Cellar conversion

[CharlieB1981]

Short story- looking for advice on if it’s a builder, structural engineer or architect I need to speak to for an assessment on foundations

Longer story
Cellar is below the dining room but only half the size, I’m looking to extend and convert it.
Currwnt cellar is the black outline, extra red but is the footprint of the above dining room.
Wall a is non structural but holds back about 7 tonnes of backfilled soil
It’s believed that the footings for all the red walls extend to the same as the cellar.
If they do it’s a fairly straightforwards labour job of taking the wall down, removing the soil and laying a new floor.

1)Who would i be better hiring to check the depth of these
2) wall B is a party wall, with same amount of soil the other side, providing the triple skin party wall is sound are there any anticipated structural issues in removing the soil- ie weight of the other side against it.
3) is there an easier way to test the foundations without having to rip up the dining room floor to dig test pits. Ie would it be possible to check with a mole/probe

No point starting if these aren’t full length or require significant underpinning due to the cost

Fully aware of tanking/ ventilation etc refs on converting cellars- just focussing on this part for now.

Thanks all

 

[^woody^]

Structural Engineer, and prefearably one with underground work experience.

They will require a builder to expose whatever they need to look at under their direction - trial pits.

And when it comes to the work, again someone with experience of the type of work instructed by the engineer, and not just some random Joe who gives the cheapest quote and has the newest shiny van

 

[CharlieB1981]

Cheers,

The risk I can see is if test pits need to show the bottom of the wall, they could up being 2m deep and would have to pretty much remove the 7tn of soil to be able to get in to see it.

Trying to understand if there’s any other way to test the theory.

Def in people- would always get those in with experience, looking at specialist cellar conversation companies, but not many around here would deal with the building side- just waterproofing

 

[^woody^]

I suspect test pits would be dug on the outside.

 

[CharlieB1981]

Unfortunately not possible, the only one accessible from the outside has a bay window protruding along with a soil pipe, gas and water next to it.

See if I can find a specialist to take a look and offer recommendations