Roughly how much to rebuild garden wall?

[MillyMolly123]

I’ll try and keep this short... full details on the chat board, but posting here for more traffic/specified rebuild estimations.

Our front garden wall was crashed into twice today, and is now pretty trashed. The bricks and foundations are still intact - the bricks just need relaying. There is some metal work which is pretty bent, but I guess could be brought back into shape (maybe?)

There is a possibility we would have to pay a £350 excess to fix via insurers (the second driver, who caused most of the damage absconded and we don’t have any of their details). So, if we were to get someone to fix it all ourselves who would we get? How much is it likely to cost? More than £350 and we’d be better off getting our insurance company involved...

Before and current pics attached.

Thanks

How awful!

Other than car insurance, would your house insurance be able to help?

Tell me about it

Sorry, I probably wasn’t very clear... we would be claiming through our household insurance, not our car insurance. We have a £350 excess on our buildings cover which we may have to pay as the second driver, who potentially did the bulk of the damage, is unidentifiable.

I’m not sure where you are but we paid £750 for a slightly smaller wall but did have to have foundations laid and no metal work on top

Eek! I’d vastly underestimated then. Think a phone call to our insurers is in order. I guess we’ll lose the excess, but will just have to suck it up. Thanks

I'd get a quote from a general builder first. It may not cost as much as you think and you might lose a no claims bonus on the household insurance for very little benefit.

We had a portion of a front garden wall, about 1metre long by 1meter high, rebuilt by a general builder/handyman for £150.

Took just one day and he used the original bricks.

Thank you, that’s a little bit more in line with what I was thinking.

If you have the details of the first car you may be able to claim your excess back from their insurance.

I guess that is a possibility. Their insurers may say no though, and then we’d lose the excess. It’s a case of weighing up the risk I suppose. My OH thinks going down the insurance route, even if we lose our excess, is the best way to go anyway. It’s me who’s keen on alternatives.

It’s worth seeing how much subsequent years’ insurance will be too. Maybe get a quote saying you made a claim a year ago and see? If your insurance is a bit more for a few years then it really becomes not worth worth claiming.

Thank you, will do

Replacing it with a hedgerow would be cheaper

It would, but would require extra maintenance. Fortunately the police have now traced the driver who fled and we have his insurance details. So, it should all get sorted through his insurance. Phew!

Be prepared to wait for the insurance claim to be agreed then! Who is getting the quotes? I doubt if anyone will bend back the metal. It is expensive to clean off bricks. It’s often cheaper to buy new. I think near me this would cost way more than £750. I would expect well over £1000 and when the builder/metal worker knows it’s an insurance job, it will be! (My metal gates were £3000 without brick piers - they were extra). Bricklayers are quite hard to find. Should the new wall be more substantial? Double skin?

Hmm, we don’t know much more just yet. The guy who ran off has now reported the incindent to his insurers and he has provided us with the ref no. and a claim line telephone number. We tried ringing the number to find out if we still need to go through our insurers, or if they’re sorting it all themselves, or if there is anything else we need to do etc., but they are only dealing with emergencies today due to the weather. So, I’ll have to try again tomorrow and see what’s what.