Home Buyers Report- Shrinkable Sub soil under the property

marksoton

This will be a generic comment related to the area. No way has your surveyor done full GI just for your property. And without that he'd be in no position to make his comments.

Nobbie1967

If you have a house built on a shrinkable subsoil like clay, then you just need to bear that in mind when planting or lopping trees near the house as planting a tree can cause the clay to shrink as water is sucked out of it and lopping a tree can cause it to expand as the tree is no longer removing the water.

jaysimpson

Thanks all for your comments, anyone else know if this is a general problem with Potters bar or any other thoughts?

lucyloves

Hi, its a general comment that they put on the reports I think. To be certain if the house is in an area likely to have subsidence you will need to phone Building Control and speak to the Building Control Surveyor who actually inspects in the area that the house is in. They will know the ground conditions from previous extensions or underpinning works carried out.

They cant discuss actual applications made, but they can discuss ground conditions and whether anyone has had to have underpinning as a result of subsidence.

AlexMac

Dante had it right when he defined the journey through '9 circles of hell' in his classic 'Divine Comedy' In my view this accurately defines the house buying process; with Estate agents, Solicitors and Surveyors as the devils who prod you en-route!

As others have said, this is a bit of Billox @rs3 covering by the shyster surveyors who can't even be bothered to look at or comment on the important stuff.

Most houses which have stood for 70 years without signs of settlement are safe as houses (to coin a phrase). While some soils such as clay do 'shrink' or 'heave' in extreme conditions like the 'greatest UK drought on record' of 1976, many are totally stable. If you look at the British Geological Survey for your area by searching 'Potters Bar' at
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/geologyOfBritain/viewer.html
or zoom in on the map at
http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain/home.html?
You'll see your area is mostly sands and gravels, which are relatively stable.

So don't panic

jaysimpson

I finally got to speak to the surveyor today and as many of you had suggested, there is no cause for alarm, more of a precautionary measure. Thank you all for your input.

AlexMac

Dear J,
really nice of you to take the trouble to tell us the result- nice to know a happy ending; thanks.

And I hope you apologised on my behalf to your surveyor for my calling him a

AlexMac wrote: »

... Billox @rs3 covering shyster...

Welcome to the Divine Comedy that is conveyancing! Good luck