Floor uneven in ground floor room

Bobknows

Hello all. I need help/advice please, the worry over this is affecting my sleep.

Apologies for the length of this post, I wanted to be thorough.

I moved into this house a little over 6 years ago. I had a full survey before purchase and nothing of any structural issue was raised. Although it was obvious the front and rear rooms had been knocked through at some point. The previous owners family had owned the property from new (or close enough) in the 50's there was noting recorded in building control for it but I was told that happened in the 80's.

My understanding was the dining room and lounge once had fire places in the corner of the rooms, back-to-back facing into the room (45 degree angle). At some the dividing wall between the two rooms was removed and flue stacks re-positioned back parallel with the wall, in line with the stack on first floor and in loft. A beam was installed to support the wall above (which I commissioned a structural engineer to investigate and report on - all okay).

Although the flooring has carpet and underlay it has always felt a bit uneven underfoot in the areas where the old fire places used to sit and where the base of the removed wall is. I just assumed that was a mixture of bad finish to those areas and deteriorating underlay.

There was also a slight feeling of a rise in the floor between the old fireplace and the rear of the building. Nothing massive but if you walked over it enough you noticed it. No more than 15-20mm I'd guess and sloping away either side.

I recently emptied the room of furniture for decorating and decided to pull the carpet back and take a look, part of me wished I hadn't... The floor slab is that black bitumen material. The work to the old fireplace and along the footing of the old dividing wall had been concreted over with sign of a DPM visible but by no means was the concrete level with the slab. In places it is proud by about 5mm.

There is also a concrete infilled channel (with DPM) about 150mm wide running from an air brick in the outside wall at the back of the house to the old chimney position and then on to an air brick in the front of the house. This infill sites right through the middle of the rise i was noticing toward the back of the house. There's no sign of any rise at the front, just a change in level where the infill sits proud.

Being curious I broke open a small area of the slab and excavated down. The infill is shallow, about 55mm and immediately beneath it is the broken remain of a grey pipe which looks to follow the same path. The position of the pipe is definitely above outside ground level but I have no idea what it was for, maybe ventilation to the old fireplace?

The problem I face is what to do about it. Now I've seen the poor concrete work (fire place, wall and infill) it could do with being replaced to level things off. However, now I've found the broken pipe underneath I'm wondering if that should be removed and I don't know if that would push this within the classification of 'heave'. I'm nervous about going straight to the insurer as I understand from researching around the topic that just mentioning it to your insurer can flag it reported "suspected subsidence/heave" even if they say it isn't and lead to problems changing insurers and future sale of the house.

Should I contact the insurer or get advice from a professional first (which professional body?) or am I worrying unnecessarily over something small and simple that doesn't need to go to the insurer and I can just engage a builder to remove the pipe and relay fresh DPM and concrete in the affected areas?

There's no sign of any cracking on the floor or walls and no sign of change in floor level anywhere else.

Hopefully someone out there will have some sage advice. I could do with a good nights sleep.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Zorillo

The last thing I'd do is contact your insurance company in these circumstances.

Get a builder to have a look and unless there's any evidence that an 'insured peril' has occurred, sort it out yourself.

Bobknows

Hi Zorillo,

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply.

So is this not something I'm required to make them aware of? Won't I have to declare it on the renewal form anyway? If not, then great :j

Sorry if it seems an obvious question but what is 'insured peril'? I've looked through my policy but it can't find anything under those specific words.

Alter_ego

Insured peril - something your insurance covers

Zorillo

Your wording might call it "cover causes" or similar instead of "insured peril". But it'll be a list of e.g. Fire, Flood, Escape of Water, Theft, Subsidence... These are insured perils.

What you've described sounds like it is either a maintenance issue or defective work from a long time ago. Either way, unless you can identify it as a result of a specific 'cause' (peril), your insurance policy will not respond. There is an argument it could be 'accidental damage' but only if you can identify what caused it.

Whether you need to disclose it at renewal is a thorny issue. As a rule, if you couldn't claim for it, you don't need to disclose it, but if you could claim for it you ought to tell them even if you don't intend to claim for it.

I'd try to identify the cause, which should tell you whether you could or should involve your insurer.

The alternative is to describe it as heave (or accidental damage if that is covered by your policy) to your insurer and see what they think. But you run the risk of it both not being covered and impacting on your future insurance costs/terms.

To me, it doesn't sound like something your insurance will cover. But I am not an expert, and I haven't seen the damage.