Tree Damage - where to start?

[beanface]

Our neighbour has a tree which is taller than our house and close to our boundary, it's about 3m from the corner of our house next to our front bay window.

After last summer cracks appeared running diagonally down from the bottom of our front bay window. We have been trying to get the neighbour to let us cut it down but no joy yet.

In the last few weeks the cracks must have grown as some plaster has fallen out. Other cracks have appeared in the room in and around the ceiling which I worry could all fit with the front of the house moving down.

We bought the house 3 years ago and it had a crack in the hall. All the other cracks shown in the photo have appeared in the last 6 months. The bay window ones look as if they may have been previously patched up.

The pavement in front of the house has a ripple through it where a tree root is running at an equal distance from the tree as the front wall of my house.

My question is twofold I suppose. If I go to the buildings insurance company with it is it at my detriment? Do I increase my premiums/is the house 'marked' as having had problems with subsidence/does it affect my resale (not planning on moving for next 5-10 yrs anyway). What is the remedy and does it count as underpinning (which would affect resale)?

If I went ahead and organised fixing it myself (provided I could get the tree taken down), where do I start? With a structural engineer?

pictures of

bottom corner of bay (same on both sides)

top corner of bay - the fine crack coming into top left of pic runs across the ceiling of the bay and has now grown to go around the ceiling all the way to the fireplace.

this crack runs from the top of the door frame in the room and across the ceiling to the other side of the room.

this crack has always been in the hall and seems to have grown

 

[telnet]

A picture of the tree would be good. I listened with interest to a radio documentary on this subject. Insurance companies were writing to people asking them to cut their trees down. However, professional arborists do not regard trees, even huge old ones close to buildings, as capable of affecting properly made foundations. They concluded that the insurance companies were self serving and would prefer the city to be devoid of trees simply because it generally reduces their costs.

There was one exception: on certain clay soils during periods of extreme drought the tree can extract extra water from the soil and it is this that weakens the ground round the foundations. I don't remember an drought last summer. It did not pour down the whole time but there was no drought.

We had a 100 ft douglas fir growing within 2 meters of the house. We were on free draining sandy soil and never had a problem. We did cut it down eventually because it was shading the whole place.

**********************

How old is your house? How is it constructed? Double brick cavity or breeze block on the inside.

We had a new build that had way more and worse cracking than you have. We were shocked as one of them was almost 1 cm wide. The SE was completely unphased and said a 1 cm crack was moderate at worst.

Anyway, Zurich insurance guys went over that place with a tooth comb and could find no structural problem above or below ground. They eventually installed ties between the front and back walls and a belt of timber round the inside of the roof.

Incidentally, while they were doing that they found that the gable ends were not tied into the roof. The developer, Builders Ede, had to come back and tie in the gables of many of the houses they had built.

Anyway, here is the point. Our own SE, who was old and seemed to know his business, said that, IHHO, the breeze blocks had been left exposed on the building site and got a good soaking. What we had was an extreme case of drying out.

There was also another problem: Builders Ede had used too thin a bonding coat on the breeze blocks while plastering. They fixed all the cracks, but many of the hairline ones, which were due to the thin bonding, just came back. Perhaps your vendors repaired their cracks before putting the house on the market and you are just seeing them come back.

*******************

There are many reasons houses can crack. That one of yours that runs round the corner looks just like ours so I guess you have breeze block construction, but please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[telnet]

Sorry, you were asking were to start: get a structural engineer to look it over. A few hundred quid is trivial compared to the cost of the house.

You could also tell your insurance company to fix it. However, my SE told me that the worst news you can get is that you have subsidence. Apparently, after the insurance company has injected concrete underpinning under your house, and it is the most stable structure for miles around, it can significantly damage your resale value just because there was once a problem, even though its fixed.

 

[ree]

Easy does it - the difficulty has been there for some time.

