Gus Potter

BIG POINT from George.. Use strong boys with great caution! The below is not how it should be done.. I stopped this job.. and went for emergency dead propping just to stop it falling down. The props and strongboys you see are not just holding up the outer skin of masonry but the inner leaf which supports the roof and also the first floor joists were spanning onto the inner leaf. The bottom of the props are sitting on the patio slabs.. I had investigated the ground and the soil below the slabs was as soft as putty. Designed a full propping / wind bracing scheme for the slapping including diagonal wind bracing and the internal propping to hold up the inner floor. Client engaged builder off their own back as they were the cheepest. Builder ignored it all (my proping design) and went for the above. I was actually surprised that the building had not fallen down / cracket to bits by the time I got there. Note the "juanty prop" second from the right.. and the STRONG BOYS rated at 340 kg as @George When I challenged the tosser builder he said.. I'm insured! Very glad to say no one got hurt.

That's a lot of tough questions! Ok my thoughts. Well you are at least 1.0m away from the boundary so that eases the fire boundary conditions which opens up the opportunity for a light weight cold formed steel frame or a hot rolled steel frame. Next is your budget and your expectations. A lot of folk think a garage should be like a house.. yes it needs to stay up as long as a house and be safe but in the main it's an unheated building and not occupied.. I'll come to the cars in terms of keeping them bonish dry in a bit which is different. Assuming the garage is 8.0m wide and 12.0m long then it becomes hard to make modest masonry work without piers, wind posts and so on. Much also depends on your eaves and ridge height.. that is a big driver. My first thoughts.. you have cars so maybe have practical skills so would be comfortable around a hot rolled steel portal frame and an attention to detail.. be able to measure! Two gable frames with a central frame, purlins between. Floor slab.. well you can do what is sometimes called a tied pad found for these small buildings.. here the DPC / DPM is not continuous but if you treat this as a workshop / garage, pour and compact the concrete well then to all intents and purposes the concrete is waterproof.. that is where the savings lie for example! A tied pad found has a slab that has the pads under the columns cast at the same time. Best thing to do is to post some sketches of what you are thinking about and we'll all chip in. If you are storing classic cars then you really have to stop dripping condensation from the roof. Normally we use a default of 40mm PIR on the roof in an unheated building. Depends on your location but if more up North or say in Linconshire the maybe 60mm PIR is a safer bet. In the round though need a bit more info to contribute constructively. Things that would help.. eaves height and what temperature you want to store the cars and work in when you have time off. Then we can play.. what about an engine lift / hoist?

That's a red herring. What you probably have is that they have have not landed the flooring sheets over a joist and where the have they have not put in noggings.. basic bad workmanship. It seems to me that they are pulling the wool.. ask them.. what does the strong back do structually and what load is it carrying? How does the strong back influence the preformance of the floor sheeting? The Eggar spec says all sheet ends should be supported. My gut feeling is that to save money the have not landed the flooring sheet ends over the joists to save on noggings. If you are geting noise from the pipes.. they probalby have used the wrong brackets.. maybe fixed hard to the timber so when they cool down and shrink the cause a creaking sound. If you want then post few more photos.

Hi @Conor If that is glass above the small detail you have posted.. it looks a bit suspect.. the method of connection.. Post more detail.. if you want to avoid disappointment and want to keep folk safe. It looks to me like neither your SER Engineer or the glass folk will take responsibility for this.. so it is down to you to understand the issues of what is quite complex to design. To put it in a nut shell the glass folk test on a stiff test rig to verify the safe loads... what you have detailed is a mile off so you glazing won't pass muster and you SER Engineer will bail out.. read their fine print! I recommend that you nut this out before drilling any holes. It may be that you can regig the detail to make it better and for less work! If you want fesse up and provide the manufactures' connection details and load tables for the track I'll chip in to give you a bit of advice on how you sort this out., not just for you but for all on BH. Also your detailing.. bolt clashes and buildability.. it may be that you are using say Tekla or Revit where you are getting a depth of view rather than a true section.. it all looks a bit crap on the screen shot you have posted!

I'm a bit confused as you are jumping about a bit. I'll be happy to chip in but can you repost separating the surface water from the foul water. It seems to me that they are two different things? If you are in an EA Zone 1 that is to do with your foul water.. surface water is a completely different animal. Your starting point here is to understand your site the size of the house and the plot size it sits on.. and that gives you some figures to start with. You'll maybe need to put in a bit of legwork here but may well save you in the long run. If you want a good answer from BH that could save you money then you need to give more info.

