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As of 1971, insurance policies began to cover the damage from ground movement. The policies define ground movement to include not only subsidence but also heave, landslip, and water damage caused by leaks from underground drainage or water supply services. The movement and damage affect buildings and their structures.
Several factors may lead to significant foundation movement. For one, loose, granular, or sandy soils can adversely affect groundwater and lead to settlement, which is also known colloquially as “sinking.” This problem hardly ever occurs in the absence of human activity, such as housing development, road building, or the mining of metals, minerals, and fossil fuels. Even when development and mining are finished, the places where they happened often continue to subside, and engineers have found it very difficult to make a long-range forecast of the amount that will be sunk or the prospect of when it will stop.
Subsidence policies are designed to cover when the ground beneath a building sinks, causing structural damage. But this is not a straightforward matter when it comes to making a claim, as the policies are not standardised, and the interpreting of “subsidence” can vary.
Because our panel of CIOB, RPSA and RICS surveyors inspects so many subsidence problems, they almost always have the opportunity to guide insurers, loss adjusters appointed by the insurers, and the insured about the technical and engineering elements of subsidence claims. If your claim involves our panel of surveyors, they will provide advice based on their primary role: structural engineers who are consultative as well as “forensic” in nature.
For your surveyor to work effectively, they must maintain constant communication with the parties that matter throughout the crucial phases of any project. This is because the communication of you and your surveyor together with all the parties that matter is vital for you all to agree on what’s next for further investigations and anything else that might have to be done.
The reason that the communication of you and your surveyor is so vital is that a subsidence investigation and its necessary repairs can involve a fair amount of money; normally, your insurance will handle this, but the event has to qualify as an insured event.
The majority of constructions experience a certain level of movement and damage, yet this does not necessarily derive from ground or foundation shifts. It may stem from causes like thermal expansion/contraction or shrinkage.
The subsidence report contains these sections:
A conclusion is drawn with the relevant recommendations for remedial action to ensure further subsidence is prevented.
By surveying the ground and its various layers, experts can ascertain many things about it. For one, they can determine its geological make-up—that is, what kinds of rocks and sediment it contains and how those diverse materials interact with one another both in their natural state and when disturbed by human activity.
More than that, subsurface experts such as geologists and geotechnical engineers can tell us about the relatively recent history of an area on the basis of what they find underground. Surveyors know a great deal about the geological history of our planet and even quite a bit about the deep subsurface of our immediate regions because of the kinds of detailed investigations our experts carry out on a regular basis.
It may not be possible to determine the nature or extent of any foundational movement just by studying the cracks. To really get an idea of what might be going on with the structure’s foundation, a full investigation of the site and the surrounding area is called for. This means checking out the kinds of soil and the way water behaves in it, both through and around the foundation and down to bedrock, if there is any. The structural engineer who works for you may want to do this checking himself, using an assortment of methods.
Besides fluctuating water levels, your surveyor must look at environmental factors to see what else might be causing the ground to move in Notting Hill. For your purposes, the risk posed by trees and their roots is probably the most significant. The soil is certainly a factor, with a high concentration of moisture making our clay-rich subsurface an attractive sedimentary environment.
Foundation stabilization and underpinning are necessary when a house shows signs of subsidence. When you start digging into the cause of the problem, you find that it usually stems from one of three things: poor drainage, which can lead to water pooling where it’s not supposed to; poor ventilation that can cause oversized trees to wreak havoc with the roots; or just the failure of the construction materials themselves. Put these things together, and you’ve got potential trouble with the groundwater that’s just beneath your feet.
Similar to excavating the ground, underpinning also has to give due regard to the likely impact on neighbouring buildings or structures. Where there is ground movement affecting the building or structure, remedial work to strengthen the affected building or structure is possible if the ground movement is due to the failure of a retaining wall, landslip, slope instability, or creep.
The ways in which retaining walls and ground slope stabilization are constructed have the advantage that they do not require the kind of deep foundations that demand extensive earth-moving efforts.
When the remedial work is underway, it is necessary for your surveyor or engineer to have either complete control or part control over the work. Either way, it is absolutely essential that they ensure the work is carried out in accordance with the project agreement and the remedial scheme.
Following the successful completion of the work, the surveyor or engineer must sign off on the work as part of the overall successful remediation project.
The scheme recommended to fix the problem is to repair the damage done to the building or structure. Of course, your surveyor or engineer will also advise on stabilizing the foundation, and that might involve some pretty major work—underpinning, major structural repairs, anchorages for retaining walls, injection grouting, specialized groundworks, and so on.
The selection of contractors who submitted tenders for the building contract controls the remedial program, allowing the program to remain on course. The selection of best-priced is essential to the quality of the program’s outcome. Paying the contractors at the right times until they achieve practical completion has been equally important to keep the project on track as well.
Usually, insurers are not very agreeable to paying the bill for a domestic engineer. That is because domestic engineers, like any good professionals, usually cost a lot to hire.
