BISF House Street index - England

I am surveying a BISF house in Western Avenue Epping Essex CM16. There are others, about 9 thers I think. Check street view if you want the numbers, they do stand out a bit from the trad builds.

They have been refurbished with external cladding, bnew roof upvc upvc cladding and windows.

Found no problems to date.

Here are some more from Bath:-

Camley Green
Freeview Road
Newton Road
Pennard Green

All of these have at least some BISF houses, interspersed with traditionally built houses and even a few prefabricated concrete houses (so-called Cornish houses I believe). Most of the latter have recently been demolished though.

I believe there are some in Bristol too, because I have seen a photo on the internet of a BISF house captioned as Bristol.

Locally a lot of the BISF and other nearby houses have an unusual layout in which the back of the house faces the road and the front door is accessed by a pedestrian pathway.

Thank you Ed, every entry helps.
I see your point regarding the layouts on Google street view.
To me it seems unusual for the rear of the property to be in full open view to the street.
There are also some very subtle design changes to the placement of side windows and doors that I hope to catalogue in the near future.

Steve, glad to hear that you haven't found any major problems.
I was talking to Tony Fuller - The Managing Director of Fuller & Sons of www.fullerandsons.co.uk last week and he has a vast amount of experience with BISF steel framed properties. He echoed a similar reply in that despite many years of working on this type of property he had found no significant structural problems giving further testament to the design.

Thank you again for your input Steve, it is very much appreciated.

I forgot Shaws Way, which is next to the other four roads.

I have seen mentioned that there are three types of BISF house: A, B and C but a Google search doesn't reveal anything about the differences.

This photo shows one slightly different from mine:-

In Bath each house has its own chimney, which is in the middle of the house (the fireplace is on the wall opposite the sitting room window) but this Glasgow example has a shared chimney and the fireplace must be on the party wall. Also there is no outhouse, and an extra window in the side of the house downstairs while the front windows are closer to the end of the house.

Hi,
I find this website fascinating and very useful as we are in the process of buying a BISF house. Most people I speak to seem very cautious with these houses as they know so little about them. It is reassuring to see that they in fact proper houses built for long term usage.

To the list I'd add Paget Road and
Byron Square in Cambridge. These are in an area built around 1946 and has other types of pre-fab houses as well which I haven't been able to identify.

We are having the house surveyed next week, I hope all will be in order.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Hi Sara, I've found this site very useful too. I've only been in my BISF house for a month now, but I'm very pleased with it.

I've found though there are a lot of misconceptions about BISF houses, because a lot of people don't distinguish between the many types of prefabricated and semi-prefabricated house, some of which were structurally faulty. The plus side is you may be able to get a bargain!

One thing to watch out for is if the house still has its original asbestos roof. It's easy to recognise and not necessarily a problem, but apart from Halifax I don't know of any mortgage lenders who will accept an asbestos roof (and they may charge you for a survey just to decline it).

Thank you for your kind comments and valuable input Sara.
The main focus of the site is provide as much factual information as possible and dispel some of the old myths and false assumptions that once surrounded BISF houses.
We've seen plenty of examples where paid professionals get it wrong about many aspects of these properties which only goes to show how deep these misconceptions are.
Our other aim is to raise the profile of the BISF house to its rightful place within the housing market and remind purchasers that they can be an excellent investment as Ed states.

We hope your survey goes well. I will try to dig out a typical survey report that I came across for a BISF and post it on the main page for you. It may help you understand in advance what the surveyor will be looking at.

Thank you both for your replys and also for the sample survey. It would be very useful as a comparison when our survey result arrives.

I have just found that there is another neigbouring street, Foster Road, in the same area in Cambridge (CB2) where there are some more BISF houses.