Just wondering if anybody here knows anything about underpinning houses.
If a house has had subsidence, and has been properly underpinned, is it at any greater risk of subsidence than the average house?
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i underpinned an old house i bought 10uyrs ago and was told it would not move anymore. hard work though as i did it myself by hand digging
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The house will probably be fine after underpinning, but in these tough mortgage times, you won't get an ordinary mortgage to buy it. That kills its value.
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The house I am in now has been underpinned, as has my neighbours'.
Two techniques were considered in underpinning our houses: concrete injection and piles.
In the former, the footings are excavated and concrete is poured beneath; effectively, you get a foundation beneath the existing foundation.
In the latter, steel piles are driven vertically down until a certain resisitance is met; apparently there are various techniques used to transfer the load on the walls to the piles, but in my house the entire concrete floor was removed before the piles were inserted and after they were in position a horizontal grid of steel rods was welded to the piles. This was incorporated into a concrete raft which extends under the walls.
The second (and presumably more expensive) technique was used here owing to the variable structure and stability of the subsoil.
I was told the piling system makes a building as solid as is possible - more solid than any standard foundation.
In fact, there had been no subsidence here. However, my neighbours' house had suffered from this and a survey concluded the problem with the subsoil extended under part of my property. Under the new buildings NHBC scheme I was offered the underpinning as a precaution. My insurance has been unaffected.
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Some useful explanations and cautions here:
www.designsonproperty.co.uk/articles/Underpinned-property-buying-selling
Students of the Philosophy of Underpinning might like this
www.buildingconservation.com/articles/underp/underp.htm
It sounds as if it should be approached with great caution and expert advice. It will inevitably cast some kind of blight over the house, if only in the minds of prospective buyers.
It's a fashionable remedy to require nowadays, egged on by the anti-tree brigade, and of course supported by the building industry.
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Many houses in former mining areas are underpinned.
No impact on mortgageability or insurance.
Quite the reverse, in some places you'd struggle to get a mortgage if it had not been underpinned.
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Obviously different if the whole area is affected by subsidence from mining.
But in an ordinary suburban row where one house has a long-standing small crack, the modern tendency is to rush to chop down all trees within 100 yards and spend thousands on unnecessary underpinning.
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Thanks for the input folks. Much appreciated.
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A bit late to reply (back from Greece this evening).
We looked at buying a house and found it was "underpinned" from the survey. We asked questions and the sellers (children of the previous owner) were initially reluctant to say it was. Then provided lots of info. The front of the house had been rebuilt off new foundations.
We didn't want to proceed. When I did searches myself at the council offices (looking up another property) I found the party wall had later been underpinned.... years after the front was rebuilt.
The clue to us was the rendered gable wall but we accepted someone had just done it. But I suspect the render hid another story.
We were reassured by all that the current insurer would have to insure for us too. But on checking some would and some would not. So we ran... and mortgages were not a problem for us but might when we resold.
I suspect the house sold without a proper survey as it sold for full price - we'd got it accepted at less.
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Underpinning - nyx2k
