Help - Ground Collapsing

[steve3911]

Hi -

I was hoping someone could give me some advice. I have a friend who's house has, over the last couple weeks, had about a 3 foot wide by 1 foot wide swath of ground just collapse about 8 inches. This is right next to the house.

He's worried that's it a collapsed underground drain, but has no water problems. Could it just be some kind of settling? House is about 80 yrs old.

Thanks so much for any ideas you might have.

Steve

 

[JohnD]

water leak.

Drain or main.

in London streets, holes like this are measured in units of DDBs.

a 2DDB hole is big enough to swallow two double-decker buses

They get bigger than this too

The leak needs fixing before the house falls into the hole.

May need an insurance subsidence claim as well.

 

[steve3911]

Yikes - that's the kind of thing we were afraid of. Anything else it could be that we could check for?

Steve

 

[JohnD]

old mineworkings

grave

but, a small section, next to the house, water leak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sinkhole.jpg

There is probably more ground ready to collapse. If it is paved e.g. with concrete it may not collapse until the cavity gets quite big, or until a heavy object such as a car or person stands on it, or it might give way suddenly and unexpectedly.

 

[steve3911]

OK, I'll let him know the not so great news. Thanks for your help

Steve

 

[Shytalkz]

Now that is what you call a solution feature - or was it a tunnelling collapse?

 

[Shytalkz]

May need an insurance subsidence claim as well.

Agreed, water escape from something is the most likely cause.

However, with regard to claiming on house insurance, unless the building is damaged by the leak, then insurers can and will argue that there is no peril under the policy terms. Conversely, if it's left until such time as there is damage to the building, then they can equally argue that no steps were taken to mitigate against the possibility of damage occurring, once you became aware of the problem. For such is the way of insurance...

This doesn't come under escape of water, as a lot of people think: that section of a policy is intended to cover damage to the inside of the building, fixtures and fittings etc, caused by a burst pipe or suchlike.

Subsidence usually attracts a policy excess of £1000, by the way.