Having some movement related issues with our Victorian house, hopefully someone can give me some advice as it's giving me sleepless nights!
Our house is detached, has 4 storeys ( has attic conversion and cellar). The external walls of the house form the boundary with neighbours, we have a corridor/passage on the front right of our house with flag stones in it, which is the access to the back garden. I've included a diagram, apologies for the crap quality. View media item 62109
When we viewed the house ten years ago we got a surveyor in who noted the building had suffered a bit of "movement" - the right hand flank wall of the house leans somewhat at the front and has dropped a bit through what he termed "settling into the clay soil" - this is the case at the back also, but to a much lesser amount.
We spoke to a few neighbours of 30 years+ who said it'd been like that since they moved in, and had never been an issue. The surveyor said the movement was so old it was not worth worrying about, but just needed monitoring to make sure it was not ongoing if we purchased. He pointed out in his report that there'd been some work done internally to close up the cracks from when the movement occured but that there'd been no underpinning or foundation work. The surveyor apparently dug a small test pit in the corridor under the flags to have a look at the footings of the wall.
So we bought the house, getting it very cheaply factoring in the very poor state of decor throughout and the fact it needed reroofing and had basically no kitchen. A lot of people moved in to houses nearby at the same time as us, and later all said the state of the decor and amount of cosmetic work needed on our house had put them off (none mentioned any structural problems as a factor).
So a few years ago, in the corner of the front upstairs bedroom a crack started to open up where the leaning wall meets the ceiling, and a much smaller hairline crack opened in the rear bedroom along the same wall - indicating at least to me that the wall is still moving outwards, and possibly downwards to a lesser extent. A crack which had previously been filled in the centre wall of the house which divides the bedrooms started to open up also.
I got a builder friend I used to be in touch with to come and look at it, who said the movement was very small and told me to stitch the crack in the wall using helifix bars, and fill the other cracks with mastic, which I did. He suggested as a precaution we get our drains looked at, as for some reason known only to victorian architects, our private sewer (which serves only our house) runs right under our side passage / corridor, parallel with the leaning wall along it's entire length. To add insult to injury we've recently discovered there is a small public sewer on the other side of the leaning wall under our neighbours path !! So given the promixity of the two sewers to the footings of that wall, I'm not that surprised it has moved historically, through possible leakage of the sewers or the settlement of the soil over time after the sewer was originally dug out I guess.
We had our drain inspected, the drain company said it wasn't damaged but a few joints were a bit offset so lining it was worth it given the movement of the house, so we had that done last year. We told the water board we were worried their sewer was potentially causing our house to move, and they sent some cowboys to look at it, who stuck a camera down for 30 seconds, said it was fine, didn't need lining or any repairs then buggered off, even though our neighbours path appears to have dipped all along the sewer line
Coming to the present day, the crack at the top of the wall in the front bedroom has opened up again, albeit slightly, but it is now making me anxious - I can't ignore it and just continue filling the cracks, as I'm sure the movement is ongoing, if slight. So i'm considering fitting some "old fashioned" tie bars across the span of the house, under the attic and upstairs floors with pattresses on the outside, to stop the lateral movement in this wall. Would this wall tie approach be worth it, or has anyone got a better idea? - The modern helifix products all seem to fix into floor joists which I don't think would provide enough support, plus there are no available joists in the attic where the movement is greater.
As the movement seems to be mainly lateral I may just be worrying about nothing here, but given the proximity of the sewers to the base of the footings, I'm wondering if some work needs to be done on the footings to stop any more movement. I pulled some flags in the corridor up and dug a very small hole to have a look, and the footings under this wall are about 40cm deep, with a pyramid style, fanning out over 2 bricks. I don't see how a traditional underpinning solution with loads of concrete would work given the sewer is directly underneath where the underpinning would be and the access is so limited.
I'm wondering if a piled solution could be put in such close proximity to a sewer, perhaps shire piles? Or maybe a ground stabilization solution like Uretek might work to stop any further movement? Could the footings be widened somehow to lessen any further sinking into the ground (considering the load of the wall is already distributed through the ground the sewer passes through). Could the wall be tied to the opposite inside wall of the corridor with ties of some sort to effectively make the footing the width of the corridor?
