Industrial Unit Commercial Building Survey: Manchester
Our Manchester RICS commercial surveyors are experts in pre-acquisition surveys, ensuring buyers have a thorough understanding of the property and liabilities they are taking on.
Brief: Structural building survey of an industrial unit on a Manchester trade park.
Property: A mid-terrace industrial unit within a busy trade park.
Instructed by: An independent business looking to acquire the property.
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Project specification
- The property was a mid-terrace industrial warehouse located in a trade park in Manchester.
- The property comprised a steel framed building configured on a north light design. It had an overclad metal roof system, and an office block that had a roof comprising built up asbestos cement sheets.
- Main walls were predominantly masonry, with upper cladding. The floor was concrete slab.
- We were asked to carry out a structural pre-acquisition building survey to asses the condition of the property, to satisfy queries from our client’s lender.
Key survey findings
- Overall, the property was found to be structurally sound, and the condition reasonable, given its age.
- However, several measures were recommended to put the property into a satisfactory condition, to prevent water ingress and achieve a reasonable state of repair.
- We advised budgeting approx. £80,000 for replacing the asbestos office block roof and repairing parapets and rainwater goods. These roofs are typically expected to have a life expectancy of up to 35 years, which our surveyor believed had been exceeded.
- Furthermore, a number of localised patch repairs were visible, and we could see internal water staining. More fissues and cracks were expected to develop, given the age of the roof and the characterstics of the asbestos cement sheets.
- Drone images of the metal roof showed that the sheets were in a poor state of repair, with evidence of widespread corrosion. Solar degradation to the roof sheets and deterioration of fixing bolts were also evident.
- In the short term, localised repairs, along with replacement of damaged north lights would be required, costing approx. £28,000.
- In the longer term, all north lights would need replacing, at a cost of £62,000.
- Smaller items of repair included replacing damaged windows (£650 per window).
- We also noted a lack of emergency lighting, smoke detection and fire doors, and dated M&E installations in a poor state of repair. We recommended that a budget of £27,000 was set aside for M&E, and that a full fire risk assessment was carried out, with a budget of £15,000 for the assessment and recommended works.
Read more about our pre-acquisition surveys here, or find out more about our Manchester commercial surveyors.
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