So, a short while ago I demolished the old wooden shed which was an absolute mess and this has revealed that the garden wall between separating next door and us has been left "flying" without support and where the render has been removed, blocks can be seen to be bending in a significant downward arc.
It appears a previous owner of the house wanted a platform for the shed and removed all of the supporting soil and "T" base of the foundation on this side of the wall and actually dug under the foundation of the wall, leaving it in the aforementioned "flying" state.
The wall is key. It's very approximately 12ft high on our side and 6ft on the neighbours side, effectively holding his side path in place and potentially would expose his foundations if the wall were to fail. Plus of course we would get multiple tons of soil and brick, block against the wall of our house and the potential damage that would cause. The wall would have been 6ft high on our side too if all the soil and support hadn't been removed.
This is not covered by insurance as it is self inflicted idiocy by a previous owner.
I have had a chat to our solicitor and he has looked at the survey and reckons it won't be practical to sue the surveyor because they couldn't move the shed or see around the back of it and it says so in the survey.
The solicitor is also of the opinion that whilst the wall is the neighbours responsibility it is clear that someone on our side undermined it and therefore we will be stuck with the bill to repair it as we can't prove who did it, legal action would likely to be fruitless.
We got half a dozen quotes which varied wildly, with some being more than the cost of a new SUV - £40k - what you need to do is demolish the wall, shore up next door's property, then rebuild the wall etc. etc. etc. down to £2k. We decided to go with a small local firm who has been in business for over 30 years and has a good local reputation. His quote was £5k. He did a lot more "examination" of the wall then the other companies as well. The quote is in writing though it does exclude "unforeseen" events - as do all of the other quotes. Quite amusing with his "who the eff did this, omg, can't believe they did that". He was the only one who came around ready to work. He was anecdotally of the opinion that as the damage was done on our side of the wall, morally we should be fixing it.
Acrows have been under the wall for a few weeks now - done by the contractor that first evening he visited - just in case. The rest of the materials were delivered today. Underpinning starts tomorrow.
Neighbour has been very reasonable and has offered to pay for half of the repair and has already sent round a labourer to help our contractor at his expense and has paid his half for the prep work so far.
Unfortunately, to keep the cost reasonable, we are going to have to have some support piers on our side of the wall.
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Blimey Zip, if you didn't have bad luck you'd have no luck at all.
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Cripes ! Do the Lottery this week, some good luck gotta fall on you ! Makes my garden umbrella blowing over seem almost trivial in the great scheme of things !
Ted
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Agree with the above. However tradespeople available for a moderately large job at short or medium term notice are like hen's teeth round here. Wonder why yer man isn't so busy?
Slight drift...I've had a retired plasterer here today doing some painting (hall, stairs, ceiling, mist coat so far, ceilings tomorrow then finish walls Wed/Thurs). He just can't resist passing an opinion on other peoples work, and I've learnt today that we've had a lot of bad luck with our tradespeople in the past!! :-)
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>> Hens teeth...
I know. It's been 8 weeks since his first visit so not an instant response save for being the only one to turn up ready to do some emergency work and he made it clear that if we didn't go with him there would be no hard feelings.
I couldn't resist downloading his accounts from Companies House and have done a credit search. There has been a growing tangible net worth over 20 years (older accounts had to be ordered) and low liabilities. A constant dozen staff over the last 5 years. There are no CCJs registered.
Some other candidates didn't pass financial muster.
>> other trades people...
I think sacking teeth and saying oh this is gonna cost, what idiot did that us part of the city and guilds trades person training:-)
Last edited by: zippy on Mon 28 Apr 25 at 17:20
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Goodness, these men can work. I am exhausted watching them.
They have manually dug the gap out further and have already put in one pin. The mixer has been going non-stop.
Another has made cuts where the wall comes to an end and has not been mated to the end square of the wall and is peeling away. He has has inserted a number of steel reinforced concrete lintels to bind them together and support the blocks that were heading downhill.
Next door, who is a civil engineer has come to inspect and said that he is impressed.
Have taken out a bucket of cold beers and pasties. Had to get some vegan ones in (surprised me).
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The builders have been delayed a little.
They found that the wall has been built around next-door's gas pipe. It looks like it's in good nick.
They are going to leave it there but it needs protecting from the concrete that is going to be poured. Who knows if the bits of the pipe that we can't see have been protected?
So one is off to get a protective sleeve from the builders merchants. Goodness knows what'll happen if it ever needs repairing.
I'm off to get a bucket of cold drinks and pasties for them.
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Sounds like you have struck very lucky with your builders. Definitely should be looking at a lottery ticket this week.
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They turned up on Friday morning at about 10:30, and worked until mid-day. Then packed it in - far too hot and close - and it was. They were digging out room for the second and third pin.
They are back today! 10:30. Have gone through 12 colas already. Have put another pack in the fridge.
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About 12 tonnes of concrete poured so far to create the pins.
There is a workman on site today!
Considering the numbers of workers and material involved, I have been a bit concerned about the cost, even though the quote was £5k, it did have an unforeseen circumstances clause.
I called the owner of the company on Friday and he said the only extra charge so far is £20 for protection for the gas pipe found.
I am having them re-render the wall after and that will be another £1k.
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Our House Keeps on Giving... - Robin O'Reliant
