditions. So in order to achieve that you need to understand how the whole property functions from a ventilation and moisture management perspective and deal with the causes, not the symptoms.

Search this forum, you’ll find lots of similar threads.

The listed status has no relevance from a lenders perspective.

 

[Matt Green]

Morning,

Decent advise so far. Leave it alone and see what happens. Apply beeswax (to fill the holes) to anything section that might have been wet/got wet/been in or near a wet wall and check those areas for new activity over the next couple of years. Certainly nothing to lose any sleep over.

 

[Toby Newell]

Hi, I don't know anything about the rules regarding Grade II listed properties but there's two approaches to tackling woodworm. Do you know if the issue is a current one? I would have thought most houses of this type have had woodworm issues at one point or another.

The natural approach is to assume that if the house is dry there's no way for the woodworm to survive. Outbreaks usually occur in damp houses, correct the damp issues and the woodworm will die. If you go down the chemical route they usually say you need to do the whole house and not just cherry pick the parts you think are infected. That will mean a number of floorboards up, access to rafters, etc.

this ^^^ all woodworm (common furniture beetle, post beetle, death watch beetle) prefer timbers with RH >12% if no pervading damp and dwelling is dry and heated and timbers not damp then live colonies are unlikely.

I deal with WW on a daily basis, for decades, and have only ever used a chemical treatment (all mutagenic, will be banned when they find an alternative) less than 10 times in over 30 years.

I am finishing the floor below which is the most worm eaten timber I have saved in over 37 years, still no treatment (apart from several tons of wood hardener and fillers...)