Homes we survey in Watford, Bushey and Rickmansworth
Watford grew quickly with the railways, and streets of Victorian and Edwardian terraces still surround the town centre. The Metropolitan line brought a second wave of building. It reached Rickmansworth in 1887 and Watford in 1925, and houses from the 1920s and 1930s now make up the biggest age group in our reports for the area, in Watford itself and in Croxley Green, Rickmansworth and Chorleywood.
After the Second World War the London County Council built South Oxhey, and since 2000 new flats and houses have been added in and around the town centre. Bushey, Kings Langley and Abbots Langley each have older village centres alongside later estates.
Because so much of the housing is older, solid brick walls turn up in our reports here almost as often as cavity walls. We have also come across timber-framed houses.
From our survey reports in Watford
Based on 77 DBISS surveys in 9 postcode districts since 2022. Figures are rounded; homes can fall in more than one wall category.
When the homes were built
Property types
- 29% semi-detached
- 18% mid-terrace
- 17% detached
- 9% flat
Main walls
48% cavity masonry · 45% solid masonry
Non-standard construction recorded
Timber frame. About non-standard homes
What to look out for
Solid walls need to be able to dry out. In Victorian and Edwardian houses, damp more often comes from leaking gutters, high ground levels, blocked airbricks, or cement renders and plastic paints than from a failed damp-proof course. Injecting a new one will not cure damp from those causes. We look for the cause first.
Terraced houses here have often been altered: chimney breasts removed, lofts converted, rear additions extended and walls knocked through. Ask your solicitor for evidence of building regulations approval. We check what we can see of the support to walls and chimneys above.
In interwar houses, look at bay windows, original clay tiles and the iron ties in early cavity walls, which corrode over time. Where clay soils are present, trees close to the house can cause movement. Homes near the Colne, Gade and Chess can be checked on the GOV.UK long-term flood risk service.
Which survey?
For Victorian and Edwardian terraces we usually recommend a Level 3 Building Survey, from £550, which includes a drone roof inspection where flight is permitted. A Level 2 Home Survey, from £440, can suit an interwar or newer house in reasonable condition that has not been heavily altered. See which survey do I need? for a side-by-side guide.
Areas we cover
We cover WD17, WD18, WD19, WD24 and WD25 in Watford, WD23 for Bushey, WD3 for Rickmansworth, Croxley Green and Chorleywood, WD4 for Kings Langley and WD5 for Abbots Langley. The whole area is well within about 25 miles of our Hemel Hempstead base, so no travel supplement applies.
Nearby: Hemel Hempstead, St Albans and Harpenden and Harrow, Pinner and Ruislip.