sloping bedroom floor

[jane]

I brought a house 14 years ago. Its rented to a group of students. The floor of the bedroom is sloping so that there is a noticable angle as you walk across the room from one end to another. It has not got worse. The surveyor at the time of the purchase did'nt say anything about this although I don't have the survey report any more. Last week I noticed that a crack appeared in the rendering at the front of the house, it was about 2mm wide and 1.5m long. It had not been there a month ago! The neighbour told me that 5 years ago she had her house underpinned because of subsidance. Her insurance company paid for it to be done. I have two queries about this one of them OT.

1. A tenant asked me if the floor was likely to collapse. Just how much of a slope can a bedroom floor have before it becomes a hazard?
2. Insurance question here. If I contact my insurance company they might say that the house has slight subsidance. I have only had this insurance company 18 months, could they look at the floor and say the problem has been there more than 10 years and they are therfore not liable to pay for the repairs to floor and any possible underpinning? When my insurance comes up for renewal in 6 months should I mention the sloping floor and cracks to the new company before signing a contract, thereby excluding myself from insurance cover? Any one with experience of this problem would be most welcome to give me some advice. Sorry if its of topic.

[Mike]

Assuming the surveyor did a decent job then the subsidence is recent, the outward signs of subsidence is cracks such as the one described so it sounds like it might be a recent problem or has been stable for years and now has got worse.

If the slope in the floor is noticeable and was due to subsidence I would expect a lot of cracks in walls inside and out. If you haven't then I would assume it was just built badly or there was severe subsidence which was repaired before you bought the house in which case you may not have a problem beyond fixing the rendering.

Fixing the floor isn't a particularly expensive problem, take up the boards and use packing strips to level before relaying the boards.

You could get your own surveyor in and see what he says before approaching the insurance co.

Mike

[Bypass]

House construction is generally quite robust and can tolerate quite a lot of structural movement before falling over (mine shafts and other sub-subterranean features excluded!). Provided the joists aren't pulling out of the wall, then there should be no immediate concern regarding potential collapse of the floor.

It really depends who your insurance company is, as to how they approach your claim. There could be some resistance to putting right any damage that occurred before they came on risk, in which case you might have to go through your whole insurance history. This is one of the reasons why it does not pay to chop and chap insurance company's on a regular basis.

If you tell the insurance company that you knew about the damage before you took out the insurance cover, then in the very worst case you could lose your right to a claim altogether.

The only way you'll find out is to put in the claim. If you've got any concerns regarding overall structural stability, then you should do something about it immediately.