Bought a house with possible subsidence

[Deleted User]

We have bought a house recently and didn't get a survey done for various reasons. The conservatory at the back of the house is built up higher than the garden which slopes away from the house. On one side wall we have noticed that the foundations appear to be sinking away from the rest of the conservatory.

Any advice on how we resolve this?

glosoli

The first port of call may be to get a structural engineer out to see how bad the issue is. Why on earth though was no survey carried out?

Mickygg

As glosoli says.

ProDave

If it's only the conservatory that's sinking then it was built with substandard foundations. or is it the house thats sinking and the conservatory staying put?

parking_question_chap

glosoli wrote: »

The first port of call may be to get a structural engineer out to see how bad the issue is. Why on earth though was no survey carried out?

"various reasons".

Davesnave

Do you know who built the conservatory, and when?

Window companies usually guarantee their work for a number of years, typically ten, so if an active guarantee was in place, it should have been transferred to you on purchase.

However getting some companies to honour their guarantees is another thing(!) and they may not have built the foundations anyway.

Conservatory foundations are usually about 450mm wide and roughly the same in depth, but people often skimp on them, thinking the structure isn't very heavy. Many of us have just had an exceptionally dry winter/spring which will mean soils shrinking more than usual, so if it's started recently, there's the likely cause.

The long term solution is probably demolition.

csgohan4

Various reasons being to save money??


Your going to spend more now in an engineer report and to get this rectified.