House shaking due to passing traffic

[frosti2k2]

Hi all,


I have a 1920-1930 semi-detached house with brick/block cavity walls, which I have been slowly repairing/renovating. It has a problem which is starting to concern me and wondered if anyone had some advice.


The house is 5 – 10 metres away from a busy main road, and when large vehicles such as HGV’s and buses drive over the pot holes and grooves in the road, the house can really vibrate/shake. We have got used to the lower level vibration and have accepted it as a fact of living so close to a busy road, but during particularly bad events when a truck comes past quickly the shaking is quite severe and as the vibrations are tailing off we can hear and feel what seems like structural movement. It sounds like a creak and/or crack, but cannot work out exactly what it is. Sounds like movement in the timbers from the loft or maybe coming from above the window areas. There are also cracks to the exterior on the pebbledash render, these all originate around the concrete lintel areas of the windows and doors that face the road.


My questions are :

1. Are there any areas I should be getting checked that could be in need of repair and making the vibrations worse? Wall ties, roof structure, loose bricks/blocks etc.
   

1. Are there any improvements I should be looking to make in order to strengthen the structure? (I did have a suggestion in the building survey to use some metal plates in the roof to reduce the roof spreading which was evident).
   
   
   

Many Thanks for any help.


Cheers,

Matt

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

 

[geraldthehamster]

I knew you were going to do that

 

[tony1851]

He always does, but it's a good one, though.

 

[Nige F]

You're probably right about the roof making the noises - and if it's spread you should get it looked at and strengthened. Is next door pebbledashed ? probably done with a hard render over lime mortared bricks. I had a 1920's bungalow with a bit of roof spread - no render and the wall had bowed a bit. Not deep footings in those days and the whole place shook when an oak tree was felled about 30 feet away.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Its an oldie but a goody! I canny resist!

 

[frosti2k2]

Yes next door is also pebbledashed. In fact all the houses in this part of road are of similar construction. Yes it is lime mortar and made of mixture of brick/heavy concrete blocks

 

[bernardgreen]

You could ask the Highways Department of your local council if there is anything they can do to repaire the pot holes and generally smooth out the road.

This approach solved the problem for a group of houses in this village. Some councils will accept it is necessary ( and their responsibility ) to improve the road but other may claim there is no funding.

 

[wessex101]

I have the same thing in my nearly 200 year old cottage but the road is quite quiet with a weight restriction so lorries are quite infrequent. It was quite disconcerting when I first encountered it, like a very gentle earthquake.

I cannot figure out what causes it, probably just a fluke of the ground geology, a seam of compacted silt on river gravel and sand. There used to be a dropped manhole cover in the road outside which would always trigger a mini tremor when a lorry went over it but the road was resurfaced and although it is milder I can still feel the tremor and things like the big printer in my office vibrate. I even get it in the part I rebuilt which sits on 7 metre deep piled foundations so it isn't a shallow foundation thing. It hasn't caused any damage over the last 10 years, it just reminds me how much movement traditional buildings can sustain.

A friend of mine lives near a large distribution depot and has huge lorries thundering by all day and night. Although you can hear the lorries there is no movement or vibration but they are on chalk so it obviously doesn't transmit the road vibration.

 

[^woody^]

It's terrible when someone unexpectedly and suddenly plonks a road past your front door like that causing this totally unexpected inconvenience.

 

[wessex101]

At least I don't have the prospect of waking up one morning to find they've built a new high speed rail line through my back garden. That will rattle the fillings in your teeth.

 

[^woody^]

Don't knock it, until you've tried it.

 

[geraldthehamster]

It's terrible when someone unexpectedly and suddenly plonks a road past your front door like that causing this totally unexpected inconvenience.

To be fair, roads often don't start out as busy main roads.

 

[SimonH2]

You could ask the Highways Department of your local council if there is anything they can do to repaire the pot holes and generally smooth out the road.

Surely, if (as it sounds like here) the potholes are likely to be causing problems with the building, then you raise that. Suggest that you're getting a survey done and that you'll hold the council responsible of any damage that appears due to the vibration caused by the presence of the potholes. I've read a suggestion that this, along with a quote from the relevant manual on distance from buildings, had had more than one council abandon plans to install speed humps.
Of course, you could try just reporting them first and see if they fix them.
BTW - if a pothole has been reported and not fixed (in a reasonable time, days not months) then the council are automatically liable for any damage caused by it.
Try https://www.fixmystreet.com/