Was on the phone in the office, that's the home office (which is in what would be the third small bedroom in a 30's semi) which Clive uses..it's over the corner of the house as you come up the stairs, directly over the corner where until last week, the pillar was there, holding up the house....
Well a couple of days ago I was in there talking on the phone when I looked up and something caught my eye..that is a crack all along the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling into the corner, and then down from the corner, a jagged crack to the corner of the window...then on the other side of the window, a crack from underneath the sill going down the wall.....so that will have happened when they knocked the pillar down them before the steel lintel went up?
I did a 'Clvie, come and look at this...' in my best 'don't panic' voice, and he did, and he went a bit quiet..then on Tuesday when John the builder came round to talk buildy things, I invited him upstairs to look...he did the classic 'oh, that's ok,' 'yeah, just surface cracks....if the outside isn't cracked, it's ok,' and then dismissed us with look that accused us of being neurotic and worrying over nothing..I knew he would.
But then it's not his house..and anyway it's Clvie's office, I'm not going in there any more....perhaps I should get a surveyor in??????
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4 comments:
With all due respect it's in John's interest to play it down.
Structures isn't my field, but the cracks tell you that 'something' has moved - in this case the corner of your house! If that was a temporary thing then maybe no big shakes, but suggests the temporary support wasn't fully doing it's job. Which hardly reflects credibility on the structural knowledge of your builder who is now saying "fine, fine!". Yes I'd be a whole lot more concerned if it's visible on the outside as well, but even so.
Have the cracks increased any since you first spotted them?
If it were me I'd seriously think about getting it checked out properly...for your own peace of mind.
er, this builder, does he have insurance?
Our very large tent is currently in Suffolk at Latitude with Hattie G...let me know if she needs to come home via St Alban's. And for heaven's sake put some masking tape or something as a tell tale on the cracks (our house played all sorts of "We all fall down" games when I was a child...subsidence...tree roots etc...). It may be Clive's study, but if he hasn't got a study to retreat to....
Think I'd be thinking getting it checked properly if it was my house... not that I'm qualified in the slightest but as Liz says for peace of mind
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