If you suspect subsidence, the first thing to do is get in touch with a specialist. For most people, this will mean contacting your home insurance company, as policies typically cover problems that arise from subsidence. Once you have done that, a surveyor will be appointed to investigate the issue. Your inspector will then contact your local authority (at least in England and Wales) to get access to historical records. These records are pertinent because they help establish whether there are long-standing problems with the property that predate the current owner’s occupancy.
A panel of surveyors who specialize in subsidence works in Notting Hill. They survey and investigate the cause and condition of structures that have subsided. Sometimes, a proposal is made to supplement the original construction.
Homeowners face a serious predicament when it comes to the issue of subsidence—one that has the potential to harm the very foundations of their houses and, subsequently, their worth.
The slow but steady sinking of the ground, known as subsidence, causes the affected structures to settle unequally. The most common and natural cause of subsidence occurs when the soil under and around a house expands and contracts in response to changes in moisture levels. Other factors include:
Knowing what these are can help homeowners understand the condition of their property and take the necessary corrective measures to achieve relief.
This is a detailed investigation undertaken by a qualified surveyor or structural engineer of a building and the ground beneath it to establish whether subsidence has occurred. If it has occurred, the investigation will determine the extent of the subsidence and the rate at which it is happening.
The survey will involve a visual inspection of the building and the ground just around the building. They will conduct a level survey to establish any downward movement of the building, acting as a structural forensic expert to gather their evidence. At the end of the investigation, if the qualified surveyor has established that subsidence is a problem, they will write this into a subsidence report which documents their findings and the recommendations for fixing the building.
Survey prices can average around £700, but they can vary based on the size and location of the property and the complexity of the survey. If you think that your property has a serious problem with subsidence or are in the middle of a subsidence event, you should get a good, specialist evaluation of your property from a professional surveyor. It’s worth dealing immediately with the potential problems that subsidence can cause.
Our panel of Land Surveyors and Notting Hill subsidence specialists carry out detailed structural surveys of buildings that are suspected to be subsiding. They carry out RICS levels 2 and 3 surveys of the properties, which enables them to find general defects that are affecting the property. They carry out a thorough examination of both the internal and external elements of the building and also assess the likely environmental impacts that may be influencing the building. If a building is found to be undergoing subsidence, a report is commissioned that gives a detailed explanation of how and why the subsidence is happening.
The inclusion of subsidence damage in insurance policies varies among insurers and policy specifics. Costs to repair subsidence are often covered within homeowners and commercial property insurance. Nonetheless, it is important to check your specific policy wording or consult the website of the Financial Ombudsman for more information.
The most effective methods involve work that is done before any subsidence occurs. These are a few activities that you can do to work toward that goal:
When there are concerns that a house might be in danger of subsidence, the owners will call a surveyor to investigate. Most often, the surveyor will be from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) or Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA) and the investigation will occur as part of either a RICS level 2 or level 3 Building Survey.
If the surveyor suspects subsidence might be affecting the property, they may call in a structural engineer and issue a report. The report will address the visual condition of the property, trying to ascertain weaknesses that might have arisen in the building due to ground movement. The surveyors and structural engineers will attempt to pinpoint some likely suspects that could be causing substandard conditions for the home.
The survey report determines what likely caused the subsidence damage and sketches out what may need to be done—initial risk assessment and possible remedial action—to curb any further movement and limit what might have been done to the house. One of the options a structural engineer might recommend is underpinning the home to keep the foundation solid and the house stable.
Understanding what caused the earth to move, what might have happened to the house as a result, and what can be done about it will impart some much-needed knowledge to anyone contemplating the purchase of a home that has been affected by subsidence, which we would typically caution you against.
Detecting issues as early as possible can help you to prevent further damage to your property. Some signs to look out for include:
You can still sell a house that has a known subsidence history, but it will probably affect your property’s market value and how enticing it is to buyers. A subsidence report done by a qualified surveyor can set forth the house’s subsidence story with some transparency; it can also document any remedial work done on the house, which might, in the eyes of some buyers, make it a more attractive prospect.
Subsidence in structures can have disastrous effects on the integrity of buildings and negatively impact the worth of property. The last-resort remedy used to counteract this defect is a technique called underpinning, which can cause further problems if not done correctly and is not to be undertaken lightly. This technique, when used properly, serves to support and reinforce the foundation of a structure that is experiencing subsidence.
One method for stabilizing a subsiding building is underpinning, which protects your property by providing a strong, stable base. This is a method that can be used to protect several different kinds of structures, both residential and commercial. It can be used in cases where the ground is shifting or expanding in an adverse way.
Underpinning has one major disadvantage: the powerful hydraulic machines that dig down to the depth of the undisturbed soil can be dangerous and can do damage to the property and cause more movement if the workers aren’t careful. As these works could do more harm than good, it’s vitally important to pick a contractor that knows what they are doing.
Looking for a Chartered Surveyor? If you are buying a property, contact us for a building survey. Our panel of CIOB, RPSA and RICS surveyors will help you with the Level 2 or Level 3 property survey you need in Notting Hill. We can also assist you in Red Book Valuations, Party Wall Awards and other services. Reach out to us today for building surveyors, valuers and party wall surveyors in London!