Good spot asking that they (wind posts) seem small.. you have a feeling something is a bit off? You have just demonstrated one of the first steps in competancy.. if it looks wrong it probably is! So for all on BH.. if it smells like.. "off" to you then start asking questions! Hope you can glean something from the following general explanation and adapt it to your particular design. I simplify things a bit but the intention is to convey the basic principles, still a long story though! also forgive my spelling and grammer. Ok to start let's say you have a masonry external wall that has a typical window and a door in it. The window is in one room and the door in the other. Between the window and door you have a masonry wall (internal wall) that ties into to the external wall. You may want to take away the internal wall to form say an open plan space. As the internal wall is bonded to the external wall you lose the benefit of the internal wall stopping the external wall moving out / into the garden. The internal wall is acting as what we call a lateral restraint... to stop the external wall from moving in and out. Or you may just have a big long room with a window and a door on the external wall. But the window only extends so far down from the ceiling so you only have a relatively short bit of slender masonry between the window and top half of the door frame.. but change the window to a full height door and now you have a much longer column of masonry between the now two doors. Generally masonry columns can in theory take a lot of vertical load provided the load goes straight down the centre of what we call the neutral axis. For ease of explanation imagine you have a square post or rectangular column. The neutral axis is in the same place as the centre of gravity.. lets just say it's the centre of gravity. If this was the only thing that happens we could be knocking holes in walls with glee and leaving slender masonry columns and all would be ok. If you think about it you may jack up your car, put a concrete block under it and dive underneath or sit a heavy greenhouse on a concrete block? The block does not crush.. but jack the car up 1.0m and pile the blocks up you can see they may wobble/ coggle and buckle sideways... called a lateral failure.. the blocks don't crush they buckle sideways and will be able to carry a lot less load than their compressive strnght load. But in real life the roof loads and loads from say first floor joists / roof truss don't act directly over the centre of gravity of your newly created column and thus they also cause a bending effect in the masonry.. the column wants to bow inwards or outwards as the off centre load causes what is called a bending moment in the column. If you take a ruler and support the ends and push down in the middle with your finger then when you bend the ruler the bending "force" is called the bending moment. The bottom of the ruler stretches (tension) and the top is in compression. If you were able to compress the ruler at the edges end on you would see that it also wants to bend a bit in the middle.. and this genrerates what is called often an eccentric bending moment. Now masonry is good in compression but we avoid creating any tension in the mortar beds as mortar is broady speaking only meant to take compression. In summary when you create a masonry column you need to know where the roof and floor loads sit in relation to the "centre of gravity" of your new masonry column. Next the wind loading: When the wind blows it can create suction or pressure load on the doors / glass. The load on the glass goes to the frames and this gets transferred to the surrounding masonry.. often the new column, unless the window manufacturer can show that their glazing system truly spans from top to bottom and does not load the column. Ask the question. If you get an answer then please report back. Most windows and doors have brackets up the sides.. they must be transferring some horizontal load to the column? This wind can make a huge difference as it can really introduce a significant horizontal loading to the column. All of a sudden when you check this new column for the wind loading it fails by miles and I mean by miles! .. as it's now taking suction pressure loads from the glass. OK what do we do now? One simple way is to calculate the vertical load from say the roof / floor joists and check the masonry column for that only. If there are lots of off centre loads from above we work out how much bending effect they are causing in the new masonry column. Next we work out how much wind pressure suction is acting on the glass and what bending effect this causes in the new column. We look at how the window / door frames work. We introduce a vertical "wind post" that carries the wind horizontal loads and the bending effect from say the roof and floor joists not being over the centre of gravity of the column. We then design the "wind post" to carry the sideways horizontal wind and eccentric bending loads from above and make sure the post is connected to something solid at the bottom and top. We decouple the problem into downwards loads and sideways (lateral) loads. Lastly we recouple the wind post and masonry. We can design the wind post so that it may carry the sideways loads but if in doing so it bends by 10.0mm in the middle then the masonry will also have to move by 10.00mm.. as the wind post is connected to the masonry.. not good! In practice what we do is to look at each bit of the design and say.. how much can we let the wind post bend by (which usually determines it's size) without cracking the masonry and finishes. If you look up the data that the wind post manufacture's give on their wind posts.. they are a bit.. vauge! A lot work on horizontal deflection of height / 300 /360.. some less some more.. but they then introduce a big caveat.. which is it's.. up to you to check the rest.. and your glass etc! Say you have a 2400mm ceiling height... 2400 / 300 = 8.0mm horizontally. Now if we were to bend a masonry column by that amount horizontally.. you doors also .. may complain. If you want to be realistic then design on height say of H/750 to 1000.. also remember that there will be some stretch and play in the fixings so you'll get some extra movement here.. 2400 / 750 = 3.2mm or less. Now you can calculate how much the masonry joint will open up on the outside / inside and if it will recover and not let the water in (crack the render).. Remember though that wind post don't always have to be steel.. I do plenty that are made of timber wind posts as this lets you tailor the job to joiners that you may already have on site. @LSBTo finish. Hope this helps you on your way. It's a bit long but if still stuck then post some elvation drawings and a bit more info.

