Under-pinning query

D

dubda

Registered User
Messages
11
Hi,

We recently put down a deposit on a house subject to an engineers report. The engineer rang us yesterday to say that the pipes are earthenware and some may be leaking which may contribute to one or two cracks within the house (built in the 70's). He suspects that the house 'may' need to be under-pinned but to organise a drain report first.

Has anyone gone down the route of under-pinning? Is it really a costly affair? He also said that the vendors insurance should cover it!!

Hope you can advise.

dubdad
 
dubda said:
... He also said that the vendors insurance should cover it!! ...
Click to expand...
Run away - fast. There's loadsa houses.

The vendor's insurance "should cover it"? What does that mean? Its a very imprecise statement for someone who claims to be an engineer to make, IMHO. Is he your engineer?

The vendor's insurance may cover it, but only if the vendor is living there, if their insurance is current and if their assessor agrees.

Its not your house, not your insurance, not your problem - please save yourselves tons of hassle and look at other houses.
 
Thanks mathepac,

But to be honest I would prefer to pursue the house anyway, rare gem, reduced already by quite a few quid. I asked our solicitor and he said that he had come across this before especially with houses from the 60's & 70's but that there only 3 options - vendors insurance (could take months!!), further reduction in price, vendor tells you to p'off and puts it back on the market.

What does not help the situation is it is an executors sale!

dubdad
 
What your solicitor may not be aware of is that if you buy a house with known and documented subsidence problems, even if "adequately" repaired, you may not be able to get a mortgage approved (which may not be an issue for you) but you may be unable to insure it.

Have a browse around the site - there are 1 or 2 posters with relatively minor claims who are having difficulty renewing existing policies or getting quotes to change companies, leaving their mortgages at risk of being called in. Some insurers seem to be availing of opportunities to divest themselves of what they see as risky business in the current climate.
 
Thanks for the heads up on this. No, a mortgage would not be necessary. We have a drainage report booked for monday eve to evaluate the situation. I do hope that its just a case of repairing some pipes and not a case of underpinning the property. P'haps the engineer is being a wee bit of an alarmest taking the date of the house / pipe make-up and saying maybe underpinning is needed!
 

This situation has arisen as a result of an escape of water from the earthenware service pipes at the house. These spiggot and socket type joints detach due to wear and tear which results in water escaping, undermining the fine soils underneath the foundation of the house and the house thus moves / drops and cracks appear. Most insurance policies cover damage as a result of such escapes of water. The method of fixing same involving supporting the subsiding walls of the house by either underpinning or pilling. Both of these methods involve exposing the foundations and inserting strengthening underneath same. Once the house has been supported, the cracking is simply filled in and cosmetic painting is then carried out. Of course the leaking pipes also need to be repaired and no insurance policy will pay for this as the damage has occurred due to wear and tear. If this was to happen to your house and it was insured, then you would be covered. However, in saying that, it's not your house and you don't know the insurance cover for the vendor i.e. are premiums up to date, is it covered on a fire only basis etc. The cost of underpinning a gable wall of approx. 8m in length costs circa €14,000 plus vat and then all the cosmetic work on top of that. If I were you I would insist the vendor has the work fixed or argeed to be paid for by his Insurers prior to signing anything or else have a structural engineer and a builder look at the job, give a quote for the repairs and add 10% to this, then knock this figure off the asking price. It is a gamble to purchase houses with structural problems as they can come back and bite you later. In saying that, these houses are undesirable to most so you could get a real bargain and as long as you have a competent engineer advising you, you could come out of it quite well.
 

As discussed in the Pyrite in the Foundations thread, there are many reasons for cracking in buildings.
Unless the crack occurs over or close to a pipe run, I would not have expected it to contribute to cracking of the superstructure.

Some of the cracking associated with buildings I have inspected have occurred due to poor foundations, especially at the point where an extension has been added and;
a) the foundation detail isn't appropriate and/or
b) the jointing between the new wall and the old wasn't design as a crack control joint.

