Central sagging of house

[garden4ork]

Hi all,

 

Looking for a little advice, or optimism, over my house where there is obvious 'dip' in the centre (detached rectangular house)

 

Door frames sag to the centre on both levels, and spirit levels on both the ground and 1st floors confirm this. Staircase is central so all converges on this area.

One thing to note, the whole house seems to be made up of partition walls (built in 70s) with the only one continuous top to bottom being the staircase wall.

 

Looking underneath in 'the void' there seems to be a central brick support wall which the the beams rest upon. I've not managed to get under as it's a very tight space. Though they seem in good condition.

 

Probable faults, there is a spring close by to the house which results in small amounts of flooding under continuous torrential downpours (the previous owners have put in a substantial french drain which flows into waste water basin) and when the water table is high there is a constant flow.

 

Thoughts are this is just historical subsidence of the support wall and in theory could be slowly shimmed up to provide a level floor/restore door frames

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

Pictures?

 

First thing to establish is the ground floor entirely flat or is that sagging in the middle, if so likely to be subsidence.

 

If ground floor is flat but parts of upstairs sagging and given your description, likely to be inadequate (probably) timber lintels or joists sagging.

[garden4ork]

Yes sorry, please see attached.

 

The blue wall is on the ground floor, the floor does drop down and when the door is opened it catches on the laminate on the far left, so a considerable drop I imagine? 

If I lay a long spirit level down, there is a 'low spot' as well as bubble showing an offset to the centre of house

 

Placing a ball on the laminate, it will always roll towards the centre of the staircase wall

 

Image with the thermostat, you can see the door crooked and plasterboard cracking - it continues along the top of the wall. This is common for nearly all doors.

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by garden4ork

[garden4ork]

On 29/01/2023 at 11:30, ProDave said:

Pictures?

 

First thing to establish is the ground floor entirely flat or is that sagging in the middle, if so likely to be subsidence.

 

If ground floor is flat but parts of upstairs sagging and given your description, likely to be inadequate (probably) timber lintels or joists sagging.

 

Attached images above Dave, while it doesn't look extreme we're planning on new windows/bathroom and I'd rather not sink money into that if it needs to go elsewhere

[ProDave]

The blue wall that is clearly out of square at the bottom of the door frame. What is is like at the top of the door?

 

My second house, was much worse than that but only upstairs.  It was a set of over stressed joists due to an upstairs load bearing wall not being above the downstairs one.  The process of alterations to the house the wonky door frame upstairs got moved and re built and it never moved again, at least in the time I owned it.

[garden4ork]

21 hours ago, ProDave said:

The blue wall that is clearly out of square at the bottom of the door frame. What is is like at the top of the door?

 

My second house, was much worse than that but only upstairs.  It was a set of over stressed joists due to an upstairs load bearing wall not being above the downstairs one.  The process of alterations to the house the wonky door frame upstairs got moved and re built and it never moved again, at least in the time I owned it.

Yes you can see the top of the frame is sagging towards the centre of the house. Also slight cracks in the plaster/plasterboard on both sides of the door

 

The overbearing joist/joists makes a lot of sense as the central staircase wall (the only one which runs full height of house) sits on just one joist they both run parallel 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by garden4ork