Hi
I'm looking at a property to purchase but the walls are unusual, something I have never seen before.The outside of the house is rendered, but it is not a brick house. The agent informs me that it is just a mesh/wire put on and then the render is applied over the top of it. Has anyone ever seen this before, is it a problem, is it a good insulator?I assume it is not asbestos so i could potentially pull it down and then whether board it.Any information would be great thanks.
Tim
Blueboard can be rendered, pretty common for the upper level of homes made of soft construction.
How old is the house? There was a much earlier practice of applying a rough rendering over chicken wire, this was mainly for gable ends.
More recently the practice is used for rendering over straw bale construction. That is, a wire mesh is placed over the straw bale wall and then a lime render applied.
I have found out the it is a Conite construction. The problem being is that no one can tell me if there is cement sheeting underneath it or not? If anyone knows about conite and has an opinion i would be happy to hear it.
Thanks
TimMaybe try googling conite and see what you come up with,not sure if it contains asbestos. It seems conite was once a common building material used in construction of small modest type houses…
Ask to send a builder through, ask the agent who built the property or if the owners renovated. If they say 'I do not know' motivate the agent by asking them if they could find out because you could move onto purchasing the property much quicker if they did. What you are looking for is the name of the builder or the renderer that completed the work to verify what it is. Then give them a call and take out all this guess work, do not rely on the agent or owner to say its all good you need verification by the 3rd party. Happy investing.
I am interested in the age of the property.
About 10 years ago I inspected a 100 town house site in Queensland, it looked out of this world … and then … we tapped the walls only to find out the out side skin was made of polystyrene, rendered and painted … talk about a head spin.
Isn't it funny that as we are conditioned to one thing the other becomes out of character, but it is the future of smarter and cheaper buildings.
Philip Sigglekow
LREA authorPhilip Sigglekow
LREA author
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