Collapsing path!
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Hi Guys,
I hope its okay to place this question here.I was looking at a property at the w/end which I’m very interested in buying but one thing i noticed was that part of the path had broken off.
The back path runs along the house and around the utility room which extends in to the garden.Where the path runs along the front of the utility room, the whole section has broken off.
I also noticed that the wall between that house and its neighbour has a serious crack(about .5 cm) and finally the cement bricks that the oil tank is on has moved sideways about 4 inches.
Its hard to describe this and a picture would show it obviously.
The garden appears to be quite wet and the soil level appears at least 4 inches below the surrounding path.To me it appears that for some reason the path collapsed(foundations set on uncompacted soil?) and that caused the oil tank bricks to shift(as these are adjactent to the path). Finally I think the wall cracked as about 3 foot of the wall would have been sitting on the path which collapsed.
Anybody any experience on this? I’m just wondering if I should forget about this property
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Its hard to comment with out any idea of the degree of these problems, if you take a picture and put it up here it would help alot. Settlement cracks are common and that is probably what is wrong with the wall. Can’t really say about the bricks under the tank because i’m not really sure what you mean. And the path may not have been laid right. But like I said, hard to tell with out a picture, may be a little or large problem.
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This looks like an issue of subsidence in the garden rather than a structural issue with the house itself. The oil-tank is built up on loose concrete blocks so I wouldn’t worry too much about cracks there. I also doubt that the garden wall has proper foundations. Fom what I can see of the corner of the house there doesn’t seem to be cracks on the external wall, that would be your main worry.
But definitely a structural engineer would be your best bet. I think the bank requires you to have a survey anyway for a mortgage. -
@maggie wrote:
This looks like an issue of subsidence in the garden rather than a structural issue with the house itself. The oil-tank is built up on loose concrete blocks so I wouldn’t worry too much about cracks there. I also doubt that the garden wall has proper foundations. Fom what I can see of the corner of the house there doesn’t seem to be cracks on the external wall, that would be your main worry.
But definitely a structural engineer would be your best bet. I think the bank requires you to have a survey anyway for a mortgage.I would agree with all the above..What is the black pipe like thing in the right side of the photo ?
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@kilman wrote:
Is it a matter of ripping up the path laying tons of soil and then making the path again.
Could there be pipes running through the garden that could be broken due to the subsidence(causing it to be wet)Yeah, I’d be a little worried that the surface water pipes from the G.T. would be damaged from the subsidence of the path – in which case you’ve a whole lot of water landing on the foundation of the house. Anyone else care to comment on that?
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Collapsing paths are only a part of our probelm… We have sinking floors, collapsing paths, collapsing walls and are now getting very worried. However, everyone who sees it including the engineer don’t seem to be too concerned. It appears we have 2 problems. One of subsidence in the land which is effecting the garden and boundary walls. The other is that our foundations although strong are not technically correct and have made our insurance null and void. We have a slab foundation but with contemporary house wall foundations to 8 blocks… HELP it’s all getting too technical for us and we have a “massive” crack in the lounge wall where the chimney foundation has sunk below the level of the wall foundations.
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