Hi Everyone!
We live in a terraced house in Totterdown, Bristol.
We know the ground is clay (learnt the hard way when digging in our garden), and the recent heatwave appears to have cause significant movement in the house. Mainly hairline cracks across the house, but also a slightly larger crack in the bay window and 3 windows (front, back and both up and downstairs) are no longer closing.
We are debating if we should go through insurance to fix the windows and get the cracks sorted, but I was wondering if this is a good approach, or if we should aim to get contactors in ourselves, and possible rake out the cracks and fill them ourselves. A few things:
- will the building shift back and potentially close the cracks when it rains more? - should we wait before filling them?
-are uPVC windows expensive to replace (they were here when we moved in in 2014, but never had a FENSA cert or anything), and could this be a wise move if we want to move in the next few years anyway?
- what is the likelihood that insurance will actually pay out?
- what are the negative re-bound effects of going through insurance? Obviously increased premium, but could using subsidence associated to the house impact on saleability?
Many thanks for any guidance you can give...we have two little ones under 4 and we are trying to get this sorted before the cold winter kicks in. We don't have the capacity to DIY it like we used to anymore!!
We live in a terraced house in Totterdown, Bristol.
We know the ground is clay (learnt the hard way when digging in our garden), and the recent heatwave appears to have cause significant movement in the house. Mainly hairline cracks across the house, but also a slightly larger crack in the bay window and 3 windows (front, back and both up and downstairs) are no longer closing.
We are debating if we should go through insurance to fix the windows and get the cracks sorted, but I was wondering if this is a good approach, or if we should aim to get contactors in ourselves, and possible rake out the cracks and fill them ourselves. A few things:
- will the building shift back and potentially close the cracks when it rains more? - should we wait before filling them?
-are uPVC windows expensive to replace (they were here when we moved in in 2014, but never had a FENSA cert or anything), and could this be a wise move if we want to move in the next few years anyway?
- what is the likelihood that insurance will actually pay out?
- what are the negative re-bound effects of going through insurance? Obviously increased premium, but could using subsidence associated to the house impact on saleability?
Many thanks for any guidance you can give...we have two little ones under 4 and we are trying to get this sorted before the cold winter kicks in. We don't have the capacity to DIY it like we used to anymore!!
