Buying a Castle ??

Looks like we are in the process of buying a flat roofed stucco sided house on lake Ontario,NY..We love it,"but"Im really concerned about buying this type of house.Inspection will be on Thur.I have always got good advice from the guys on this site in the past.So if anyone has some tips or things I should be concerned about,it would be apprieciated.What I would really like would be is some positive comments about this type of house,if there is any,LOL.Only question I have right now is,what is under that stucco?Is the whole building built of cinder blocks?The basement looks dry,there was cob webs in the sump pump crock.Heated with a boiler,didnt look real new,couldnt find a date on it,but it was rated at 90% eff.Was built in 1948.Electric upgraded to curcuits 150 amp ser.Seen a lot of romex but also some older wiring.Anyways thanks for your input.

Stan

I had a stucco sided house built over conventional framing not cinder block. Properly applied stuco is really pretty maintenance free IF IT HAS NOT BEEN PAINTED. In my opinion, painting it defeats the purpse of the finish coat on the stucco. The finish coat can be tinted to get the desired color. If it chips off, it"s easy to repair by anyone that"s the least bit handy. The only downside I found with stucco is if you wanted to add an external outlet or penetrate the stucco. It"s more dificult than wooden or other siding materials, but not impossible.
My stucco house had clay tile roofs and some flat roofs. I lived in a 80 inch rainfall area and I spent a lot of money on maintaining the flat roofs. I WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER HOUSE WITH A FLAT ROOF!

Had a good friend, now deceased, who was a commercial roofing contractor. He told once that me he loved flat roofed buildings, but wouldn"t own one, because he couldn"t make any money fixing his own roof. He used to say there were only two kinds of flat roofs, those that leaked and those that were getting ready to. I have also seen a lot of buildings that were stuccoed to cover the severe cracks in the walls where the building had settled because of a poor foundation. Check everything very carefully.

Second on the flat roof. Dave

Buying a house with a flat roof in that area of the country would have me wanting to know exactly what the rafters are made of and to make sure they are absolutely structurally sound. The weight of snow and ice buildup could be enormous!

I thought you meant this one between Lexington and Versailles Kentucky.
The Castle

See if it has a rubber membrane on the roof, they are pretty good. Also, by the inset of the windows, it looks like thick walls; if they are block and that age are the walls insulated? Perhaps you could check some heating bills to get an idea. Good luck, Dan

Can you build in your offer the prospect of a sloped roof, how desperate are home sales in the area? Friend upgraded his flatroof to a sloped style and incorporated more square footage. Just some thoughts.

There are different levels of inspection. The most common is a visual only inspection where the inspector only evaluates the building visually and doesn't open up or penetrate any walls, ceilings, or below grade cavities. I use the same inspector for every home I buy and he first does the visual inspection ($350) and then recommends whether to go any deeper. I also always get a Radon inspection for an additional $100. He has saved me a lot of grief.

Wells and septic inspections are extra and can be very costly depending on the level of inspection.

Is it really on the lake? If so how much beach to the water? I did not believe it was possible to have a cellar with lake front...

In the past with higher lake levels there were problems with beach/house erosion. You are talking cubic money to replace beach, and permits, barges etc.

Cast iron boilers pretty much last forever unless they run low on water.

Flat roofs can be problematic. If it is a epdm membrane roof and taken care of it will be the best of the alternatives. If it has been patched it is on the way out.

Kind of a Modernist style.
I think it's very attractive.
Anyone even hinting at a change to the roofline should be horsewhipped and then court ordered to take an art appreciation class.

Not to sound negative 'cause it's a nice looking house, but it depends on what kind of roof it is.

When I was Buildings and Grounds Supervisor for a public school district, all buildings on all three campuses were flat. Probaby over a fourth of my total maintenance budget went for roof repairs.

You just haven't lived till it's spring, snow is melting on the roofs, a teacher is in your office pitching a major conniption because the roof is leaking in her classroom, there's not one thing you can do about it at the moment, and explanations fall on deaf ears.

The in-laws have a house 200 feet away from the Lake Ontario shore line west of Rochester. They have a basement and a sump pump system which is active on a daily basis. They keep a spare pump just in case the current unit fails.
Flat roofs are rare but no reason they will not hold up with proper design and engineering of said roof.

If your on the East end of Ontario, I hope you know that you get some tremendous amount of lake effect snow. Sometimes a couple of FEET per Hour. I think I would actually have a face to face with the inspector and give him a few things in particular that you want looked at. Nothing wrong with stucco in and of itself,but, it can and has been used to cover a multitude of sins.

Flat roof + lake effect snow = water in house.

I would inspect it very carefully. Maybe the neighbors could be of some help too.
Rick

A flat roof ? ? ? Are you in snow country ? ? ?
RUN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wouldn't even give it a second look. The roof is going to cost you thousands. It looks old enough to have the mold issues associated with most stucco structures built in the 1980s and early 1990s. They need to leave stucco in the dry southwest where it belongs.

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Berkeley contractor Richard Schwartz said stucco is prone to leakage both from its inherent qualities and from construction shortcuts that leave the concrete-like finish susceptible to water intrusion—leaks, in lay terms.

While declining to comment on any particular structure, Schwartz ticked off a list of common causes for stucco failures.

• Inferior quality sand in the mix, “the number one cause of stucco failure;”

• Use of too much or too little water in creating the stucco mix;

• Installation of stucco in expanses of greater than 100 square feet without expansion joints to accommodate climatically caused expansion and contraction;

• Installation of stucco in unbroken areas where the length to width ratio is greater than 2.5 to 1, rendering the material prone to cracks from expansion and contraction;

• Failure to back the stucco with a double layer of Class B construction paper.

Once water penetrates the stucco and construction and reaches the plywood or manufactured oriented strand board [made from wood scraps, usually from the creation of plywood], the danger of mold increases exponentially, Schwartz said.