External cracks in brickwork

torch_light

The first visit we have had was from Building Control but they are now outsourced but only work for the council so I am led to believe. They signed off the work on behalf of the Council, do I have this right?


I looked at the DBCP for my local area, but the paperwork I have is certainly not from this company/department.


There were no trees on the site before it was cleared, there were small lock ups and small garages. We checked google because maps still shows the site pre-build.


The hot weather doesn't seem to have made any difference except the thing that has surprised us is that the bottom three or four course of bricks toward the corner still seem to be damp, at least to my eyes, but if they had built on a water course or an underground spring we would have signs of water elsewhere. I mean the bricks and the building can only soak up so much. There would be signs of running water even if it was at the other end of the garden. No?



Funny you should mention the foundations, because of the hard clay in the area, they had to go down a lot further than they normally would have done Harry has mentioned the depth but I would be guessing. Are soil samples something that is normally done on a new build, likewise will there be a photographic record?


I have been in touch with the Independent Surveyor (Ian) and he is happy to come and take a look tomorrow as a free visit. He should have more knowledge about which direction we want to be going with this.



Likewise with teneightys information I didn't even consider the possibility of there being a file somewhere. Is it just a case of asking to see it?


Again thanks for all your input as you can imagine it has started to become more serious now we have called people in to take a look.

Doozergirl

Acivico tend to run a lot of building control departments on behalf of local authorities. Whoever carried out the inspections will have a file with notes and drawings. Anything you can get hold of will help anyone helping you. It's really a structural engineer that you need. What area are you in?

Water doesn't just come from the ground. It could be a leak from your drains or from rainwater goods. If the ground moves then drains can break.

Is there still no movement in the block paving?

parking_question_chap

I would expect if you have not had rain for a while this might have made the situation worse, given you mention its a clay area (notice there are quite a few posts on cracks in this forum recently). Im not an expert but I would be interested to know what happens if you have several days rain.


Hope they sort this for you promtly.

Furts

The first photo speaks volumes. Far be it from me to snag your new build, but that is some grim and shoddy work in all sorts of ways. Bricklaying, jointing, pointing, levels, steps, railings, under floor vents, salts, brick selection ... dreadful! If there is no NHBC Warranty, or equivalent, then I am left at a loss for words. Golden Rule number one in new home buying is never rely on an Architects Certificate, or similar.

You have taken an enormous risk which is fine if you know what you are taking on. Life is all about risk analysis, costs and so on. However you have gone ahead without having any concept of how your home should be built, nor the procedures that should be in place. To me this is deeply worrying.

The cracks should not be there, and they are a concern to me. But skimming through your saga and my conclusion is problems are inevitable.

Furts

Pondering your situation, I see this ending up in Court. The chances of you making a claim on your Arch Tech PII I put close to zero. Besides, if this person is dodgy he could wind up his company first.

Going after Building Control is pointless - you only have to research legal precedent and the clauses of the Regulations. Here I also speak through bitter, personal experience - I once had a battle over my defective home.

The likely scenario is you fund the repairs then try to reclaim from others. The beauty with this approach is you pick your professionals, you vet their work, you pick your contractors, you get their work thoroughly inspected and this time round things get done properly.

Now two negatives. How likely is the money man to reimburse you if you win your case? Plus, rebuilding new homes can have eye watering costs. I have been there too, and I have personal experience of physically doing this.

De-value, selling and blight are all topics that you also need to factor in as part of your appraisal here.

tonyh66

Thats the worst display of bricklaying I have ever seen did he point them with his elbow?
I would take all the advice above regarding getting an independant surveyor that wall is heading for next door (quickly) and you need expert verification.
Phone your building insurance company, hopefully you have legal cover, your going to need it.

Doozergirl

Not sure what happened to the OP, but looking at the block paving again, I'm sure it's dipping.

Furts, I didn't want to go as far as you, but I agree Unless the builder puts his hands up and fixes it out of his sense of responsibility, there's going to be an uphill battle.

Furts

Doozergirl wrote: »

Not sure what happened to the OP, but looking at the block paving again, I'm sure it's dipping.

Furts, I didn't want to go as far as you, but I agree Unless the builder puts his hands up and fixes it out of his sense of responsibility, there's going to be an uphill battle.

OP has not come back to update. and so much remains a mystery. Self build? Cash purchase? Mortgage conditions? Contracts with whom? Covering what small print? and so on. The overwhelming mystery is new home purchase has followed established fundamentals for 80 years. The system works, albeit with quirks. However, OP evaded all this by going for a Certificate and was also involved with a money man who fronted the build. A recipe for disaster and disaster is happening. Why has this come about? Who has been failing here apart from OP? And how have they failed?


Add to this why is OP procrastinating over repairs? If the money man decides to wind up his business as time ticks by, then the future does look bleak. With potential repairs in tens of thousands winding up is a logical response.


Then consider fundamentals. OP is concerned about brickwwork but the patio, steps and all works including block paving need renewal.. At the same time the apparent damp in the walls can be accessed, investigated and possibly rebuilt.



