Owning your own home

I can hear water running when someone's in the shower, ... Never smelt sewage out there though.

Waste water from bath, shower, basins etc ('greywater') is often fairly 'open' and dealt with separately to waste from toilets

Shower, basin and bath wastes all join the soil pipe at the back of my house before entering the ground. Surely there not going to stay seperated within that?

No once they join they join, mine don't until they're both in the ground

You can probably hear the waste going through the inspection chamber thingy

Can transfer Amex to cash via PayPal gift. Have done that a couple of times

while this works it is only really relevant if the amex is 0%

Deep sigh. Have been some major cracks appearing in our extension. Presumably the dry summer (and giant willow nearby) has caused some subsidence. Also dodgy slightly cowboy builders.
Got an engineer coming round to have a look but not feeling confident about the outcome.

Has anyone had underpinning done? Any idea how disruptive and how eyewateringly expensive it's going to be?

major cracks....Also dodgy slightly cowboy builders.

Might be worth mentally preparing for it being knocked down and re-done. Modern stuff should be so deep as to be pretty invulnerable to subsidence.

Family friend had an extension re-instated for this very reason.

Obviously hugely disruptive.

Agreed. The original Engineer should have designed the foundations taking into account the tree to current standards. Subsidence is unacceptable on a modern building, no matter how dry the summer.

@villa-ru I feel for you, good luck!

Let’s see the cracks. It might just be normal shrinkage and settlement. Obviously the engineer will tell you properly but some amateur internet diagnosis is generally reliable.

Underpinning isn’t necessarily too disruptive. There are a few methods but it can be as simple as digging under the existing foundations hit-and-miss and pouring new, no internal disruption.

Hmm. That doesn't make me feel any better!

Will see what the structural engineer says (and what recourse we have to the builders).

Yeah - it's not normal shrinkage. At first hoped that might be the case but...
Not sure I need the internet diagnosis really!

2 outer cracks are much deeper than the render eg into the brickwork. I can stick a plant marker about 8cm in.
Door that was aligned now has >1cm greater opening at the top.

4 Attachments

Oooft

What have you got at the bottom of the walls? I would be tempted to dig a small hole and try and get a look at the footings, it is what our structural engineer asked us to do when we were investigating underpinning.

Concrete path round the side/back so nothing easy to access. That should all be laid on the same slab.
@dbr - indeed! Luckily The Modern House fella didn't seem to notice when he came round to give us a valuation. Don't think we'll be selling up any time soon now anyway.

Will update when the engineer's been round.

Are the builders still around/operating as far as you can tell?

I'd expect that to be covered by the builders' insurance if they're still trading

If you want some free advice from the Forum I am happy to come and have a look.
Has this only happened in the past year? Looks like differential movement. Is this movement in a back extension? Difficult to tell from the photos. Also if back extension is the wall with the plastic sidings timber?

nice pool

Yes - builder's still about. To add an extra frisson, they are friends of friends. Hopefully their insurance will help.

@Zebra_Cyclist - yes, a rear extension onto a 60's house. Main house is essentially a block of concrete with a brick skin - no movement at all on that. Extension is all blockwork, mostly rendered, but that wall is cementboard faced. It's 5 years old - had some initial settling cracks but this year these more significant ones. Thanks for the offer - we have an engineer booked in for a full report so will go from there.
@swedeee - yes- thanks!

Ah shit man. I’m struggling to read the photos but the 1cm door drop is clearly an issue.

All things are fixable, a bit of stress and effort to endure, but worst case a claim on your household insurance and an excess to pay.

Be prepared that the engineer might tell you it’ll need monitoring for a year to determine whether it’s a one-off movement or ongoing.

Hopefully the builders being connected will be a positive thing.

Is the door misalignment really all down to the frame going out of square?

I'd guess the majority of the top to bottom difference is the roller carriage in the middle has dropped a couple off mm, tipping the top of the door away from the frame.
Or the action of sliding the door open has pulled the sash out of square. In which case, repacking the glazing to square it up would be needed.

A combination of the two above can also be used to make the sash suit a parallelogram shaped frame.

Our neighbours' (we are both mid-terrace) retaining wall (holds up a patio on which their house sits; ours is the same) is damaged/subsiding and they have sent us a party wall notice saying that they want to carry out remedial work.

I don't want to cause them trouble and realistically it's likely the whole thing will be fine, but I'm worried that there's a tiny chance that our house could slide into road. The gov.uk website says they have to pay for any damage caused, but does that extend to collapse of a house? Neighbours have said their insurance is NOT covering the works, as it is the patio that is in trouble and not the house itself - this seems crazy to me.

Obviously I will check with our insurance that we are covered if anything goes wrong + will take photos of our house in its currently intact state. Is there anything else I need to do?

The gov guidance is quite good on party wall matters. If you’re concerned, you can ask for their surveyor to make a condition report of your place. If you want to be double safe, you can appoint your own surveyor. This is all at their cost. If I was concerned about my house sliding into the road I wouldn’t think twice about using the Part Wall Act for what it’s intended. Any damage caused by the works that wasn’t listed in the condition report is at their cost.

I think we're going to have to do this. But I feel really bad about the cost to them. :(

The cheapest option would be to get their surveyor survey your place.