Buying a house? Here are some of the things to look out for

Earlier this year, it was reported that more than 200 home buyers were facing huge losses after a state agency declared their houses unfit for human habitation. While declaring the homes at Athi River’s Everest Park Apartments unsafe, the National Buildings Inspectorate (NBI) cited shoddy construction.

The NBI, the Business Daily reported, moved in after homes in the estate, which was launched in 2012 in a joint venture between Everest Park Ltd, the developer, and Shelter Afrique as the equity financier, developed cracks on the walls. The houses, which are now said to be structurally unfit for occupation, are part of a development valued at Sh912 million.

CRACKS ON WALLS

The window frames on the canopy were found to be quashed and several window panes broken. There were also massive cracks from the foundation to the walls. The electrical cables were found to be too close to wet areas near the water tanks, which could lead to electrical faults. Also observed was visible dampness on the foundation walls and the surface of the wall appeared rough, flaky and pitted. The NBI was to carry out a structural audit to establish whether the one- to three-bedroom apartments are safe for occupation.

“All blocks should be subjected to geothermal investigation to establish the likely cause of the defects appearing on them,” said NBI secretary Moses Nyakiongora.

Meanwhile, buyers of the property expressed fears that their hard-earned cash might end up going down the drain. They intimated to the media that they couldn’t even recover their money from insurance companies since the companies refused to compensate for defects caused by poor workmanship. Someone, they demanded, should be held responsible for the fiasco. The unfortunate incident at Everest Park served as a wake-up call to many Kenyans looking to buy property.

SAFEGUARD INVESTMENTS

Mr Yusuf Jin, the manager in charge of industrial services at quality assurance firm SGS Kenya Ltd, says that buying or building property anywhere in Kenya requires extraordinary care. SGS Kenya has been involved in inspection and quality control of assets in the country since 1950.

Cases such as the one at Everest Park could have been avoided if the contractors and future homeowners had enlisted the services of a supervisory company during the planning and construction.

A qualified company has its own lab for testing construction materials, so it can test the quality of steel, concrete and other materials used in the construction. It will also ensure that all professionals on-site adhere to both the national and international standards of construction. It can also inspect old buildings to ensure that buyers are not inheriting buildings with structural or other problems to safeguard their investments, says Mr Jin, who is also an electrical engineer by profession.

He adds that when putting up your home, hiring a firm to cross-check your contractor will cost you less than 1 per cent of the total construction cost.

“It is a negligible cost, but it could offset a lot of headaches in the future. As they say, it is better to be safe than sorry,” he quotes the popular adage.

Mr Tony Maina, an architect based in Ruiru Town, believes that before buying a house, you should have a consultant from the building profession inspect the house for you. He says, “To be on the safe side when shopping for a house, you should consult either an engineer or an architect, who will inspect the building. This is not only to assess whether the building is safe for habitation, but also to ensure that the buyer is getting value for their money.”

Mr Maina observes that there has been an increase in defective houses on the market, especially in Nairobi. He attributes this to laxity on the part of the National Construction Authority (NCA), which doesn’t adequately vet would-be contractors. 

“Many people, most of them quacks, want to be contractors even though they are not qualified. That is why there is a problem with workmanship and buildings are falling left, right and centre,” the architect says. He adds that today’s buyer needs to take extreme caution to ensure that they end up with quality buildings.

DETECTING DEFECTS

When acquiring a new home, don’t be fooled by the clever sales pitch. In fact, according to Mr Maina, new homes are often more problematic than old ones because they haven’t been tested through use.

While getting a quality assurance company or a professional to do the inspection on a homebuyer’s behalf is money well spent, it might be beyond the reach of some Kenyans. But Mr Jin and Mr Maina say there are a few ways in which a prospective buyer, even with an untrained eye, can tell whether they are getting a raw deal.

Granted, the foundation is the most important part of the building. “Both the depth and the breadth of the foundation are vital to the building’s structural integrity,” says Mr Jin. “We usually perform geotechnical surveys to ascertain whether a particular type of soil can hold the structure by testing the expansion and contraction properties of the soil for up to five metres below the ground.”

But for buyers who do not have the means to see beneath the surface, Mr Jin says that defects in the foundation usually come in the form of cracks running along the walls. Some cracks, the engineer says, are just superficial and are the result of poor application of plaster. Such cracks can easily be rectified by applying fillers. The cracks you should dread, Mr Jin notes, are the ones that come from the foundation and appear to increase in length and width with time. If you can trace the cracks along the corners of the house, the slabs, and its pillars, then it is time to run.

But there are times when the walls are pulling apart so slowly that this becomes noticeable only after several years.

To detect this, architect Maina advises that you try opening and closing the metal doors and windows. If the doors and windows get stiff and are difficult to close or open, it might be a sign that the walls are pulling apart, even if by just a few millimetres. “A few millimetres may be all it takes to detect a house that might sink in the future,” he warns.

When viewed from a distance, does any wall appear to be leaning? If so, that might also be a reason to worry.

PLUMBING

Poor plumbing is another major source of agony for home-owners. When acquiring a home, take a keen look at the kitchen and bathroom fixtures. Are the sinks, toilet seats, and bathtubs of good quality? Do they work properly?

Mr Maina advises that you need to ascertain whether the water pressure is good by turning on the taps, showerheads, and flushing the toilets. It can be very inconveniencing to live in a house where the water pressure is so low that one cannot flush the toilet and take a shower at the same time.

To detect leakages on the walls, Mr Maina suggests that you look for clues on the wall finishes outside the bathroom and kitchen. If there is a leakage, one is likely to find water stains, flaked paint, corrosion and some growth on these patches. This is a defect that can be costly to maintain.

Closely connected to plumbing is outside drainage. No one wants to live in a house that gets flooded every time it rains, so this is an important aspect to ascertain before buying. Ensure that there are drain holes at the bottom of the perimeter walls for excess rainwater to flow out. You should also check the top side of roof gutters to ensure that they are not corroded.

It is not uncommon to find someone who has bought a new home that looks in tip-top condition, only for them to be forced to replace the roof after occupying the house for less than three years.

INFERIOR PRODUCTS

This, architect Maina notes, is because there are many imitations and poor quality corrugated iron sheets in the market which, even though they look good, are inferior products.

“When buying a house, ask the contractor about the exact type of roofing material used, then cross-check with a professional to ascertain that the roofing will not give you a headache when it starts leaking and peeling off after a few years. The manufacturers of quality corrugated iron sheets usually give guarantees that last decades, so ask your contractor for this guarantee,” the architect advises.

But perhaps the component of construction that could cause the greatest danger if not properly installed is the electrical wiring.

“Ensure that the contractor used electrical specialists accredited by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) and that the electric company issues a wiring certificate after the process,” advises Mr Jin, who also happens to be a member of the Electrical Installation Technical Committee at the Kenya Bureau of Standards.

“Dodgy wiring,” the electrical engineer says, can be dangerous and might lead to your house catching fire due to high resistance (or impedance). We normally check the quality of the electrical installations by testing the line-to-line resistance and checking on the circuit breakers.

“These tests should be repeated after three years to see if there is a significant change in resistance, which might indicate tampering. In South Africa for instance, a certificate of conformity is usually issued for every building and should any fire resulting from an electrical fault occur, the electrical contractor is the one held liable.”