Dont go alerting insurers or Blg Soc until you know whats what, and you have taken professional advice.

Perhaps, as above, approach a SE, and then with a SE's written report and maybe a sketch or two, approach a solicitor.

Did not your housebuyer's survey comment on any cracks, ground flaws or the tree? Did the Disclosure form reveal any previous remedial repairs?

Only guessing, but if the difficulties seem to be around the bay perhaps its differential settlement? Very common and reasonably easy to deal with. However, i dont really know.

Pics of the exterior would help.

 

[ree]

Do you have a basement in that area of the house?

 

[telnet]

Do you have a basement in that area of the house?

Modern houses in England never have basements. The housing is small and cramped and built as cheaply as the arcane laws, forcing you to build in brick, allow. Its the worst housing stock in the developed world.

 

[telnet]

PS, sorry, of course, I don't actually know the age of the house.

 

[catlad]

Well looking at those pictures I would say a 100 yrs so it may have a cellar.

 

[tony1851]

[The housing is small and cramped and built as cheaply as the arcane laws,............. allow.

Precisely; and do you know why?

Because a significant proportion of the cost of a house is the cost of the land. And why is the land so expensive? It's not because we are a small island with large population - it's because of our arcane and anti-development planning laws.

The Govenor of the Bank of England has recently observed that Canada, with one-half our population, builds twice as many houses per year than we do.

(Sorry, OP, a bit off topic!).

 

[beanface]

Wow, must start with a big thanks for all the helpful replies so far.

The house is built on clay soil and just over 100 yrs old with no cellar. As far as I remember there was nothing on the survey.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Some areas (Chandlers Ford, S Hampshire) are very bad for subsidence because in the yellow clay there are pockets of blue clay which dry out at a different rate to the yellow. Whole house wall fell out,= great spectator fun!
Frank

 

[RonnyRaygun]

As others have said, you need a report that will consider the position of the tree, the type of soil and the location and size of the cracks, which may or may not confirm subsidence as being the most likely cause of the cracks.

Taking down the tree is not necessarily the answer as it can cause the ground to swell, causing heave.

A trial pit or borehole would be useful to determine how deep the roots of the tree go. Underpinning would require going deeper than the deepest roots, which could be two or three metres.

If that's the case it's likely not something that you would want to take on yourself.

Subsidence usually occurs during very dry periods as the trees suck the water from the ground causing dessication of the clay soil. Has it been particularly dry over the last six months where you are? I'm guessing not?

Although as you say, it may be that previous cracks have been patched up and are just beginning to show again.

 

[conny]

One of the dangers of taking a tree down, which hasn't been mentioned, is that over time the roots die off and leave air pockets.
These air pockets then become an area of weak stability and can contribute to subsidence. So its not always the best thing to do to chop down a mature tree. (Plus there may be some sort of preservation order on it anyway).

 

[oldbutnotdead]

What sort of tree is it evergreen conifer type thing or otherwise?

Reason for asking- I've got 2 quite chunky evergreens outside the front door of my project house, about 4 metres from the front elevation. I'd guess they're about 15 year. old, now pretty much at roof height and causing some shading issues.

House is 200 years old, built on clay, not much in the way of foundations.

Advice from tree bloke- manage the things by all means but don't get rid completely, if you do then good odds you'll get some heave in the floors and increased damp problem

Advice from structural engineer was exactly the same.

There are plenty of cracks in the walls but (unlike yours) not recent.

If all your cracking is in the bay window area then;
(a) Has the bay been double-glazed recently?
(b) Does the bay run the whole height of the house?

One thing the survey noted on my place was that the (ground floor only) bays are falling away from the main house slightly. This is common, apparently foundations on the bays tended to be even less substantial than on the rest of the walls.

Have a look in your Yellow Pages for structural engineers, give them a ring, tell them what's what and get them to come and have a look. It'll cost you (worst case) a couple of hundred quid and then you'll know what you're dealing with.