For all.. you can do a lot to help yourself..here is some old scoool stuff that should save you money .. get it right. I live in an ex council house that is in a terrace. The mains supply off the street is 3/4" (~22mm) and that one pipe serves all three houses. Now the static pressure say at 3.00am in the morning is 4.0 bar just say as we are all in bed.. When we all get up in the morning and start turning on the taps.. we don't have anything like 4.0 bar as soon as the flow starts . Once the flow starts we have loses due to every bend in the pipe.. so this idea of having 3.0 - 4.0 bar static pressure is bollocks.. you need to know the pressure combined with the flow rate at the point of delivery.. if you don't then you could waste a lot of money. To put it another way I could supply your house with 8 bar in a 10mm pipe at 3.00 am.. akin to a heavily furred old lead pipe where you have chalk soil. But try and fill a bath.... the laws of hydraulics means that as soon as the flow starts the static pressure drops.. often like a stone.. and so does the flow rate don't take my word for it do your research. That is why we have accumulators for mains water if weneed them. Maybe we should all go back to looking at the basic hydraulic equations and understand what we are talking about before we splash the cash? Folk say 4.0 bar at the street.. yes fine if you have a modern 25mm alkathene pipe under say 50- 75 m run. The first thing you do is ask when assessing any supply is to ask.. what type of supply do I have; is it metered and what type of restriction to flow applies in terms of pipe diameter (and bends in the pipe) and at the meter. Next test the static pressure at 3.00 am and and then again at 6.00 - 8.00 am .. that is when folk bath their kids..get up in the morning.. use your judgement on where you live and how you want to live. Get a bucket of known volume and test the flow rate at 3.00 am and at 6.00 - 8.00 am To nail this down put a pressure tester on the line when you are filling the bucket.. now you know flow rate and pressure when the water is running. Now you at least have some ball park figures on how the water supply to your house behaves.. Give this data on what you have measured to your heating plumbing Engineer.. otherwise.. up to you I suppose. If you don't know how the water gets into your house and how it behaves when you turn on the tap how are you supposed to make an informed decision when selecting the right system for you and spending thousands of pounds? Gather this information and you are on your way to getting you plumbing right at the right price. I know it sounds like a bit of hassle but if you gather the basic info yourself you'll at least know if folk are trying to sell you a pup?

Yes if a load bearing wall. Even if it was load bearing then the odd stud 10.0mm out of alignment can be often sorted SE calculation wise...takes a lot of effort to prove but often it is not a show stopper.. unless we are in dispute with say the NHBC in which case all that gets cast up.. as follows For all.. A bit OT fun.. but if that stud was on an extenal wall and we were having a chat with say the NHBC we ask.. hey we know the stud is fine for axial load (downwards load) but it's bowing in or out.. if out we want to inspect the cavity width cavity to se if it is below 50mm.. if out we want to check that the wall ties have sufficient embedment.. if we find we have a non complince then we have a structural safety issue and now we are pushing at an open door to win claims against warranty providers. Otherwise just finish the wall..put the furniture in. Hang a picture.. if you can see the bow after that report back.

Beam and block floors have a time and a place. Sometimes I design them but always look at the whole job in the round.. maybe B&B is not just the best, sometimes it is totally the right way to go.. but you make savings that can allow you to add insulation elsewhere. Some advantages: 1/ They don't rot like timber. 2/ They can help tie masonry walls together.. which saves money elsewhere and that saving can be used to better insulate the beam and block. 2/ They have mass which changes the dynamic response cf say timber joists.. if they B&B don't span too far they feel really solid.. too long a span and get it wrong as an designer they could make you feel "sea sick" particularly if the builder does not follow the installation guidelines. Long span and shallow depth B & B beams can develop a low frequency response which can be a bit.. odd... saying that for a low frequency response you would need to have say a very long corridor, it ain't going to happen walking round the bed to kiss your beloved. It takes a lot of effort to make a B & B floor bounce. By recognising and understanding how the solum ventilation works and designing / controlling it. Yes a few days a year it may reduce the floor temperature but often in the UK when we have low temperatures we have no wind.. heat loss is driven by temperature difference and air flow. Also sometimes it's good to get a bit of cold air into the underbuilding... it kills the rot like a good frost! It's daft to rule out B & B until you know all the facts. The best thing to do is to take a pragmatic appraoch.. think about where you live, the climate all year round, the temperature, where the wind and sun come from, think, sleep on it and try to understand what applies to your job. Now that all sounds a bit philosophical but that is the starting point for good design.. and you never rule things in or out until you have got these basics understood.. well you can but you may well regret it.

