Subsiding House

[JennyMorgan]

Just to add that, if I remember correctly, it was a boat shed but then it was 'rebuilt' as a house. I wonder about any surveyor's reports which could make interesting reading! My gut feeling is that the building has been added to and a heavy upstairs added and that, in part, might be the problem.

[Pepper1]

I used to live next door but one. I built a road next door through swamp land. I think this was owned by a friend from Sheffield who was a builder. At one time it was built with bricks at one side, warned by locals not a good idea. Next winter I saw water flowing in and out of the bedroom window it had sunk. This was in late 60,s or early 70,s. I belive it was pile driven to 60 feet but nothing firm found.

[Kron]

And last as usual BBC ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-48725482

 

 

[JennyMorgan]

The BBC has written 'A riverside home, worth about £831,000, that a couple in their 60s bought and renovated for retirement is sinking.' I wonder what it would be worth if it wasn't sinking? 

That aside I feel sorrow for the owners and I fear for the outcome of their insurance claim. Not sure where the buck will stop on this one but possibly someone has been ill advised, or not advised at all. I rather suspect that owners of similar properties will be looking closely at their insurance policies whilst insurance companies might well be demanding sight of recent survey reports.

 

[ChrisB]

We passed by yesterday and it really is something to behold. It looked to me that demolition, re-pile and frame up, then rebuild is probably the way forward.

[JennyMorgan]

The end that has sunk has a wide patio door over which is a dormer. After more than ten years involvement with the double glazing industry I can say with some conviction that in a four part patio door alone there is a huge amount of weight. Add to that if normal practice was followed then a steel beam would have been inserted above the doors in order to support the roof and the room above, another huge increase in weight. Of course I am only guessing but I suspect that renovations and 'improvements'  have been made with insufficient regard to the foundation of the building. That bay window would be horrendously heavy too. Assuming that the original glazing was single then inserting double glazing, by the nature of the beast, doubles the weight of glass alone. As I've asked before, where does the buck stop?

[grendel]

27 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

I can say with some conviction that in a four part patio door alone there is a huge amount of weight.

many years ago I was in the double glazed window industry, and we had an architect ask for doors half as big again as the maximum size, we of course complied after explaining the mechanism would be heavy to operate due to the additional weight of the glass, (they came in at 750 kg per door) after we had fitted it he complained we hadnt fitted security blocks to stop intruders lifting them off their tracks.The patio door was located in an enclosed courtyard, with the one wall that could have been climbed over being above the swimming pool in the middle, we did laugh.

[JennyMorgan]

47 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

We passed by yesterday and it really is something to behold. It looked to me that demolition, re-pile and frame up, then rebuild is probably the way forward.

Probably easier said than done but I suspect that that route is inevitable. I'm no expert but I wonder that now the integrity of the site has been disturbed whether subsequent costs might well exceed reasonable.  Nothing is impossible though!

[Coryton]

2 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

The BBC has written 'A riverside home, worth about £831,000, that a couple in their 60s bought and renovated for retirement is sinking.' I wonder what it would be worth if it wasn't sinking? 

Perhaps that was the pre-sinking price.

In any case the price will presumably be largely for the land - I don't think much of the continual increase in house prices is due to higher construction costs.

[Hylander]

I thought this was a holiday home, if so the owners will not be homeless. The description given makes it sound like two pensioners have lost their home. Glad I wasn't renting it when it went 'bang'.



Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[Turnoar]

If the water table wasn't so high there they could try out the expanded foam subsidence lifting system. I believe it was originally developed for jacking up sinking/twisting concrete runway slabs but I've seen evidence of it's use on traditionally built houses in Norfolk, albeit not in broadland probably for my opening gambit reasoning; it would need to be even all over & under given the service connection complications previously stated. There's at least one other broads edge building around on wooden piling which I'm aware of that has been highlighted as having a rotten issue to the owner that I'm aware of... caveat emptor!

[expilot]

Before retiring, I had lifted thirty-three riverside properties, including our own.  I can safely state that any riverside property built on timber piles will require serious remdiation sooner rather than later.  The timber pile that is permanently below ground and permanently wet will be as sound as the day it was driven.  The part of the pile that is above ground and permanently dry will be at least as sound as it was on the day the pile was driven.  The section between wet and dry, the part that is sometimes wet and sometimes dry will rot in decades.  The powers that be insisted on our sixties and seventies bungalows being supported on six inch square oak piles.  From experience of being instructed to stabilise a number of these properties, I doubt, today, if many of those piles have more than a quarter of their original timber at ground level or just below.

[garryn]

The house has now been demolished.

[CambridgeCabby]

A sad end for a majestic home 

[catcouk]

2 hours ago, garryn said:

The house has now been demolished.

It's probably for the best but it was quite a sight to see!

[garryn]

Another one disappeared in Horning

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, garryn said:

Another one disappeared in Horning

Wasn't that one just a Mobile home tarted up a bit?

[garryn]

Yes I would think that one has been demolished to build something better.

[JennyMorgan]

Was it demolished or has it simply just sunk beneath the surface? 

As for new build, grandiose & large is probably not the way forward! 

[grendel]

I would think it would be a good spot to build one of those dutch floating houses

[JennyMorgan]

37 minutes ago, grendel said:

I would think it would be a good spot to build one of those dutch floating houses

I have long thought that floating houses would be well suited to the Broads but I don't see it being allowing on the grand scale in the Authority's notional park. The obvious place to have allowed it would have been on Thorpe Island in what was Jenner's Boat Basin but that was never going to happen under the present, blinkered development policies. 

 

[grendel]

Thats not quite the ones I was thinking about, the ones I was considering are built on a concrete foundation, but there is the facility that if the water level rises (floods) the house floats on the water, while remaining on its foundation, the services are connected with flexible couplings and the house rises with the water level

[grendel]

https://www.businessinsider.com/netherlands-floating-houses-2015-12?r=US&IR=T

[JennyMorgan]

50 minutes ago, grendel said:

https://www.businessinsider.com/netherlands-floating-houses-2015-12?r=US&IR=T

One of my daughters lived in one such community. All very sophisticated and she loved it! Back in England now but still revisits the friends that she made there. Houses, or at least bungalows built on concrete platforms is an obvious way forward.

[ChrisB]

I like Australian Houseboats because they are powered and move. Briges are not a problem on The Murray though.