How badly termite damaged is this house?

Hi all,

I've been looking at a house in VIC that has peaked my interest, however what has me concerned is that it obviously has been struck by termites. Upon walking into the third bedroom in the back corner of the house you can instantly see a gaping hole in the door jamb which has all been eaten away. The top and one side of door jamb (other side seemed solid) have been eaten, along with the skirting running along that wall and some floor boards. Additionally, from the outside of the house you can see that part of the weatherboards outside of this bedroom have been eaten.
The house is on concrete stumps and from what I could tell the joists and bearers (including under this bedroom) appear solid. I was not able to have a look in the roof unfortunately.

So in light of this I have a few questions, any help would be greatly appreciated!

1) How bad is this damage? Of course you have no way of knowing until you pull all the wall sheeting off, but in peoples experience would it be likely to be localised to just this back corner of the house or would damage typically be more extensive?

2) Provided foundations are fine as they appear, how difficult would this be to fix? If its just a matter of replacing a few studs in the walls and replacing the floor with something more solid that seems simple enough...right?

3) I'd assume to get a loan the banks would need to send out a valuer to walk through the property, given the termite damage is obvious and will be seen, how would be valuation and subsequent chances of getting a loan be impacted? Given there are so many different things that could negatively impact a property (termites, water leaking, dry rot, fire damage, foundations sinking etc etc) and so many properties being transacted with these types of impairments i'd assume it must not be too much of an issue?

4) As I understand it insurance policies do not cover termite damage - but can you insure an already termite damaged house?

Thank you all!
Green

 

How did the termites gain access? Can you see where?

 

How much of the house so you want to keep?
Have they gone into the roof?

There are no ant caps.

 

I'm not sure on that, nothing obvious that I could see.

Hopefully all of it! As much as I can, but not sure on the roof at this stage, unfortunately I wasn't able to have a look

 

Maybe pay someone to do a thorough inspection and cost of rectification.
Or just offer for the land value minus knockdown cost.
A lot of people would just run at a bad termite infestation.
They are also attracted to moisture, dark places and like climbing up things.

 

Yes, but with concrete stumps the termite mudding should still be obvious if that’s how they got in.

 

It cost me $24,000 to have termite damage rectified in my previous home, behind the plasterwood in the dining room the timbers had been eaten and all had to be repaired, plastered and painted. My advice , RUN

 

That's the easy bit. Working out how far they've gone is another matter.

 

Absolutely! Do you have any knowledge on who is the best to approach for this? From reading others threads it seems like most pest/building inspections are more full of disclaimers rather useful information and figures

What a shock! How much damage had to be repaired for that $24k? Was that just for the stud wall in the dining room?

Thank you for the response Wylie! All walls had the same sheeting, from what I know it isn't the typical fibro stuff with the joins all over. All rooms have that trim piece you can see running horizontal at about 2m, I'm thinking maybe it was just an easier way to join the boards? So hopefully not asbestos but ill attach a pic with a better view of the walls.

Good spot on the holes! As you can see in the pic attached the whole roof is covered in white dots so I must have taken them for more stars and looked over them, but that may well have been someone trying to get a feel for whats inside the wall? I will ask the agent about it.

 

You could ask the agent if the vendor already investigated the extent of the damage.

Re. Termite inspection, get a termite specialist to investigate.

To investigate properly, would need to take wall sheets off and the vendor may not allow that.

But they will at least be able to inspect the ceiling (assuming it’s not a skillion roof).

 

As posted above, termites do require moisture and are usually attracted to an area by it.

You may find that a section of bearer has been eaten out and maybe a few floor joists, but more often they head for softer timber and up into the roof where it is warm.

They also rarely eat out a beam to failure, so if you do go into the roof kick and test each beam prior to crawling stepping on it (or fall).

The place looks like it may require reno anyway, but I'd guess at a $50k discount to market price if not more (purely for the inconvenience).

 

This is a 'how long is a piece of string' type question. Termites can pick random timbers & follow them the whole way, then switch to another, but miss many others in between. It's as if some pieces of timber taste better than others. With such obvious damage, I'd suggest that there's a whole lot more that is not so obvious.

 

After watching too many Home renovation/flipping shows on TV. The only way to really gauge the amount of damage is a back to studs rebuild.

 

After buying a home that was gutted inside, only a small bit of plaster left on the walls & it having been checked (professionally) for termites, finding a few 'scouts' walking on the timbers & eventually removing the plaster between the toilet & bathroom & finding the nest, which was huge, by the way, I totally agree. The visible damage they did was only minor, compared to the house in this thread, so I can only imagine how much real damage there is in this house.

 

Lining could be masonite. I noticed on the Restoration show on ABC last night, the builders were not wearing any masks.