What a brilliant, well articulated post.. thanks.. I learnt a lot from that, thanks.

Welcome to BH. You'll learn loads here.. save a bit of cash. maybe lots and get to correspond with good pragmatic folk. To get the best out of BH you need to give a bit back and share your knowledge!

Yes a welcome from me too! Me too.. a 60's house in East Kilbride... for longer than I thought... a while ago.

ICF hidden benefits? Here's a thing.. sometimes rather than comparing each individual element try if you can to look at the design in the round. It's hard to do but just have a look at the house you want to build and trust your intuition.. never be afraid to ask questions at the early esign stage as you are doing. Take a two story house with big open plan spaces on the ground floor and lots of glass... especially looking out to the back garden. When the wind blows it wants to push the house sideways.. we call this lateral stability. If you build a brick / block house then you end up often on the rear elevation with lots of glass with not much length of masonry wall between the glazing panels. You have a series of piers that want to not "topple over" sideways in the plane of the wall.. part of the problem lies in that masonry can't take tension forces that well. When you push a masonry pier sideways you get compression at one side.. and often undesirable tension at the other which can "burst the ball" SE design wise unless you have a lot of load above. If you start to push the amount of glass and fix some of that to the masonry piers you invite the problem where the masonry has to carry the wind pressure /suction loads from the glass.. it can go horribly wrong here as an SE and you then need say to say.. we wind posts etc... you go from hero to zero! In summary masonry is good at carrying vertical loads but not so good when you need to rely on a small length of wall to resist the sideways wind force or suction / pressure loads from glazing. It can / does work well when you have a good length of masonry wall though. Traditionally when faced with this problem we introduce a steel goal post which works to resist the sideways forces, take some of the vertical load and the pressure suction from the glass. We do this lots when folk knock the back out of an existing house. But there is a cost attached.. you need to fix the steel goal post to the rest of the structure and you need often to do some work to the underbuilding.. it gets messy and expensive. Now ICF has hidden advantages that can potentially save loads of cash. Imagine you have a wall with two large glass panels.. 5.0 - 6.0m of glass and 700 - 900 mm of wall each end, 700 -900 mm between the galss panels and say 500 - 700 mm over the top of the glazing.. this 500 - 700 mm could extend up into the second floor (you need to sequence the pour if you do this). The concrete core is just say 150mm thick. You do your ICF wall but around the openings you add a bit of extra reinforcement. Here what you do is to create a concrete portal frame (goal post) all hidden in the wall and in the concrete you are going to pour anyway.. the goal post all for a few extra rebars.. Another gem is that you can sometimes get the extra rebar that form the goal posts hidden in the concrete to resist the pressure / suction loads from the glass. Hope this helps. If you fancy post some drawings and I'm sure we will all chip in with further thoughts.

Good question here @Conor Lot's of good info from other members. Make no mistake here folks if the mill start forging stamps or anyone they are in deep trouble if caught.. and they will be. With a bit of experience you can tell the difference between C16 and C24 pretty quicky The same price is probably more due to price point and stocking levels. C24 is denser.. has more cellulose and less air. I can see how folk may think they are buying the same thing just with a different stamp. For a while you had to pay more for S355 steel than S275.. but the same steel meet the requirement for strength and ductility in both grades.. so the same material could often be dual certified but with the different stamps.. S355 commanding a premium... cynisism developed! But there is definitly a difference between C16 and C24 that you can pick up on as a lay person. Sometimes its not that simple as the connections stop working. If you take a Simpson Strong Tie connection the declared capacity is often based on C24.. reduce that to C16 and the connection can then fail at the nails. Please be careful here.. especially if it has any form of cantilever.. If you want what about posting a few drawings and you'll maybe get some targeted advice?

