House foundations (bungalow).

[Tim S]

House B B B B Paving B B Soil B B Soil **** 1 CCC **** CCC CCCCCCC Hole CCC CCCCCCC CCC CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

That's the side section of the middle of a single extension.

B are the two leaves of a cavity wall

• is a concrete strip foundation, about 4-6" deep and 2-3 courses of brick below ground.

Strip concrete sits on solid (I mean the purest and finest solid) clay.

The front of the strip (1) has been chopped off for 1m in the middle of a 5m wall by previous builders to bring drain out.

I have a hole open as I'm tweaking teh drains to add a vent stack.

Regarding 1m of the strip foundation being removed, would folk recommend:

a) Fill in the hole and forget b) Face of the exposed clay under the wall with 6" thick (front to back) concrete upto the intact foundation either side c) Ask the BCO?

It's not going anywhere today, but, as the hole's open...

Cheers

Tim

[Tim S]

Tim S coughed up some electrons that declared:

Here's the offending item:

asked BCO to come and have a look. I expect he'll say something like "shutter it off and fill it with concrete" which is fine by me...

[The Natural Philosopher]

On clay? Id start digging to underpin that now..while you have the hole open.

I think my shallowest strips foundations were 1 meter on 'solid clay'

[Tim S]

The Natural Philosopher coughed up some electrons that declared:

Well, the house has been there nearly 60 years - I'm not going to start worrying about that now...

The bit I'm worrying about is the bit that was fiddled with...

[Tim S]

Tim S coughed up some electrons that declared:

Well, a very stressed by helpfull BCO turned up today (half term - he's on his own).

Said, that it wasn't too bad and probably wouldn't fall down if the hole was repacked solidly. But, he said that a weak concrete infill would do no harm whatsoever, and for a bit of belt and braces, resin a few studs into the existing strip so the infil concrete stays attached and helps hold in the clay.

So that's what we're doing. All shuttered up - got some resin mortar anyway. Grab some studding tomorrow and job will be done.

BCO took more interest in my fireplace where the old lintel overlapped the bricks by all of 50mm, then some numpty had come along later and choped the corners off both edges.

This resulted in the lintel with somewhat reduced support slipping a couple of mm, a nice triangular crack up the joints of the bricks above and a section of plaster coming loose because it had better support than the bricks.

BCO has recommended wedging 2 50x50 lumps of angle iron in bolted each side of the opening to wedge the lintel up. Ho hum - another job - but a simple one...

I can even see how it all came about - picture yourself back in the 70's...

Someone's SWMBO: I really like this fire place wotsit - we must have it for this fire. Bloke: It won't fit. SWMBO: Of course it will - and you always say you can do DIY things...

x-weeks of nagivation later...

Bang bang bang! There it fits - happy dear?

SWMBO: Plaster seems loose. Can you fix that too? Bloke: !$@%%*