Foundation Repair near you

Much of southern and eastern England sits on shrinkable clay, and clay changes volume as it wets and dries. Approved Document A puts numbers on what that means for new foundations: in clay soils subject to volume change on drying, strip foundations should be taken to a depth where anticipated ground movements will not impair the stability of any part of the building, taking due consideration of the influence of vegetation and trees on the ground. The depth to the underside of foundations on clay soils should not be less than 0.75m on low shrinkage clay soils, 0.9m on medium shrinkage clay soils and 1.0m on high shrinkage clay soils, and those depths may need to be increased where there are trees nearby. Older houses were frequently built shallower than that, which is why a Victorian terrace on clay can move in a drought while a modern house beside it does not.

Trees are therefore part of the diagnosis rather than an afterthought, and they come with their own law. Under the planning practice guidance on tree preservation orders, a local planning authority's consent is needed to fell or prune a protected tree unless a specific exception applies. Consent is not required for the minimum of work necessary to prevent or abate a nuisance, but the guidance is careful that nuisance is used in its legal sense and the nuisance must be actionable in law. Where damage to property is the argument, an applicant is expected to show that the tree is a material cause of the problem and that other factors have been eliminated as potential influences, with technical evidence from a relevant engineer, building or drainage surveyor or other appropriate expert for lighter structures.

The practical warning is that felling a mature tree on clay is not a neutral act. Removing it can allow the clay to recover moisture and swell, which is heave, and heave can damage a building that was coping perfectly well with the shrinkage. This is a decision for the engineer investigating the movement, not for the contractor quoting for the repair.

Regulation 3(1) of the Building Regulations 2010 defines building work, and paragraph (f) is work involving the underpinning of a building. That puts underpinning squarely inside building control: GOV.UK's guidance is that you may need approval from a building control body, either your local authority's building control department or a private registered building control approver, and warns that without approval you will not have the certificates of compliance you may need when you want to sell your home. Ask at the quotation stage who is notifying building control and who will hold the completion certificate at the end.

The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies in England and Wales and is separate again. Section 2(2) gives a building owner the right to underpin, thicken or raise a party structure, a party fence wall, or an external wall which belongs to the building owner, and to make good, repair, or demolish and rebuild, a party structure or party fence wall in a case where such work is necessary on account of defect or want of repair. Section 3 requires a party structure notice to be served at least two months before the date on which the proposed work will begin.

Section 6 is the one that catches excavation. It applies where you propose to excavate within three metres of a neighbouring owner's building or structure and to a lower level than the bottom of their foundations, and within six metres where the excavation would meet a plane drawn downwards at forty-five degrees to the horizontal from the bottom of their foundations. Notice must be served at least one month before beginning to excavate, accompanied by plans and sections, and the building owner may, and if required by the adjoining owner shall, at his own expense underpin or otherwise strengthen or safeguard the adjoining owner's foundations. GOV.UK's explanatory booklet adds that if the person receiving the notice has done nothing after fourteen days a dispute is deemed to have arisen, surveyors are then appointed, and the surveyor or surveyors settle the matter by making an award that sets out the work to be carried out and when and how it is to be done. The booklet is explicit that the Act is separate from planning or building regulations control, so having one never removes the need for the others.

The first stage is not a repair, it is evidence. Movement is normally monitored over a period long enough to cover a dry season and a wet one, because a crack that opens every August and closes every February is telling you something quite different from one that widens steadily in every reading. Alongside monitoring, an investigation typically looks at the soil, the depth and condition of the existing footing, the drainage near the affected corner, and the trees and vegetation within influencing distance. GOV.UK's land stability guidance expects assessment reports to be prepared by an appropriately qualified person such as a chartered member of a relevant professional institution, which is the standard worth holding any report to.

Only then does a repair get designed, and frequently the design is not underpinning at all. Repairing a leaking drain, managing or removing vegetation on engineering advice, or simply allowing the ground to recover can be the whole answer, with the cracking made good once movement has stopped. Where structural work is genuinely needed, it is designed by an engineer and built to that design rather than chosen from a product range.

Do speak to your buildings insurer before you commission structural repairs, because policies differ on what they cover and on what they require you to do first, and a decision taken in the wrong order can be difficult to unwind. LokalMatch is how you reach the trades once the scope is settled: describe the job once, including what has moved, what any monitoring or engineer's report found and your postcode, and contractors covering your area get in touch with you. The pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not carry out the work, does not set prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend any firm, so checking qualifications and who is dealing with building control remains yours to do.

Underpinning deepens or strengthens the existing foundation so it bears on ground that is not moving. It is the right answer for a genuine bearing failure, for a building founded on made ground or a soft spot, and sometimes for damage bad enough that stabilising the structure cannot wait. It is invasive, it engages building control and the Party Wall Act, and it is not a general-purpose response to a cracked wall.

In a large share of British clay-shrinkage cases the cause is seasonal and external, and taking away the cause is the proportionate repair. A drain leaking into the ground beside the footing, vegetation drawing moisture out of the clay, or surface water discharging against the wall can each produce convincing movement, and each can be dealt with without touching the foundation. Part-underpinning a building whose ground moves seasonally can even create a new problem by leaving one part of the wall on a stiff support and the rest of it free to move.

The question to put to anyone recommending underpinning is what they believe the mechanism to be, what evidence supports it, and what would happen if the cause were removed instead. If the answer arrives before any monitoring has been done, get a second opinion from someone who is not selling the repair.

If your home is in a coalfield, damage may not be a private repair problem at all. Claims for damage caused by coal mining subsidence are made to the Mining Remediation Authority, under the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991 as amended by the Coal Industry Act 1994. You complete a damage notice form and send it in; an engineer inspects the damage; and if the claim is agreed you will either get the damage fixed or compensation for it. GOV.UK states that you will usually get a decision on your claim within 90 days.

The Act is unusually favourable to the householder on the central question of causation. The guide to your rights explains that in proceedings under the Act it is up to the mine operator to show that the damage is not due to coal mining subsidence. In general the mine owner carries out repairs to the property, which should make good the damage to your reasonable satisfaction, with compensation paid instead where repairs are not physically possible or where the cost of repairs is significantly greater than the reduction in value. Where the mine owner is liable, reasonable costs of professional advice incurred in pursuing the claim are reimbursed, and you can claim up to six years from when it was reasonable for you to have known damage had occurred.

Whether mining is even a possibility is a question you can answer before you start. The Mining Remediation Authority holds the records and provides a chargeable coal mining report covering mine entries within twenty metres of a property's boundaries, gas emissions from coal mines, other coal mining hazards reported in the area and plans for future coal mining, and GOV.UK notes that property near to past mining activities may be at risk of being on unstable ground.