Why You Haven't Seen Much From My Narrow Rebuild Lately

[Norman Verona]

experts. I just love people who know their subject inside out.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Not trying to catch you out

Ok so the observant ones will have noticed that my house has next to no foundations so the drainage trenches are actually deeper than my foundations

That closest to the house and in front of the porch was therefore concreted in rather than being bedded in pea shingle.

End of day 3 and it's time to call the Building Inspector to get it all approved so I can back fill it all again

[KugaWestie]

Yes I had clocked the lack of foundations - were there some bricks loose laid under there? I have seen that before....

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Yes I had clocked the lack of foundations - were there some bricks loose laid under there? I have seen that before....

I've got two courses of corbelled soft reds in lime mortar below ground and that's it. The faces blew when i came through the wall with the drill for the water main which makes it look worse than it really is.

[Norman Verona]

My buildings have no foundations. Just 1/2 meter walls.

[KugaWestie]

I've got two courses of corbelled soft reds in lime mortar below ground and that's it. The faces blew when i came through the wall with the drill for the water main which makes it look worse than it really is.

Thought so - not suprised they blew though.

And these days we go down at least 1m

[Mark (smokey mow)]

My buildings have no foundations. Just 1/2 meter walls.

A lack of foundations is only a problem if you try and use modern building materials the suffolk soft reds and lime allow for a good amount of seasonal movement, i'm on clay so my house moves quite a bit through the year, but the traditional materials can accomodate that. Problems arrise with the modern materials and cement which if aren't flexible and crack easily, hence why the foundations on my rear extension are 1.5m deep

[KugaWestie]

Thermalites/similar lightweight blocks are good at cracking

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Thought so - not suprised they blew though.

And these days we go down at least 1m

450mm to avoid the action of frost.

600mm in sands

And a minimum of 750mm in clay, but always to the satisfaction of your local building inspector and final depths determined with reference to NHBC standard 4.2 when building near trees

[KugaWestie]

450mm to avoid the action of frost.

600mm in sands

And a minimum of 750mm in clay, but always to the satisfaction of your local building inspector and final depths determined with reference to NHBC standard 4.2 when building near trees

Yes the joy of trees - we did a job recently on clay near trees and were down 3m - no room to put a root barrier in

[Norman Verona]

We have a huge crack on the top right hand corner of the house. Chris, the builder who's chaps built the gites, was worried about it. I said (not that I know) that as it had probably been there for 150 years it wasn't a problem.

The previous owner had lime and sand mortared around the crack so as to show it as a feature.

I've heard that any crack where you can put your hand in was a problem. You could put you're whole arm in this one!

[Norman Verona]

This is fascinating stuff, wish I knew what you were talking about.

But it's keeping the posts up. And I don't mean building posts.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Thermalites/similar lightweight blocks are good at cracking

Best only used as an inner leaf of cavity walls or for internal partitions. IMO they have a too high water absobsion for external use so when the moisture held in them freezes in winter it expands and cracks the blocks. Better to use either a concrete block for external use and it takes render better too.

[KugaWestie]

Best only used as an inner leaf of cavity walls or for internal partitions. IMO they have a too high water absobsion for external use so when the moisture held in them freezes in winter it expands and cracks the blocks. Better to use either a concrete block for external use and it takes render better too.

Agreed - I also dont think they should be used below DPC on any leaf

Lightweight blocks and thin joint bed systems for inner leafs on cavity walls are the worst combo I have seen for cracking

[Mark (smokey mow)]

We have a huge crack on the top right hand corner of the house. Chris, the builder who's chaps built the gites, was worried about it. I said (not that I know) that as it had probably been there for 150 years it wasn't a problem.

The previous owner had lime and sand mortared around the crack so as to show it as a feature.

I've heard that any crack where you can put your hand in was a problem. You could put you're whole arm in this one!

When i first bought the house i found a crack in the bedroom behind the wall paper that i could get my whole head in basically the whole back of the house was slowly falling away from the front. This didn't concern me too much so it was stiched back with bricks but more annoying was that the floors were 6" lower on one side of the room to the other.

The only sensible thing to do was to remove the joists, and put them all back level.... But then the window was wonky so that was rebuilt straight, then finally the ceiling joists. The only thing .i couln't fix was the angle of the walls