bath along or across joists? (further stories from the house from hell)

[Seri]

Save me please from the house that bodger built.

Short: This house has the bath running 'along' the joists, a crack has developed in the back wall that the bath runs against. Could the weight of the bath have caused this crack? Should the bath be running 'across' the joists?

Long: This house was purchased from Wayne and Waynetta slob, they purchased it from Waynes DIY bodger father. This house needs rewiring. This house needs new ceilings. This house needs a new boiler. This house needs some new radiators. This house needs new windows.

You get the idea, this house needs a lot of work and had a masterful spot of cosmetic cover up done to it before it was put on the market for a mug like me to buy. My own fault, should have paid out for a full survey.

It does mean that I can't trust anything in this house to have been done properly. When I first saw the crack appear on the back wall of the kitchen, after pondering a little, I thought that when they had moved the back door across the wall a little they simply hadn't put in the proper supporting blocks. Now that I can see the crack runs all the way up to bathroom I'm wondering if it could be caused instead by the weight of the bath being only on one or two joists.

Could this be the case?

Any help would be extremely appreciated as whenever I look around this house now days I simply see £ signs instead of anything else.

Thanks for any help.

Seri

[John]

It may be worth your while contacting a solicitor to discuss any possible claim on the vendor under the defective premises act which covers new build and may cover renovations or alterations. Try asking in uk.legal

[Michael McNeil]

In the meantime go around to their new hovel with a gang of mates and put biggish holes in all their windows, just to get thm in the right frame of mind, as it were.

I never heard of a bath doing that. It is not that heavy even when in use -which is not usually 24/7 is it? If the crack is running diagonal from one of the corners of the frame to the bathroom it is a major catastrophe.

Glad to be able to help.

[Cicero]

================== If the bath is resting on joists parallel to the back wall then it's unlikely that this has caused the damage because the weight of the bath will be on the other two walls - those at right angles to the back wall. The joists are supported by walls at their ends not by the wall running parallel with them.

If you're in doubt about the original position of the bath look for signs on the floor under the bath such as unused holes in the floor for pipework, battens for the feet of the bath etc. A bodger will always leave traces of their bodging! If you're still in doubt get a surveyor to look at it.

Cic.

[Hugo Nebula]

On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 12:18:49 GMT, a particular chimpanzee named Seri randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Strictly speaking, floor joists under baths should be doubled. In practice however, unless the joists are at their maximum span and the bath is a cast-iron affair, it's probably not necessary. If the joists were overloaded the floor would sag in the centre before anything else. It would have to be seriously overloaded for it to affect the bearings, and even then it would crush the timber before the masonry.

[Michael McNeil]

Most baths are fitted up against the wall thus the maximum strength of the joist is in play. Howver it might be worth checking if the floor joists have been messed with. And are they fitting into their housings in the wall or in their hangers?

To find all this out, and to check you have the required joist sizes and spacings you must take up a portion of the floor. It may sound daunting but it will only require a cheap electric saw costing about £20, a handful of screws to replace the board and a very patient wife C/W dustpan & brush.

[Michael McNeil]

I tell you what we haven't got on here: is a thread about how to conduct a survey. Anyone got the know-how?

I know what the reps from Rentokil were told to do on their first call was to walk in the front door and go around the whole house and out the back door. It gaves them an idea what to expect. Experienced reps would "know" exactly what and where to look for, for the in depth survey.