Building near protected trees can be quite a challenge which is fascinating if you are an Arborist or say an SE.. less exciting if you are the one footing the bill and on a budget. Building near trees on BH crops up a lot and loads of folk on BH have made some great comments / given good advice. One common problem is that of soil shrinkage when the trees suck the water out the ground, another when you cut them down and the soil starts to recover and swells up. This recovering process can take a few years at times in certain clays soils. But the reality is that sometimes the tree protection orders (TPO's) can significantly impact the design and if you don't play by the rules you could face a big fine and get your job stopped. Ok lets look on the bright side.. who doesn't like some good looking trees round about? That said with a bit of careful thought it can work.. it doesn't always need to be a show stopper. If you are the SE you need to first embrace the challenge. Here are some things that require consideration and how you progress a design. The starting point is to look at the tree. What kind is it or do you have more than one also maybe of different species? Roughly some trees have a tap root that goes down deep.. can be right into fractured rock below. This root collects deep water and provides structural stability. Closer to the surface it has thicker lateral roots that follow the nutrient source in the soil. These also provide structural stability to the tree as they get a grip of a wider lump of soil that acts partly as ballast. Thin (fine to very fine) roots grow from these roots and do the grunt of the collecting nutrients and water in the soil. Some trees don't have a tap root though. The first thing you have to look at is that if you run machinery over the ground you compact it and that can cause a lot of damage to the fine root system.. the soil compaction stops the fine roots from regrowing and this could kill the tree... not right away but you can weaken the tree and it is thus more exposed to disease. Next is that if you put a building over part of the root zone you can reduce air infiltration into the ground, exclude water.. as you have taken it away in the gutters and the worms will move off or die. The above often results in the authorities drawing a big circle around the tree and saying.. no heavy machinery.. no building.. no cutting strip founds or drain / service tracks pretty much no nothing in this circle., oh and you need to put a fence round the root protection zone to show compliance. However, sometimes if you spend some time investigating the tree and species you can understand how and where the roots grow for that type of tree. Next is to look carefully at the ground. Tree roots don't grow in a perfect circle around the tree.. they follow the water and nutrients. Once they know they are stable their aim is to propagate so why spend time and energy growing unwanted structural roots. This can be a key.. if you know more about the soil type, the nutrient bearing layers, where the roots are growing and where they need to grow in the future you are on the right track. It may be that with a bit of time and effort you can show that the area of ground the tree needs to maintain health is away from where you want to build! .. and presto .. your project is much more back on track. In reality what happens is you try and change the shape of the protection circle if you can and do a bit of clever SE / geotechnical design to reach a compromise that suits all.. even the tree.. if only they could talk? If you want post more info. Don't despair!

@Gow, thanks for the praise, much appreciated. A company I have done a bit of work with are old skoool cabinet makes / joiners and do high end stuff... well. One of the guys spent 5 years doing his joinery apprenticeship then another I think 3-5 years training as a cabinet maker, at that time they then needed to do two extra years after that as what was called a "journeyman" before full recognition. Worth having a look at what they can offer and if not in your neighbourhood / or suits you then hopefully you can find someone along these lines. Call Niall and if they can't help then they may know someone who can / give you some pointers, depends on where you are located. https://www.joinery-glasgow.com/ Good luck with the project and hope your luck changes.

They don't .. there is no such thing as a silly question.. the silly folk at the dafties; that are too up themselves to ask or at the other end folk that worry about looking "stupid" by asking a laymans question.

My post overlapped with yours. Hopefully others from BH can catch my drift and use it to their advantage. Have not looked back on your other posts but things like steps and garden levels should not be a big issue.. unless you are in a conservation area. Just leave them (the steps) be and see if you get a come back.. gut feeling probably not. If you are really worried then post more stuff or PM a few folk on BH. My preferance is to just post on BH, not PM as then you get the best group advise.

That is good advice. Plenty other folk on BH to PM too. Peter, one of the Mods is a serious expert for example on the English planning system.. there are many others to.. Peter love your stuff but you have equals on BH, not me though as I have more of an SE type bent. The funny thing is that balance.. what do you post on BH to get the best advice vs privacy. I'm sure there are a few planners lurking on BH, a lot will be just folk like the rest of us.. keen to build their own house and learning all about how you do it. I have had folk (not many) that are in the BC/ Planning world come to me and say.. would you do my calcs Gus.. and give me some info on local builders and what I need to do to make it work. They are just like a lot of us that are in the trade..ish. We know how parts of the building world work but not all. I think that the really anal planners are probaby not going to be on BH. You would have to be very unlucky if they just looked up your post. This thing about posting and worrying that the planners may be monitoring.. if you have a good case then they will read it and think... hey I'm on the wrong side of the argument here.. the applicant is on BH and getting advice from folk that will probably run rings round me.. maybe not a hill to die on in my day job as a planner? If you can make the case on BH then maybe your application will fly? If you can pass the test that the pro's on BH set you.. then the formal planning should be a scoooosh? Yes I know that folk worry about social media but BH is a serious forum.. If your argument flies here with all the experience that BH folk have then it evens the odds / maybe tips the odds in your favour when dealing with planning and BC? If you look at BH and the time it has been running.. it is a vast knowledge base.. the councils IT systems and referencing system just can't cope with it. A good few councils subscribe to the IHS data base.. but that costs plenty.. BH is wide ranging and has a huge base.. folk just starting out just say doing up a first flat to seasoned self builders and pro's that make a living in the construction industry. In terms of BH.. it is still a non commercial site.. they day it stops being that.. I'll leave. I dabbled a bit with the Farming Forum.. but it was not for me. The great thing is that I still believe that the experience you get on BH is as close to the real world as you can probably find these days. Oh @CalvinHobbes sorry.. have gone a bit of a rant.

