Why would this 100 year old house collapse like this?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

This story caught my eye because it is quite near me and I walk through street after street of London terraces like this every day.

I can't remember anything like this ever happening before.

not a Daily Mail link

Rebuilding from scratch means you can open-cast excavate a basement at a fraction of the time and cost of one that's picked out from under an existing structure. Doing everything from new also means you don't have to work around 100 years worth of existing stuff and add ons.

The Daily Mail had internal pictures.

It looked like all the upstairs (1st floor and loft) internal walls were removed, and many of the ceiling joists that run front to back. In fact there looked to be only 3 on the picture .

I let our builder remove a chimney arch on the ground floor. He swore it wasn't supporting the chimney breast above. 14 years on house is still standing.

I bet Duffy is sat in her pyjamas at her mums throwing pringles at the telly whenever Adele comes on

Duffy refs are confusing me

Big house in Barnes that fell down ^ upthread

Is it just me? or does that street look a lot like the outnumbered street?

It wasn't just the internal walls which were removed. The removed everything. There were no joists or trusses. Nothing. The only thing holding the roof up was fresh air.

It's probably some millionaire's asset trying to do it up to house 300 people and charge ridiculous rent. Probably lives in Dubai and hasn't yet been told. Shouldn't worry too much.

It does look a bit like it PresidentOlivia but the Outnumbered street is on the Tonsleys in SW London.

This kind of stuff always makes me nervous because I live in a 100+ year old house with (old) cracks in the walls that I'm permanently paranoid about - but I'm definitely not letting anyone take out any of my walls!

Why do you think your house would fall down wannabetennisplayer?

Those old terrace houses mostly only had the bare minimum of structure, but they do work if not interfered with too much. They can even cope with a bit of subsidence or settlement and stay up. But if you start "opening them up" in a way they weren't designed for, you can't take it for granted what's left will take the load unless a structural engineer has designed a proper support system.

I feel a bit for the couple in question - they were either let down by their builder/architect or ignored advice. I'm interested as to where Building Control were in all this as well. There are thousands of houses practically the same all over SE London, local builders should have a pretty good idea what you can and can't do.

Why do you think your house would fall down wannabetennisplayer?

Because of the cracks and because it's in an area with a history of subsidence (built on dodgy ground) - and because I'm a worrier by nature and think 'was that crack there before?' - or 'was it always that big'?

Next door is fine..
The top photo shows the gable wall still upright and quite stable.. Although it is vulnerable to a big wind. . Houses like that can withstand a bomb going off next door... heppened a lot during the blitz"

As said above, bad building..

Houses like that can withstand a bomb going off next door... heppened a lot during the blitz

This

Just about every street round here has infill houses-in some cases, built a fair bit later

If the refurbishment was internal only, it wouldn't need planning permission would it? But it would need building regulations approval?

I hope no-one was hurt/killed in these collapses but see that one of the reports mentions that a builder was killed .

It's not surprising that houses collapse when walls are removed and these big basements are dug out.

Also makes me realise that I didn't know about house insurance not being valid during building work - surely not - an unrelated fire or storm damage, theft etc would still be covered surely?

But I would expect that damage caused by the builders would be covered under their insurance, would that be the case when someone is negligent? Whose fault is it if stupid decisions are made to take out load bearing walls?

Wannabe I wouldn't worry too much!
Where my parents live there are lots of old small mineworks around (someone unexpectedly found a really old shaft in their garden when they were trying to build an extension to their 100+yr old house. The shaft had been capped hundreds of years ago (with wood and iron!), become covered with dirt and grass and forgotten about - apparently it cost a fortune to make safe (I don't think it was covered by insurance) but at least no one got hurt -it didn't suddenly give way under a mini digger...)
Anyway my parents house is 200 years old, has almost 1.5 ft thick stone walls, including one internally. It gets a crack in the render on a gable wall from a bit of subsidence - it was patched 40 yrs when they bought it and was done again a couple of years ago. If it wasn't rendered the stone would need re-pointing instead...
My dad's attitude is (was) it has stood for 150 yrs - if it does another 100 it will outlast me ... . Having said he wasn't stupid enough to start taking out internal walls...and the joists in the loft ...

barbara planning permission and building control are separate things Taking out internal support walls needs building control approval- even if you don't need planning permission. They do have no way of knowing if you don't tell them -but you would find it hard to sell without approval for major remodelling ...

wannabe London soil is prone to movement especially with trees that don't get maintained by the Council / owner properly but it's not a quick thing. Even if you noticed cracking your insurers would monitor movement for as long as a year or longer and they wouldn't allow the place to fall down.

My initial reaction was £690 000 for that house
London prices are crazy.
For that price i would expect far more!!!!

I do wonder what is going to happen when all the Victorian houses across Britain start to reach the end of their lives - they can't go on for ever surely?

I don't know Annie, a lot of the Victorian houses were very solidly built. I wouldn't be surprised if they outlast the current generation of plastic Barratt houses.

Our last house was a stone terrace built in about 1880 and the stone walls were about a foot thick. I can't see it going anywhere in the next few decades/hundred years or so, especially as there are still quite a lot of properties around from the 1600 and 1700s that are still in decent condition.

I suppose the worst that could happen unless it is allowed to massively decay due to neglect would be it would need a new roof and possibly roof timbers, which is definitely worth doing.

Is it just me? or does that street look a lot like the outnumbered street
I thought that too.

That house is just round the corner from me. Internal walls and roof joists had been removed and because it's an end of terrace there just wasn't enough support anymore.
And yes, house prices round here are ridiculous. We're in London but nowhere near a tube line, our little 2 bed house was valued at half a million a few weeks ago. Ridiculous!