In older properties you can sometimes see settlement cracks because an internal loadbearing partition is poorly founded, particularly below teh master bedroom in the lounge.
With the largest spans in the house, and teh greatest imposed load, the hall wall between the wall and lounge carries a significant load.

Cracking can arise when the rear elevation has had new opes installed

Also have a look in the general area and form an opinion of the geography.

  • Is the house built on a hill?
  • Are there signs of water run off across paths and road?
  • Discover whether other houses in the area exhibit similar cracking and if so why.

Significant movements of groundwater can cause cracking.

FWIW

ONQ.
 

I have come across this many times in my career where leaking pipes have caused foundation movement, if the cracks are on the walls of a three bed semi then chances are there is pipework very close by and thus quite likely to be causing the problem if they are cracked or have displaced joints. The piece you add about extensions is differential settlement and is quite common where an addition is added to the main house, this however doesn't appear to be the case here as there is no mention of extensions to the house. The fact that his engineer has suggested than the drains be cctv surveyed would obviously point to there being an issue with them. As rule of them, actual subsidence is very rare around the Dublin area but movement caused by leaking drains is very common. I see this sort of thing every week in my job.
 
Hi DavidM / ONQ,

Many many thanks for your informative replies. The house is actually 'detached', and in the past 5 years has had an addition to the rear. The engineer was more focused on the fact that the pipes were earthenware and therefore had a limited lifespan since the house was originally built in the early 70's.

He advised that we get a hydrostatic test to evaluate the situation.

dubda
 

Just because the house was built in the 70's and the pipes are earthenware doesn't mean that they will be leaking. All houses prior to the use of Wavin pipes in the 80's used earthenware and most are still ok. If the hydrostatic test shows up no leaks then the cracks are down to something else i.e. subsidence or more likely poor foundations. If this is the case, you may have to underpin the entire house and that is seriously costly and distruptive. If that turns out to be the case, I'd walk. It's one thing underpinning a gable wall, it's a completely different thing to do the entire house. Good luck!
 
We have a problem with subsidence at our 1950's house, part of which may be caused by a leaking drain. Our insurance company paid for a survey and repair by a specialist company who fed a camera down the drain, identified where the fault was and resleeved the earthenware pipes with a resin bonded sleeve. Job done without any excavation.

We live in England but I'd be suprised if you weren't able to get a similar job done over there.

I have to say that in your position I would walk away as suggested by previous responses.
 

Well, I'll thank you for that heads up DavidM because its a new one to me
I'm certainly aware of pipe problems in my line of work, but there in fact the opposite was the issue - in a new estate the joints were poor and the system was filling with groundwater and costing the Council an arm and a leg because it payed for sewage to be treated by the litre!

FWIW

ONQ.
 
Hi lads,

Just to give you an update. We had the hydrostatic tests and it showed that the pipes were indeed in a bad way with most needing to be replaced. However the pipe to join with the mains is pvc - thankfully, however its a long driveway and there is no man hole cover near the entrance which would need to be put in.

The engineer has therefore concluded that its safer that 2 sides of the house be underpinned. He feels that if we did go to sell the house ourselves in later years that the next buyers would insist that the house be underpinned! And the fact that the water must be going somewhere, i.e. under the house!

We have gone back to the vendors and they are getting an accessor to look at, hopefully their insurance will pay for the underpinning work though I do not know if it will cover the pipe laying.

dubdad
 

The insurance won't pay for the new pipes as the existing ones need replacement due to wear and tear associated with their age. You will have to pay for this yourself. The insurance pays for the resulting damage from the leak i.e. the underpinning.
 
As noted in my earlier post,our insurance company has paid for the necessary work to the leaking drain at our house. I paid £50 excess only.
I would suggest that the vendors should check their insurance policy.
 
Dubda, did you go ahead with purchasing this house and if so, how long did it take to underpin the house?
 
You are on about old house drains leaking. an enginner has just told me that my house should be checked at 10 years old, so what good is PVC and the design of new houses.
 
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