Have not looked back at all your posts Calvin.. But here is a trump card that can flummox the planners.. That is HSE and safety. Clearing the site.. well to do that you need safe access to build. If you start to dig out tree stumps.. could compromise safe entry for plant and machinery.. or you may want to not demolish all of an existing house.. say bungalow gobbling as you may want to use part of the old founds structure to provide temporary bracing. Talk to your SE.. we have ways and means of showing how in the interests of HSE that the safest way is not to "totally" clear the site" as the existing "cottages" may be part of the whole design stategy and the most environmental approach. Some planners / BC think they have god like powers.. but hit them on the low carbon etc (often their weak spots) and make it clear to them that you expect a reasoned response.. they back off. Part of the reason is that you play their game against them and say here is our evidence.. back up your argument and we know it is not in the regs so lets have a proper technical discussion.. they often back off. In other words.. you can leave stuff above the ground if you can show that it is either part of; the temporary works, essential for HSE or part of the recycling waste treatment train .. the environmental stuff really causes them problems in pratical terms. You basically say.. if you want to be diffcult we too can rack up your office hours... that is the tactic the big developers use.. they know where to target the councils and know where they are weak on resourse.. no friends in the desert. To keep yourself covered just write to them and say.. we will comply with our planning consent.. but we also need to comply with the HSE regs so if we don't hear from you other wise we are carting on.

Can you post a photo of the whole wall so we can see what is above and what kind of loads may be acting on the opening? I ask as there is a "funny joint" to the right side on the brickwork. Don't be shy as you'll get loads of good advice from @George and some form me too and others.

