I believe my home (owned by local housing association) is broken.
There are significant cracks in the floor slab, the steel sheets have begun to peel back at the front gable corner (i can see daylight through the gap from inside the house pic included), the dpc has failed (i can poke multiple 12" bamboo skewers through various parts of the cracked/dropped/moved floor slab, leaving a couple of inches sticking out), there is very obvious subsidance along the front of the property (towards the gable end), there is a large chunk of external concrete burst away from the rear corner stanchion........ there are far too many issues to list right now.
Please can someone who has better knowledge of this type of construction help me?
My housing association has sent a structural engineer 3 times now, and each time he has returned a report that is, in my opinion, not worth the money they paid for it (im still awaiting the 3rd report)
They are saying there is no concern, they want to resin the floor, put a sheet of plywood over it, rebuild the internal wall, job done.
Can anyone have a look at these and tell me if I am just being silly & there is nothing to worry about, or am I right & there are some serious structural failings and it needs a professional experienced with this form of construction to rectify the problems properly??
I anyone wants more pictures/vids, or even to see the engineers reports (I will only post the contents, ill leave names/companies out) please just ask, I have many many photos of the various issues & stages of works
(they already started to attempt to cover it up, internal wall painted, wooden battens & wall studs replaced)
Thanks in advance!
Hi Cal-Scot, welcome to our forum.
I've picked your post up quite late today, as it's the early hours of Friday morning. I could definitely do with seeing the original surveyors report and additional images of the property to determine the year of build i.e. 20's/40's.
Please feel free to forward anything you don't wish to share publicly to me directly at [email protected] and I'll try to do my best to give you my view on what might be happening to your property.
From what I' have already seen so far, you're definitely not being silly at all. You appear to have some potentially serious issues going on there, but it would help if I could see more images of both the interior and exterior of the house. One or two of the loft space might be good too, but not vital at this stage.
Thanks for posting your concerns and I look forward to your reply.
Regards T.C
Hi TC
just wondering if you have had a chance to look over the photos/reports yet?
I already have a reasonably good idea what is/has been happening, but having someone else with more knowledge & experience would be helpful.
personally, I believe there is a void/subsidence underneath the front gable end. This has caused the front of the house to drop unevenly and as a result of that, it is twisting/buckling.
What I am basing my assumption on: uneven broken floor, there is a significant drop along one of the cracks. (Context, the sticks coming out the floor slab are 30cm bamboo skewers, which we were able to push easily through some of the cracks at least 2/3’s of the length of the skewers
The steps leading to the upstairs flat, are supposed to be flush with the rear wall, however they protrude past by about an inch at the top, but practically flush at the bottom.
Using a laser-level, the internal gable wall has at least a 20-25mm
drop from the cupboard to the front wall, which is only approximately 50% of the length of the wall.
the ground in front of this end of the property has visibly dropped over the last couple of years, potentially accelerated by the removal of a tree which was within 1m of the front gable end corner, which also had a blocked rainwater drain for many years, (reported to housing association multiple times, only just cleared properly last aug/sept)
The rear corner stanchion is supposed to be fully encased in concrete, yet there is a large chunk burst away, exposing the baseplate which also seems to have some deformation and the nut/bolt showing signs of severe corrosion.
just looking at the front of the building and you can see the uneven-ness of everything! Not even just at the front!
if there are any Structural Engineers reading this and believe they may be able to help with a survey to counter the survey done through my housing association, please message me here (pro-bono would be fantastic, reduced fee would be great, full price would be difficult for me, but I would still be willing to)
I feel I am running out of routes/options to fight the HA who just want to cover it up (resin the floor & put wood over it) but not actually fix any of the underlying problems the house actually has!