The elephant in the room is the block and beam fllooring. Clearly this is defective, but nobody knows to what extent until the the walls are opened up. Repairs are definitely needed but it is possible the floor needs renewing. This in turn means OP has to vacate the home.


I see no easy, quick, way forward for OP. What I do see is a blighted property that was originally so badly built that it may be unsaleable now. Which leaves the home worth little.

torch_light

Furts wrote: »

OP has not come back to update. and so much remains a mystery. Self build? Cash purchase? Mortgage conditions? Contracts with whom? Covering what small print? and so on. The overwhelming mystery is new home purchase has followed established fundamentals for 80 years. The system works, albeit with quirks. However, OP evaded all this by going for a Certificate and was also involved with a money man who fronted the build. A recipe for disaster and disaster is happening. Why has this come about? Who has been failing here apart from OP? And how have they failed?

Add to this why is OP procrastinating over repairs? If the money man decides to wind up his business as time ticks by, then the future does look bleak. With potential repairs in tens of thousands winding up is a logical response.

Then consider fundamentals. OP is concerned about brickwwork but the patio, steps and all works including block paving need renewal.. At the same time the apparent damp in the walls can be accessed, investigated and possibly rebuilt.

The elephant in the room is the block and beam fllooring. Clearly this is defective, but nobody knows to what extent until the the walls are opened up. Repairs are definitely needed but it is possible the floor needs renewing. This in turn means OP has to vacate the home.


I see no easy, quick, way forward for OP. What I do see is a blighted property that was originally so badly built that it may be unsaleable now. Which leaves the home worth little.

Hey there forum folks, its been a busy week I'm sorry I didn't get back sooner.


Where to start?


So I bit the bullet and called in Jude the Chartered Surveyor with more letters after his name then actually in his name.

His initial and free assessment was that he was more concerned with the diagonal cracks that meant the whole lot was shifting right as you look at my picture. There could be numerous reasons for this, including footings, thermal contraction, lack of brickwork being tied in properly but he didn't want to elaborate until he had done a full and proper assessment on the building, (which means that he is in our employ), he said that it isn't how it should be and getting it put to how it should be would be where he would head.


At least hearing it from a professional with no interest in what is happening and made us realise where we are at.


Harry is coming over on Monday to take a look, (from what he has said they will be taking out a few bricks and seeing if there is a problem in the cavity or behind the outside wall. No major pulling about just a look to assess what is happening). While the bricks are out it seems prudent to pay Jude to come back for a full and proper inspection and have him take a look at it.

Onto Fursts questions, Harry originally bought the piece of land to have built a house by sub-contracted brickies, plasterers, sparkies etc for his own family, when his wife wasn't happy with it for reasons unbeknownst to me, the house was put on the open market.


This is not the first new build that he has had done for him, he has been involved in at least 8 other new builds. We viewed another of his with a view to purchase but that fell through.


The house was bought the conventional way through a mortage lender after the build was completed. We never had any input into the build while it was going on.


We are not in a position to sink possibly tens of thousands of pounds of our own money into putting this right. It isn't a case of procrastinating on our part, we have numerous phone logs, texts and emails to Harry asking him to come and assess what is happening, we are not the professionals and if someone says that its just new building settling or whatever, that is what you are more ready to believe than thinking that the whole corner foundation is substandard and that everything below DCP is moving away from the rest of the property.


We are just buyers who bought the house in the belief that all the proper paperwork was in place and that all would be ok if, God forbid, a problem presented itself. Please remember that we have only been living in the house for 16 months. Neither of us have a background in building or engineering, we are now only making noises, because it is becoming visibly worse, when and how else would we have known that it was a problem?

As for the standard of the workmanship in all honesty a brick is a brick is a brick to me. I paid professionals, (the mortgage lenders) to survey the house, it was more of a concern for us if the garden was the right size and the rooms were what we were after. Substandard pointing wasn't on the list of concerns because we have no knowledge of such things.

As far as we knew we didn't skip any certification or guarantees or the suchlike, we done what most people would do, found somewhere we liked the look of, contacted the bank for the mortgage, and bought the place.


I understand that there are people with greater experience on the finer points of brick-weave and pointing, but not everyone is lucky enough to be in that boat. If you don't place some faith in the experts then who do you go to if your understanding falls short on some of the issues that need looking at.

Sorry if I am defending my position in this a bit over enthusiastically it has been a very trying week.

Thanks again for all your inputs.

torch_light

Doozergirl wrote: »

Not sure what happened to the OP, but looking at the block paving again, I'm sure it's dipping.

Furts, I didn't want to go as far as you, but I agree Unless the builder puts his hands up and fixes it out of his sense of responsibility, there's going to be an uphill battle.

I wondered about that from quite early on Doozergirl but was assured that settling occurs with such things.

Also two of the slabs on the steps have cracked through, but again I was told that the house couldn't exert enough pressure laterally to make slates crack. I wish I had a photo from when we first moved in because I will never convince myself that they were like it the whole time.


It already feels like an uphill battle, the Technical Architect who signed off for the building inspections along the way couldn't keep further from us if he jumped on the next plane for New Zealand. If it had been on my watch, I would have fronted it up and been here to take a look asap, not provide Harry's phone number so we could contact him.