@PXR5 Pity that you have this issue.. but you have started a great thread. The responses you have had are really informative (for me also), BH folk chipping with invaluable experience and advice. For me to all who have chipped in .. a big thank you, learnt loads and given me food for thought too. I can't think of anything I can meaningfully contribute to the legal side / just general great advice and input and so on. Other than this. This made me think.. what sort of things could other BH members do if faced with a similar situation and what might be a first small step you could take without aggrevating the situation. One might be.. how do you get something that is a bit of initial formaility to let your neighbours know that you are actively considering your own and importantly their circumstances... if you can show that you have been reasonable and proactive then if later it goes legal this will give weight to your side of the argument. The objective (test of reasonable) is to say... hey I can forsee a possible problem and I want to protect avoid risk (= cost) to us both. Now with things like retaining walls that are bulging.. they tend to slowly destabalise until some, usually environmental event, tips the balance and causes what can be a sudden and dangerous collapse. That could be wind / heavy rainfall / loss of tree root / vegitation stability. A non environmental event would be where someone say piles bulk bags of gravel on the high side of the retained ground or drives a digger up close to the fence. We would often call that a surcharge load. For all if you are designing a basement / retiaining wall we often allow for 10kN/ sq m surcharge loading (1 tonne per sq metre on the finished level of the ground). @PXR5 You could start out with your own survey.. as time is on your side you could probably do this without say an SE / Geotechnical Engineer. First thing to do is take some good record photographs from ground level. These should be panoramic and detailed. Detailed would include parts of the wall where bricks are obviously displaced, where the mortar is clearly falling out of the joints or where roots are growing out the mortar. The key here is to be able to reference the panoramic photos to the detailed ones. The way to do this is imagine you posted the lot on BH.. ask yourself.. would we be able just from the photos to see where the displaced bricks are in relation to the panoramic photos. You tell a story using the photos and present a cogent argument. Ideally you may know someone who has a drone. It does not have to be high tech. Fly it up to the boundary line and take plan photos. It's a good time of year (winter when I write this) as you can see what trees are deciduous and what are say Leylandi.. the evergreen trees and shrubs. This is really helpful. The canopy size of the evergreens is easier to determine when the deciduous trees are not in leaf. Next try and get you hands on a surveyors staff. They have cleary marked graduations that can turn out well in photos unlike a measuring tape, it also looks the part.. a proper staff. Fly the drone down a bit and photograph horizontally.. square on at mid height of the staff. Fly up and take photos level (or as close as you can) with the top of the staff. With a bit of maths if pushed this can give you an approximation of the tree height working from ground level. Objective is to establish roughly the height of the vegitation / trees. You can do this from ground level but you could you have perspective to take into account. If you can't get a drone then you can do this from ground level but it is a bit more complex. On the drone.. do not put any photos in any communication that are taken beyond your boundary.. or you may be subject to a "peeping tom allegation" but you may not want to delete any that have been taken accidentally.. the key here is to mindful of the data protection act. Next as time is on you side to some extent wait until spring then repeat. This all sounds a bit complicated.. but what you are doing is to establish the vegitation profile. In the spring once the leaves develop you can start to identify what kind of trees / vegitation is planted on the neighbours side and you have a record of it. In summary we are trying to record; vegitation height / canopy spread and species. From that we can predict the future growth and how the root growth may impact on the wall. That is what we need to know as SE's say. The above is a long winded way of what the NHBC provide in their design guidance or maybe I have expained how the NHBC guidance can be applied in real life? Next we ask.. how much and how fast are the neighbours trees / vegitation likely to grow? Now that is important as if you want to build a house say we need that information to design the house founds. We also need to know if your neighbours decide to cut down a big tree next to the boundary especially if you house found is only a metre from the boundary. When designing your house found I want to know if trees have been cut down near the boundary on your neighbours side. Turning back to the retaining wall. What we are trying to do is to get a handle on what impact your neighbours planting may have on the retaining wall looking forward. It could be that the trees / shrubs are old and about to die.. thus the movement you see may reduce / stop.. or they could be in their strong junevenile stage and have strong root growth... like teenage kids.. growing every where and trying to take over. Once we have identified canopy size / vegitation type and age then we have some info. We also need to know a bit about the type of soil / water table and so on.. but if I start on that I'll be writing all night. In the round though this is important as the problem may not in fact get significantly worse! which could be good news. Identifying what could happen should drive your strategy to some extent and how you couch your findings / approach your neighbours. Next we need to look at the existing retaining wall construction. Ok the photos should pick up the root growth / weathering of the mortar and so on but we need to look at how much it is off the plumb / possibly unstable. Get a string line and run it say 200 mm tight off the bottom line of the wall from end to end of the boundary wall corners. Do the same at the top. Don't do it on a windy day. At each end plumb the top and bottom line so they are vertically in alignment. DON'T use a spirit level.. use a plumb bob and photograph how you set it up. Take the time to get this spot on. You could use a lazer.. but again this can be easily challenged in terms of accuracy. If you use a spirit level then the first thing folk will say.. is your spirit level accurate.. saying.. I bought it new from B & Q won't cut the mustard in court! Go old schoool use the plumb bob all photographed. Make sure the photos show exactly how you have set up the top and bottom lines. Now you have a top and bottom datum to work to. Next get a straight edge and measure back to the face of the wall and the fence posts etc. Do this say at 3.0 m centres.. allows you to average things.. then take local measurements (odd centres) where the wall is clearly bulging but ALSO where the wall looks ok.. you must be impartial here. Now you draw / calculate a profile of the wall and can identify the real problem areas and compare with part of the wall that may be ok. You may well find that the problem areas coincide with cetrain trees? Now the above will take a bit of time and effort. But if I was acting for you I would want to gather the same info as any another Surveyor / technical bod would say.. The difference between you and I when acting in a professional capacity is folk can argue that my word (SE type hat on) carries more weight that yours cf you with long standing service / good personal reputation in the local the community. To easily resolve this you'll need a "helper" to help you take all these measurements. So long as you work together you can both put your hand on your hearts (the witness) and say.. we did not fudge the results as we relied on first principles.. like a string line and a plumb bob and took photos = someone like me.. Gus. Just don't pick a helper that has a conviction for fraud.. I'm sure you don't associate with the like.. just having a laugh. In summary you may ask.. but I'm not an SE /other professional bod.. so what.. if you think about it.. you can do a lot on your own.. looking / thinking, measuring in a recognised way and recording what you find. Next do a small report.. could be a couple of pages with an appendix with loads of photos. You may know someone that can make it look " more official in terms of presentation" Report.. Keep it factual and really simple. Avoid elaboration in any way as you can dig a hole for yourself if you get carried away. Stick to your comfort zone, the skills you have and avoid stepping into say SE / Geotech areas.. photograph and report what you observe ..don't try and interpret your findings. Report starts with an objective. Objective is to understand how much the wall is bulging and how straight it is.. you don't have to go all SE and say.. too much leaning over /unsafe blah blah.. you are just establishing the profile of the wall. Do not turn the report into what is acalled an interpretive report.. this is where you start to draw conclusions from what you have found / measured. That the report has been prepared based on the fact that you are intending to construct a dwelling within say one metre of the boundary. You are concerned that in doing so you may have to cut the "structural roots" of their trees.. ( pretty sure you are within your rights here just like if I had put the found of my extension on your land.. over to the experts on English law here). Also that as this is intended to be a dwelling house their wall must not pose a safety risk to the dwelling and use of. Next you say.. we have established the tree / shrub height, canopy and species based on observations from our side of the boundary. Lastly you write a bit of conclusion which from what you are saying is: 1/ The wall appears to have deteriorated and this could be as a result of not least a lack of maintenance by you (based on your stated claim of ownership) coupled with the apparent detrimetal impact of ongoing growth of the vegitation and trees on your side of the boundary. You are not interpreting here.. you are saying .. it looks like these are things that could be an issue. 2/ My initial findings based on limited information I have gathered is that the vegitation / trees ect on your side of the boundary will likely result in the wall for which you are responsible deteriorating further... It may be that you find that the trees etc are old and dying.. so that could become a mute point. Think carefully and identify if their trees etc are really a big problem. 3/ Lets say you find that the trees are vigorous.. growing like fury. First point is that you now have a record so you say.. here is the record.. it's your wall / trees etc not mine. But in the interest of public safety this is a potential issue for the "owner of the wall". Leave it at that as they will quickly twig that there could be some liability racking up on their account. 4/ Say that these are your provisional findings. Arrange as you see fit and put that in a "report". Next do a covering letter which says something like.. as well as being really nice to them..as you really want them to come to the table and be good neighbours and you want that kind of relationship also. Here is what I have found / measured. I want to get on and want to identify and resolve any potential issues. Here is my report. Unless I hear from you in 4 ( about 21 working days) weeks then the measurements and photographs must stand for record purposes. Here what you are doing is affording them the opportunity to engage with you. If they challenge your findings it will probaby cost them a bit as they will probably need to involve a professional.. unless they too are on BH say!. If they don't respond then you can say.. well I take it you have accepted my measurements. It may be that if you put together a good looking evidence based report coupled with a pleasant covering letter they will see the light. I don't think you can lose as the report you produce is evidence based and asks questions. Part of the intent is to sow doubt in their mind and makes them think.. hey this could be a bit costly for us if we keep being "difficult neighbours" .. it gets them thinking.. our structural tree roots should not really be on other folks land.. if our trees fall on someone else.. the Police / HSE could be at our door? The factual report is one part.. the way you finesse the covering letter is probably the key. The above is one appoach to getting difficult neighbours to "see the light" .. what you are doing is measuring/ photographing and giving them the opportunity to respond in a like for like manner.. which probably means they have to stick their hand in their pocket also. You basically say put up or shut up.

