Subsidence

[SoddingWeddings]

I had a builder out yesterday for an unrelated job, and he's told me to phone my buildings insurance company because he thinks I have subsidence visible at the back of the house.....

There are about 4 cracks visible - one is horizontal and goes to next door as well (mid terrace house), three are diagonal. We thought it was just cracking in the render.

He said if we were to sell (no immediate plans), any surveyor worth their salt would query this, but getting it repaired through the insurance will get a proper certification to show it's been repaired.

What the hell do I do now? He was here because we had a water leak in the supply pipe under the garden. That's been repaired, we were losing 1/4 ton of water per day. He was to arrange having the soil evened up after the digging and the various lumpy bits that appeared due to the water movement.

These cracks aren't new, they've been there a few years.

Any sage advice?

I would phone my buildings insurance company and see if they will send someone out to check if you have subsidence or not. If they won't (or won't pay) then ask around for a local structural engineer or surveyor to have a look. If you've had a leak in the garden for years that could have affected the foundations. It may well just be settlement cracks, but on the other hand it may not and it's definitely worth checking out.

I wouldn’t mention anything to my insurance company unless I was sure what it was. The last thing you want is that on the records. I would commission a independent surveyor or structural engineer to do a survey and gmthen decide what to do

Thanks, I'm just loathe to phone them again, it will be the third claim in 10 months.

The water leak was about 6 months - we are on a meter, and the six month bill was a bit of a shock. We live at the top of a hill, and the water must have run away from the house with the angle of the slope.

There are huge numbers of very large trees behind the house, about a dozen 40ft elms were taken down by the council last summer due to disease, but there's still plenty more around including enormous oaks. This chap thinks the trees are the likely culprits.

Are recent settlement cracks on a house built in around 1979 likely to be an issue?

I would do as he suggested tbh.

MIL had some plaster fall off her ceiling and she got a builder she knew to come and look at it and he said it looked like subsidence due to some other cracks he could see and to call her insurance company. She did and it was. They arranged all the work and used their own contractors so the builder didn’t get any work out of it.

With something like subsidence I would definitely want it sorted properly. And I’d speak to your neighbours too if it seems to effect their property too.

@Peridot1 all the houses on this row have visible cracking on the render, but we're the only one who is owned not rented so it's not straight forward to get hold of the owners of other houses. Not least of all we know all our neighbours very well, and how shoddy at least three of the landlords are....

I'll have a look at the cost of a surveyor, but I've no idea whether it's best to go straight to the insurance company or pay privately.

I'd ring your insurer- If it is subsidence & requires underpinning it will cost £tens of thousands. They won't instantly diagnose it as subsidence - they will likely install small monitors across the cracks & revisit over the next 12 months to check movement.

I would definitely phone your insurers. I think especially if you are the only owners in the row. You only don’t want it on any records if you are not going to deal with it. And if you ever come to sell it will be picked up on a survey and may make your house unsellable. It needs to be assessed properly and dealt with.

I'm with @korawick12345 with this.
I'm in a similar position to you OP, mid-terraced house with some cracks, but we're a lot older, built 1911.
I have a structural engineer coming today to have a look and once he's given his learned opinion, I'll make a decision regarding involving the insurance company.
He's charging £150.

I would get a structural engineer and get their opinion before calling the insurance co.

If there is a problem, call the insurance co straight away.

If there is not, you will have saved yourself having to declare that you involved your insurers over potential subsidence, the fact that they sometimes raise premiums just because they looked at it, even though the outcome was ‘no problem’.

It sounds worrying because a builder thought it was subsidence, but I would still get a surveyors report before talking to the insurers.

I agree with the people saying getting a 2nd opinion before you go through insurers.
Only because if you go straightaway to insurers either way whether it's subs or not it will be on your policy then