Collapsed drain?

sophiewophie

Hello,

I'm scared I have the signs of a collapsed drain. the house I own has an extension built by previous owners and as I understand it, the extension was over a drain.

I've started to see odd cracks, and signs of damp in internal walls, no sign when pulling up floorboards. In addition I have a yellow damp line 1 meter high around the external walls of my kitchen, 2 rooms away from the extension.

I need a professional to diagnose, but I am very concerned that as soon as I involve an external party my property could be 'marked' and unsaleable. Is anyone familiar with this issue and process that could help me?

Many thanks!

WobblyDog

If you want to avoid formal channels at this point, there are some steps you could take:

- Get hold of the drainage plans for your road. Some local councils allow you to just turn up at their offices and print off a copy. These will show *approximately* where the drains and sewers near your property are.
- If the suspect drains are reasonable accessible, hire a drain camera from somewhere like HSS, and have a look yourself (about £100).
- Bodge together a DIY drain camera by buying a cheap CCTV camera from Maplin, wrapping it in duck tape, and sticking it down the drain, but be careful it doesn't get stuck (about £40).
- Directly contact a local drain maintence company, and pay them to do a video survey (perhaps £300?). This is unlikely to leave any marker against your house, in the way that contacting your insurance company might.
- Try to work out where the nearby access chambers (if any) are. They might be on your neighbours' properties. The drains probably run in nearly straight lines between the chambers.
- Try not to worry too much. You might just be suffering from drain paranoia, which is less expensive than collapsed drains.:)

marmitepotato

This happened to our house with the previous owners. They contacted thier insurance company and they sorted everything out, repaired the drain, rebuilt the extension etc. The owners forgot to get the work signed off by the local council and this caused many problems when we were trying to buy the property.

Eventually the council signed the work off but stated that the property was suffering from subsidence and had been underpinned. This was contested by the insurance company and the vendor but the council wouldnt budge. There are no instances of subsidence anywhere in the area where the house is built, so we know that its not a problem in the area.

We did buy the house as we really liked it, I know that its not going to subside any time soon!! We did have to keep to the same insurance company that the previous owners used, but this was not a problem. The solicitor we used to do the conveyancing was brilliant and gave us all the right advice. People do buy properties that have had previous 'trouble', as long as that trouble has been sorted.

I think you really need to be contacting your insurance company, as it sounds like this problem is not going to go away. Your property may be 'marked' but better to sort it out now than to leave it until its really bad. Yes, our property is 'marked' but we still purchased it, and I know that the repair has been so well done my house isnt going to fall down anytime soon!!