Nice people thread 2 - now even nicer

lostinrates

Malcolm. wrote: »

I'm hoping the picture will get me an invite to MSE swingers night.

Aha, same reason I withhold mine :rotfl:

PasturesNew

Oh, I thought everybody had been invited to that night .... my Inbox keeps filling up with the darned invites.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Oh, I thought everybody had been invited to that night .... my Inbox keeps filling up with the darned invites.

:rotfl::rotfl:

I feel so much more positive about the house since we've gone elsewhere from the surveyor. The very initial things we got edgey about the new 'team' have looked at and think we were right to be worried. Our back staircase and ''garden room'' are indeed older than our surveyor was suggesting (and probably should be listed in their own right to stop heinous people damaging them....well....lets get repairs done first I say!) we also probably don't have subsidence but rather heave. Which is interesting, but seems to mean the same financially and in terms of works needed.

silvercar

The difference between subsidence and heave was explained to me as trees suck up all the water around your house, so the soil dries out, cracks and shrinks. Your house is then not properly supported and subsides. So to solve the problem you remove the trees, so the ground is now waterlogged and, with no tree roots removing water, the earth expands and pushes your home foundations and your house then heaves.

The answer in both cases is probably to put down enormously deep foundations or to have the house piled - deep piles are dug and the foundations put on the piles.

tomterm8

silvercar wrote: »

So to solve the problem you remove the trees, so the ground is now waterlogged and, with no tree roots removing water, the earth expands and pushes your home foundations and your house then heaves.
.

You've got to be careful with that, choping down trees without expert advice can actually make you house get an even worse sinking feeling.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

You've got to be careful with that, choping down trees without expert advice can actually make you house get an even worse sinking feeling.

Yep, and we cut down sixty of them! But they were the right distance away so we might get away with it. You're actually meant to cut them down in thirds I understand.

edit: the cracks are actually different with subsidence and heave...the width of them at one end or something. We've also sprung a spring, so .....its all adding up!

Apparently the answer isn't as straight forward as foundations/underpinning....depending on lots of stuff, partly because old houses built over a period of time with extensions and stuff are prone to coming apart at the seams.

Originally we were told part of the house had to come down and then go back up, but it seems that might be overkill too. we're hoping for underpinning (we have some existing useless buttresses which we hope to get listed building approval to remove too.)

silvercar

Did you get it surveyed when you bought? Did you know about this problem? Do you have building insurance?

GDB2222

A lot of old building don't have much in the way of foundations. Round our way, there are a lot of Edwardian buildings that have so-so foundations for the main house, and virtually nothing under the bay windows at all. The result is that the bays tend to slip away from the main house. It's all on shrinkable clay subsoil, too.

It must be a nightmare for you with different bits built at different times and with different foundations. Were you possessed when you bought it?

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

Did you get it surveyed when you bought? Did you know about this problem? Do you have building insurance?

Yes;yes sort of...surveyor said subsidence..get the trees cut down, quickly! and yes...luckily..but there was a problem with that too. The survey valued it at significanty higher than we paid as did the mortgagee's valuer.

GDB2222, possessed...possibly but its mostly quite good fun. Its a bit of a challenge certainly, but we guestimated about what we paid for purchase to put it right...over time of course.

Davesnave

It was an implied condition of accepting our offer that we'd not want a full survey on this place. They didn't want any messing around or renegotiation. We didn't mind, because the family has the relevant knowledge/skills to assess a simple C20th building. It made us extra-wary though!

As we thought, there's nothing structurally wrong with the bungalow. In fact, it's somewhat better than we anticipated in the areas that were harder to judge with a careful site visit.

What isn't so great is the pole barn, which will need some remedial action before long. Only the people who lived here before us could build something that could, potentially, fall down inside 10 years. Fortunately, they made such a pig's ear of the design, we intended to alter it anyway.

And no, we didn't spot that, but it would have made no difference one way or the other, being a sort of freebie. I would much rather have it to repair, than not have it at all.