Any help or advice anyone can give me would be gratefully received!
cheers
Hob
Our house is detached, has 4 storeys ( has attic conversion and cellar). The external walls of the house form the boundary with neighbours, we have a corridor/passage on the front right of our house with flag stones in it, which is the access to the back garden. I've included a diagram, apologies for the crap quality. View media item 62109
When we viewed the house ten years ago we got a surveyor in who noted the building had suffered a bit of "movement" - the right hand flank wall of the house leans somewhat at the front and has dropped a bit through what he termed "settling into the clay soil" - this is the case at the back also, but to a much lesser amount.
We spoke to a few neighbours of 30 years+ who said it'd been like that since they moved in, and had never been an issue. The surveyor said the movement was so old it was not worth worrying about, but just needed monitoring to make sure it was not ongoing if we purchased. He pointed out in his report that there'd been some work done internally to close up the cracks from when the movement occured but that there'd been no underpinning or foundation work. The surveyor apparently dug a small test pit in the corridor under the flags to have a look at the footings of the wall.
So we bought the house, getting it very cheaply factoring in the very poor state of decor throughout and the fact it needed reroofing and had basically no kitchen. A lot of people moved in to houses nearby at the same time as us, and later all said the state of the decor and amount of cosmetic work needed on our house had put them off (none mentioned any structural problems as a factor).
So a few years ago, in the corner of the front upstairs bedroom a crack started to open up where the leaning wall meets the ceiling, and a much smaller hairline crack opened in the rear bedroom along the same wall - indicating at least to me that the wall is still moving outwards, and possibly downwards to a lesser extent. A crack which had previously been filled in the centre wall of the house which divides the bedrooms started to open up also.
I got a builder friend I used to be in touch with to come and look at it, who said the movement was very small and told me to stitch the crack in the wall using helifix bars, and fill the other cracks with mastic, which I did. He suggested as a precaution we get our drains looked at, as for some reason known only to victorian architects, our private sewer (which serves only our house) runs right under our side passage / corridor, parallel with the leaning wall along it's entire length. To add insult to injury we've recently discovered there is a small public sewer on the other side of the leaning wall under our neighbours path !! So given the promixity of the two sewers to the footings of that wall, I'm not that surprised it has moved historically, through possible leakage of the sewers or the settlement of the soil over time after the sewer was originally dug out I guess.
We had our drain inspected, the drain company said it wasn't damaged but a few joints were a bit offset so lining it was worth it given the movement of the house, so we had that done last year. We told the water board we were worried their sewer was potentially causing our house to move, and they sent some cowboys to look at it, who stuck a camera down for 30 seconds, said it was fine, didn't need lining or any repairs then buggered off, even though our neighbours path appears to have dipped all along the sewer line
Coming to the present day, the crack at the top of the wall in the front bedroom has opened up again, albeit slightly, but it is now making me anxious - I can't ignore it and just continue filling the cracks, as I'm sure the movement is ongoing, if slight. So i'm considering fitting some "old fashioned" tie bars across the span of the house, under the attic and upstairs floors with pattresses on the outside, to stop the lateral movement in this wall. Would this wall tie approach be worth it, or has anyone got a better idea? - The modern helifix products all seem to fix into floor joists which I don't think would provide enough support, plus there are no available joists in the attic where the movement is greater.
As the movement seems to be mainly lateral I may just be worrying about nothing here, but given the proximity of the sewers to the base of the footings, I'm wondering if some work needs to be done on the footings to stop any more movement. I pulled some flags in the corridor up and dug a very small hole to have a look, and the footings under this wall are about 40cm deep, with a pyramid style, fanning out over 2 bricks. I don't see how a traditional underpinning solution with loads of concrete would work given the sewer is directly underneath where the underpinning would be and the access is so limited.
I'm wondering if a piled solution could be put in such close proximity to a sewer, perhaps shire piles? Or maybe a ground stabilization solution like Uretek might work to stop any further movement? Could the footings be widened somehow to lessen any further sinking into the ground (considering the load of the wall is already distributed through the ground the sewer passes through). Could the wall be tied to the opposite inside wall of the corridor with ties of some sort to effectively make the footing the width of the corridor?
Any help or advice anyone can give me would be gratefully received!
cheers
Hob
