Cheers for the thorough insights.
We meet all the criteria of our water company not to need a build-over agreement - unless when we get underground we find that the pipe would unexpectedly sit underneath the wall (it's 500mm away we believe - and on that basis we def meet all the eight criteria not to need a build-over). The issue with the survey was that the overground piece of testing kit wasn't able to detect the thing underground as the sewer is 2.6m deep. Our architect says it would need to travel at an angle for 4m before straightening up - which we're pretty sure it doesn't (I could see when they were removing the camera that the bend was close to the manhole) - but I'm baffled as to why they couldn't measure where the bend was just from the CCTV footage. I highlighted this with the company owner and he's not getting back to me, and hasn't mentioned charging - so I think he realises his lads on the job perhaps didn't do what they should have (it was a £220 fee).
We did dig down 2-metres and hit grey clay (when I roll it it's like blue tack). I know there's a chance it could change when we get lower than that - but the cost of a soil test I'm led to believe can be around the £1500 mark. And there are borehole records from nearby that show it as being clay down there too. So I think it's fairly safe to say it's clay.
Notch - I noticed you mentioned beams straight away (rather than rafts) - presumably that's as - as you say - rafts could be more complicated with the tree and drain issues? To be honest, the SE who recommended the pile and beam solution comes very highly recommended by several people in the industry, so I should probably just trust his judgement. Just need to make sure we're making the right choices up-front as budget is tight.
We meet all the criteria of our water company not to need a build-over agreement - unless when we get underground we find that the pipe would unexpectedly sit underneath the wall (it's 500mm away we believe - and on that basis we def meet all the eight criteria not to need a build-over). The issue with the survey was that the overground piece of testing kit wasn't able to detect the thing underground as the sewer is 2.6m deep. Our architect says it would need to travel at an angle for 4m before straightening up - which we're pretty sure it doesn't (I could see when they were removing the camera that the bend was close to the manhole) - but I'm baffled as to why they couldn't measure where the bend was just from the CCTV footage. I highlighted this with the company owner and he's not getting back to me, and hasn't mentioned charging - so I think he realises his lads on the job perhaps didn't do what they should have (it was a £220 fee).
We did dig down 2-metres and hit grey clay (when I roll it it's like blue tack). I know there's a chance it could change when we get lower than that - but the cost of a soil test I'm led to believe can be around the £1500 mark. And there are borehole records from nearby that show it as being clay down there too. So I think it's fairly safe to say it's clay.
Notch - I noticed you mentioned beams straight away (rather than rafts) - presumably that's as - as you say - rafts could be more complicated with the tree and drain issues? To be honest, the SE who recommended the pile and beam solution comes very highly recommended by several people in the industry, so I should probably just trust his judgement. Just need to make sure we're making the right choices up-front as budget is tight.