Damage from piling next door

[Invisible Man]

Our neighbours are having a new extension built to their house.

Piling started yesterday. Vibration can be felt and noise from things vibrating in cupboards.

Is there any requirement to notify such work?

Are they liable for any damage caused?

They haven't spoken to us since they caused some damage to our property over a year ago let alone apologised or offered to try and remedy the situation. Absolutely no point trying to talk to them.

Thanks for any replies. Hopefully there will be no damage.

Also posted in uk.legal.moderated

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Their builder should have insurance against such things.

[meow2222]

When it was done here they employed surveyors to check the nearby properties before and after the work. OTherwise its hard to prove when any damage occurred - so the risk may be yours in practice.

NT

[Cash]

Yes, particularly under the Party Wall Act if the are working within a certain distance of it (6metres if I remember correctly) - and there should have been a Building Control and Planning Consent application to the local authority (note there are exemptions to this, so go and talk to the Building Control Officer at the council). Also ask about the Party Wall Act, because if the works do come under this, a party wall inspector must (can) be appointed to oversee the works covered by that act.

Yes - Personally, through the builders insurance *or* both.

You must talk to them, or if that is impossible, try and sort it out through a mediator - failing that, through the legal profession.

There is a good possibility of that if they are actually 'piling' in the near vicinity of your property.

This is a brief response at the situation could be a possible minefield and you should be getting professional help (i.e the council to begin with) to obtain as much information as possible.

Cash.

[geraldthehamster]

See

especially Section 26:

"If you plan to: excavate,or excavate and construct foundations for a new building or structure, within 3 metres of a neighbouring owner=92s building or structure, where that work will go deeper than the neighbour=92s foundations (see diagram 6); or excavate, or excavate for and construct foundations for a new building or structure, within 6 metres of a neighbouring owner=92s building or structure, where that work will cut a line drawn downwards at 45=B0 from the bottom of the neighbour=92s foundations (see diagram 7) you must inform the Adjoining Owner or owners by serving a notice - see paragraphs

7 and 8."

So if their foundation works are within those distances, they should have served you a Party Wall notice.

I'd real the whole booklet.

Regards Richard

[Cash]

Richard,

Thanks for that snippet, my memory was a little sketchy on this, and I have just rooted out my copy of the Party Wall Act Explained - and I had forgotten the 3 metre rule.

Cash

[Invisible Man]

Gerald & Cash

Thanks for your help. The nearest pile will be at least 4 meters away from my foundations and I rather doubt whether the piles are deeper than 4m.

The piles look to be about 20cm diameter. I suspect the Party Wall Act relates to removal of support for neighbours foundations whereas I am more interested in the vibration aspect.

No new cracks or pictures falling off the walls yet.

[John Rumm]

How are they driving the piles? Typically they use auger piling machines in these cases that don't make anything like the noise and vibration you get from impact piling machines.

[Invisible Man]

Not a big rig but it lifts a long cylindrical weight and then drops it inside what I take to be the pile every few seconds. Cannot get a clear view but every so often it stops and there appears to be flashes from welding. Seems a lot of effort for a single story extension but there are a lot of tree roots in the area and we are on clay soil. The roof is going to be tiled and have velux windows so hopefully they are not intending to add another story any time soon. They have been at it for 2 days but are having a day off today. Extension will be about 8m x 3.6m and I have no idea how much more this will entail.

[John Rumm]

A friend of mine used to run a piling business doing this sort of thing. They would auger the hole first, and then insert a steel pile casing. This was the only bit that needed hammering into the ground once the hole was drilled. The casing comes in lengths - each length is tapped into place and the next one welded onto it. You keep knocking in casing until you reach the bottom of your hole (or til - "refusal").

Once the casing is in place, rebar is assembled and lowered in, and then it is filled with concrete. Once you have some piles in place the rebar sticking out of the top is then incorporated into reinforcement for a beam foundation, which is then shuttered up and poured. You end up with a foundation that is well and truly nailed in place!

Probably not more than a few days for the piling at a guess. You would only need three or four piles to support each side of a 8m foundation beam.

[Invisible Man]

Thanks John

No sign of an auger to my untutored eyes. I cannot get a clear view anyway. Difficult to tell but they seem to be running the piles across the centre of the area parallel to the longer sides. The houses were built mid sixties so will probably not have very deep foundations. I have this vision of a very fixed extension with the original house moving up and down slightly as the local clay varies in wetness.

[Hugo Nebula]

Yep, that's exactly what happens.

[Invisible Man]

Thanks for all who posted.

I managed to have a word with the boss of the building firm. When they made trial holes they discovered the original house was on piles and the ground conditions were like tea leaves for 4m and very wet. Hence they had to unexpectedly pile for the extension.

Just hope our house is also piled. At least we shouldn't suffer from the large amounts of greenery in the area.

The plots used to be an old orchard and the ground slopes away on 2 sides. Could be some sort of old filled pit or pond I guess surrounded by clay which stops water running away. Might be very localised because

50 feet high ash trees about 60 feet away don't blow over. The topsoil in our garden is good and drains well. If there is a lot of wetness below perhaps that explains why some of our larger shrubs just keep getting bigger and bigger.

[Paul Matthews]

I may have missed - whereabouts in the country are you?

On the filled pit front the street my dad lives in is interesting. A small cul de sac, with houses all along both sides, but just one "plot" vacant - there is a little green space there. It appears to be the only street on the estate with such a vacant plot - the plot is the same size as all the others.

A little research suggests that it is the location of an old coal mine, but then round Bolton/Leigh/Wigan there are few places that will not have been within a short distance of a mine.

[Invisible Man]

I'm in mid-Essex so unlikely to be old coal workings!

[Andrew Gabriel]

My parents house is on an estate built in the 1950's. Most of the houses were bought before they started building them (my parents one included). There was an option to buy a double plot if you wanted a bigger garden, and a few of the houses did this. I suspect that with the plot being a much smaller portion of the total purchase price than today, a double plot probably wasn't much more expensive. In more recent years, I think all the double plot gardens have been split and a new house built in the garden.

In estates which predate WWII, you often ended up with an empty plot where a house got bombed. A few years ago, we drove around Sutton where my father was brought up, and he pointed out about 3 plots in what was his road where the houses had been bombed, each with a newer house built in it now of course, but that didn't happen until much later (one of them looked very new).