Had to edit as my soft side kicked in.

Your post over lapped! You posted when I was writing! Steady on here.. Sounds to me like time for cool heads. Don't let that get to you.. surprisingly folk will sit for many hours/ days and write objections.. some are complete bonkers.. but it is a public service so some folk just like letting off steam. What matters to the planners. is relevant comment. I have Clients that have had some horrible things posted on the planning portal.. objections. then they get planning and the neighbours realise that they.. they (the new folk) are a good bunch.. and wish they had not written that stuff on the public record! Calm down and take step back. From reading your posts you seem to have some means so you don't qualify in my book as say a young person just starting out buying their first home . Me too have had brushes with the police so if you want a bit of help then as an old Electiricial (who was a Church Elder) that I worked with used to say. Gus.. the truth will set you free! @PXR5 I think you are not playing this off a straight batt Over to you!

Ok I get it, country boy myself, go beating / lamping and so on.. get your point. Play the it country way! Go canny, post some photos and lets see how bad the wall is and then you can get heavy with a few technical observations.. probably scare them off. The objective is to put the ball into their court and let them realise that to defend they will have to stump up some cash. Also you need to finesse.. you have chosen to live in the country for a different life.. don't come and try to change it to suit your ideal. In the country we shoot deer / foxes, have hounds and do vermin control. We eat deer..called venison. Waitrose sell the same but in a nice plastic packet... but most have been shot by folk like myself. Yes even farmed deer are head shot folks, they don't get put in a trailer like sheep and carted off to the slaughter house.. a horrific journey? But if you have ever been near a sluaghter house..it's not for the faint hearted.. the animals can smell fear. What do you want to do build development wise? Don't panic.. and stay away from the legal stuff for now.. you'll get lot's of help here BH. If you give a bit of info you can probably turn this around.. and let the new folk "see the light" and the benefits of living in the country. I think if you can hit them with the risk / cost element they may embrace the fact that country folk are not daft? I do wonder if this will get by the mods? Can I talk about how you design a house in the country and how that fits with the life in the country and where our food comes from. Mods.. if this sounds a bit blood thirsty for you.. what about this.. I kept free range chickens / ducks and had a few pheasant pens.. but they mostly the hens (chi9ckens) laid their eggs under hedges.. next thing a hedgehog comes along and scoffs up their nearly hatched eggs, the hens went nuts.. but for me the hog was a delight.. You see @PXR5 yes push back hard against the incomers wanting to make the environment like a city. If we don't the country and our way of life will be be lost to our kids. For those that live in cities.. if they all become one you will have nowhere to go for tranquility and that woke stuff called "diversity"