victorian house - could it fall down?

[oldboiler]

For no particularly reason sometimes I worry that my 3 story victorian townhouse will fall down. It was built 140 years ago so how do we know it will stay put? Please tell me aibu.

If it's going to fall down, it'll show signs of it first...normally large cracks in the walls and ceilings.

But even then, you can get it underpinned so don't worry about it

There are buildings waaaay older than yours that are still standing.

Think about it this way - if it was going to fall down it would have by now!

There's quite a lot of cathedrals and castles that are doing ok.

To be honest it's probably better built than a Barrett box.

There is no reason for it to fall down unless it has structural damage that is really obvious.

I live in a house a bit older than yours and it is underpinned by steel joists, its roof appears to be held up by a bit of wood jammed under a purlin and the bricks have little in the way of cement between them in places. No cracks though.

It wont fall down.

Yes.

No.

Probably not. Them there Victorians were quite good at building things.

I am an engineer BTW.

I was a bit worried about our Edwardian one when we first moved in but have now come to the conclusion that it was built to last and will probably still be here when many new houses have gone

Yes
No
Probably not
I am an engineer BTW

Well that's a reassuring diagnosis there Megrim

(Like the time the Green Glag mechanic told me "Don't worry your engine won't blow up or catch fire" and until he said that, it hadn't occured to me that it might )

That's not a bad quote Megrim

I've seen worse

It takes quite a lot to make a building fall down, several years of neglect usually. If you're happily living in it, it's unlikely to fall down round your ears.

I went in a building once less than 24 hours before it collapsed. It makes me go cold thinking about it.

Ours was built 1712 and is still just about standing despite us knocking it around a huge amount. YABU. Some of the new cheap quickly built crap houses will fall down before yours!!

I work with historic buildings. I would rather walk around a derelict Victorian building than a derelict 1980s Barratt home.

I've lived in 2 Victorian built houses, both are still standing! They look in much better condition than the local newly built estate commonly known as Legoland which was badly built on a drained fishing lodge 20 years ago. Apparently damp is a major issue.

My house was built in 1792.

It has sunk slightly in one corner over the years, they weren't very big on foundations in those days.

Despite that, and various hairline cracks in internal walls that are just lat and daub, the main walls are about 2ft thick and solid as a rock.

It's not going anywhere.

We bought a victorian townhouse with the most massive crack in the hall wall. It went from top to bottom and there was daylight. We couldn't get a mortgage until the thing had been stitched - literally - by a structural engineer. That was twenty years ago. Don't live there anymore but drive past a lot and it is still standing. So from my experience you're good for at least 20 yrs.

I think you'll be ok - it's the poxy new-builds that'll be first to come down.

I've only personally known 2 houses to fall down. One was old but had been left sitting empty for about 50 years, roof damaged in storms etc do lot of leaks and more.

The other was in the 1980s and fell down after a couple of months because it had been built by a crooked idiot using shoddy materials.

Doesn't sound like your house falls into either of those categories.

I live in a cottage built in 1400-1450. That is prior to Elizabeth 1, unless there is a specific problem your house will be fine.

We used to live in a huge crumbling wreck of a place, built around 1800. Many many alterations had been done by people with only the vaguest grasp of engineering (and, indeed, gravity). The back wall had been banded and still bellowed a good foot.
None of the doors inside fit the frames because the whole building was on the squint. Every six months or so we'd patch the cracks in the plaster up with polyfilla and hope.
It's still up. It's a bloody fantastic house!

I wonder this every time my 1890s Victorian house is battered by the gales coming off the Irish Sea. But I tell myself that is has been withstanding them all this time, just shows how strong it is.

Did you have a survey done when you moved in? That should tell you if there are any problems. I worry as well as my flat (in a converted Victorian house) does have a number of cracks in it. I got a full structural engineer's report when I bought the place which said the cracks were old, no signs of ongoing problems etc but I still sometimes think 'was that crack definitely there before?' - then look at photos from when I bought it and realise that, yes, it was there then and I've suddenly just noticed it and decided to start panicking about it!

My mum works for an architect who renovates very old properties - some actually are cob cottages with NO foundations but they are still standing 100s of years later.

Victorian properties tend to be quite solidly built, probably better built than my 1980s house.

It will out last the shit that is being built now, if you keep it properly maintained.

My grandmother's house was built in 1542.

It's still beautiful, structurally sound and standing. Yes, the roof bows a bit and it can be draughty. But it's still going strong.

The way I tend to see it, is that with older houses, all the problems that there might have been relating to subsidence, damp etc will have shown themselves gradually and will be sort-outable. With brand new houses or newer houses generally, you just don't know if you are going to be the owner who discovers a big problem and are left to sort it out.

Our house was built in 1902. We recently re-slated the roof for the first time since it was built, but only because we were having a loft conversion and it made sense to do the whole roof while the scaffolding was up. It's nicely settled, everything is sound fundamentally.

Latara my mum lives in an old cob house. Its got a few cracks here and there but its been standing quite happily since (we think) the mid 17th century.

Our house is Victorian with a 1950s extension. No problems at all with the Victorian bit except a bit of rising damp which we've had fixed. Wish I could say the same for the extension :(