I'm looking at various properties at the moment. One near Spalding, Lincs, was built in the 1860s, but has been extended in the last several decades. It is a substantial detached house.
What kind of foundations would typically have been used for this type of property, given the location? I reckon if it's been there for almost 150 years, it isn't about to fall down! Oh, the kitchen apparently has a concrete floor (covered) and the entrance hall is Marley tiled.
MM
It might not have any. My 1820 built detached house near Wisbech certainly didn't have any. They just dug a substantial trench, then built directly on the clay. Once the structure was up and the roof on, it was left for about a year before any windows or doors were fitted.
Cheers Clive
Brick foundations were very common, and very strong. The bottom of the walls is typically flared out on Brick footings, often to a couple of feet wide: the ground pressure being reduced considerably.
Steve
Was that because they ran out of money or some attempt to acclimatize the building with its environment? I don't comprehend how a building built merely on clay, which we all know shrinks and swells like crazy, can stay up for almost two hundred years! Maybe this could be the answer to insurance claims for subsidence in the London clay region: No more underpinning; just remove any trace of existing foundations!
Anyway, joking aside, did that 1820 house shown any signs of settlement?
MM
Minimal.Prior to building regs, foundatins were as small as tehy could get away with. Most of the ones that were really substandard have already fallen down. The rest have settled and subsided and been patched up and will be relatively stable.
My old 17th century cottage proved to have no more than a course of bricks laid on what looked like quarry tiles straight on top of the clay.
If it shows no signs of stress cracking, it will be OK unless.
(i) you start adding a lot of weight, like new buidling worke ec.
(ii) the local soil conditions change dramatically. Trees - growing or being cut down, floods, cracked or collapsed sewers etc.
No comment.
All that will happen is that potentially without either a deep survey or substantal premium, you won't get it insured against heave and subsidence.
The vast majority didn't, thank goodness.
In article , Mike Mitchell writes
Our house was built in 1866 (at a cost of £600). In most places they seem to have just cut a trench in the clay, and built straight off that without any corbelled foundations at all. In other places there are brick-on-edge foundations.
The house obviously sunk as they were building it, as one side of the hall wall, which carries most of the weight of the roof, is a whole course lower than the other side.
Thanks to the neighbours trees, we suffered subsidence, and (albeit the only reason) we were glad we had used the Building Society's insurance, as it was based on their surveyor's report, and not on any forms we filled in, so we were able to point out to them that either the subsidence was pre-existing, and their surveyor had missed it, or it had happened since we bought it, in which case their insurance had to pay out.
The mess they made of partly underpinning it (which we subsequently found out was quite the wrong thing to do) is another story.
J.
On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 12:35:20 +0000, a particular chimpanzee named Peter Parry randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
Careful, you're starting to sound like IMM!
On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 10:54:51 +0000, a particular chimpanzee named Mike Mitchell randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
The mortar was generally very weak, which allowed the walls to 'move' without significant damage. Left alone, most of the movement in an older house caused by clay shrinkage will probably return to its original state once the clay recovers its moisture. Most of the underpinning carried out in the past 20 years is probably unnecessary, but driven by insurance claims.
Visions of IMM driving round Bath with one of those cranes with the wrecking ball on the end. Shudder..... Doesn't bear thinking about.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
I'm sure some houses in Bath need a wrecking ball.
Apparently the reason for leaving it for a year was to get the bulk of any movement out of the way and to let it settle. At that point windows and doors were fitted, safe (?) in the knowledge that they wouldn't need to much adjustment. By the time I'd bought the place any movement was long gone. The roofline sagged slightly at each end where the weight of the chimneys had caused the gable ends to sink slightly, and a couple of wall ties had been added about 50 years ealier when some piling work had been done to prevent bank erosion of the nearby drain (of the fenland type). However, there was no signs of any movement more recent than that. It was brick built with lime mortar, so basically quite a flexible structure able to adjust to movements in the clay.
Cheers Clive
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