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recoveringbuilder

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14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

There were probably close to 200,000 houses build in 2017, one falls down.

Yes but it must be a continuum, and in multiple dimensions, so one very bad, the next slightly less so - all the way to perfect and, you of all people, must know that in such a large sample it should exhibit a normal distribution at which point is is all about the Kurtosis.

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2 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Yes but it must be a continuum, and in multiple dimensions, so one very bad, the next slightly less so - all the way to perfect and, you of all people, must know that in such a large sample it should exhibit a normal distribution at which point is is all about the Kurtosis.

More likely a stochastic distribution, which is no distribution at all.

AKA 'Sods Law'.

 

But just think, the new place will be rebuilt to the newer standards.  And they get to stay in a hotel.

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Makes you wonder how much liability building control carry for this compared to the insurance company.

 

Many homeowners don't want to shell out £1200 for a ground investigation report (especially for an extension), so it's all done on best guesses.

 

Edit - Oxford has 'High' volume change potential clay. So it's not an unknown risk. 

Edited by George
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8 minutes ago, George said:

...

Many homeowners don't want to shell out £1200 for a ground investigation report (especially for an extension), so it's all done on best guesses.

...

Reading that article made me feel sick.

 

We are also on glacial till. There's a bit of a sand layer in it and one small rock incursion.

Many locals (who wanted to work for us during our build) expressed something on the range of surprise to open criticism that we should get an independent survey of our ground conditions. And when they told the cost, several times the response was:

"Aaah'd a dunit fer £200 - tha's bin fleeced, lad, fleeced"

"And do you have PII " I asked .

"Whassat?"

"Listen mert, they 'ouwsiz next to your'n bin oop fer centuriz" was the sole argument they could muster

 

After 6 years of hearing the same refrain, I am now certain that some full-time builders think of self-builders as moneyed idiots. More money than sense.

Who sang  '... will you walk away from a fool and his money ...'  ? (1970s?)

 

The piling company required sight of our ground report before quoting for the work,  and then did their own survey in addition. Sensibly, they asked me to do the digging for their own survey.

 

The cost of all the soil investigations together was £2435 : money very well spent. 

I hope.

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My bit of Cambs is clay. We got away with deepish trench foundations. House along the road opted for piles that had to be very deep. 16C Cottage between us probably has almost no foundations.

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1 hour ago, Temp said:

....  16C Cottage between us probably has almost no foundations.

 

To me, that is a powerful argument . But.

If  the process of building a house is in part about risk reduction, the question becomes:

Who is taking the risk ?

And :

Who benefits from over-stating or understating the risk ?

 

Our SE (Tanners) put it simply -

How many cases of ground-heave are there, and of those how many do you hear about?

 

The answer (to the second part ) was (and still is) is almost never.

His response was - his (non-professional )friends in Ireland would have given the same answer as I did. But that  his company had been consulted a few times recently (Irish building boom times back then) to sort out ground heave issues. 

Over-stating it? 

Tanners have too solid a reputation to  misrepresent stuff.

And beyond a certain level of Due Diligence, you just have to trust.

 

Why buy and dog and bark yourself?

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4 hours ago, Temp said:

16C Cottage between us probably has almost no foundations.

 

Old "pile of stones" buildings are very forgiving. Lots of lovely flexible lime and timber and thatch. 

 

Making our houses out of rigid concrete isn't without its disadvantages.

 

 

 

 

 

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