Subsidence
- Thread starter Syla5
- Start date
Its quite a bit further down the line then that, i know that my initial post didnt contain much detail. At this point we have had a final survey completed which was a floor slab distortion survey. Looks like a Topographical map, im just wondering what the scale of it is.
There is a long running back and forth between myself and the loss adjusters who are refusing to do anything about the persistent cause of the movement, even though evidence from their own readings and specifically this distortion survey (if im reading it correctly) show.
Man of Honour
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Do the roots not rot, causing more subsidence?
Chimney is central mass of the house, not built with any sort of foundation just on the floorslab, and we are on clay. House built in the 50's and really doesnt take much, with the more extreme dry summers and wet winters its just slowly getting worse.
I'm surprised that a property built in the 1950s doesn't have foundations to the chim. How have no foundations been established? Pulled the floors up?
No, the amount of moisture trees take up is far more of an issue than the roots rotting down. They rot slowly and are filled with other material and with more moisture in the soil (clay) it will be naturally "larger" anyway.
Root ingress holes internally dug and investigated right at the chimney.
I'm not, depends if course, but a lot of houses built in the 50s were pretty poorly constructed, many considered "temporary" are still being lived in today, they needed to build a lot of houses quickly following a small disagreement with Germany a few years prior.
Soldato
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But but old houses were built better and new houses are terribly built...
Or in reality as I have said many times having live in a house from practically every decade from 1890s onwards, there is no perfect time, they all have issues.
Some of the 50s stuff was truly amazing. I forget the name of it now, but one of our rooves was built with what was basically straw and cement.
Just a little update on this one. After the floor distortion survey was completed the insurance tried to claim that the measurements were within tolerances. The movements the survey showed up were up to 50mm within a 3m distance, definitely not within any tolerance i could find, and further more not even close to the 15mm tolerance over a 10m span that the insurance company finally came back and quoted.
Needless today this further information was added to an already detailed case with the FOS who came to a final decision that the insurers where indeed liable for repair work to the floor and having finally gotten to an agreement on the scale of works required we are beginning to move forwards.
Funnily enough, i arrange for a floor specialist to provide a quote for rectification works, on the off chance the FOS would not side with us, and the insurance company asked for that quote. When they received if they were not happy with the costs, so they engaged with their own contractors.....the floor repair their own contracts have returned with is even more invasive and even more expensive. Needless to say we are going with their contractor.
The work that is now due to take place is full excavation and of the ground floor slab of the house and rebuild it to modern building regs standards which now include all the insulation bells and whistles to boot. This journey is going to get interesting, we are going to have to move out for 3-4 months.
Needless today this further information was added to an already detailed case with the FOS who came to a final decision that the insurers where indeed liable for repair work to the floor and having finally gotten to an agreement on the scale of works required we are beginning to move forwards.
Funnily enough, i arrange for a floor specialist to provide a quote for rectification works, on the off chance the FOS would not side with us, and the insurance company asked for that quote. When they received if they were not happy with the costs, so they engaged with their own contractors.....the floor repair their own contracts have returned with is even more invasive and even more expensive. Needless to say we are going with their contractor.
The work that is now due to take place is full excavation and of the ground floor slab of the house and rebuild it to modern building regs standards which now include all the insulation bells and whistles to boot. This journey is going to get interesting, we are going to have to move out for 3-4 months.
Yes thats good but also hassle. It'll be quite disruptive for a while.
Will be good once its sorted though.