Update on the hole/waste problem

I got an update from Shaun about the hole. The architect and Structural Engineer were round last Wednesday night to examine the waste and decide what had to be done.

It's not good news, although it could've been worse it seems.

Unfortunately a live waste drain from the house 3 doors further down the road comes right across the garden and then goes under the house and under next doors house before joining the main sewer in the middle of Fernbank. The hole where the foundations should be was an open inspection chamber and there's another one under next doors house!

This means the drain crosses the new extension twice, once on the outer wall and more signficantly where the new lounge and 5th bedroom walls will be - two storeys of weight to carry.

The inspection camera was able to follow the drain out to Fernbank and back to the originating house. They also had to jet wash out the pipe in order to see clearly - euuuwwgggh.

Nobody is quite sure what was happening to the 'waste' before as it was blocked with rubble when they found it but started flowing once it was cleared. The open inspection chamber has now been replaced with a proper pipe.



The Structural Engineer isn't happy with the weight of the house sitting on top of the drain. The current proposed solution is to sink 3 piers around the hole, one to the left, one right and one towards the garden. These will be like pillars of foundation that will take and distribute the weight of the house. There will also be wire mesh embedded in concrete across the hole. There will also need to be some reinforcement where the drain crosses the outer side wall of the extension.

And the holes for the piers will be 2 metres deep which makes them dangerous and expensive to dig. There's no room for the digger so they'll have to be hand dug.

Unfortunately this also means we have to get a party wall agreement signed with our neighbours as the 'piers' will be within 1 metre of their foundations/house.

We haven't been able to clarify how or if we should've known about this. The waste isn't connected to the waste from our house or next door - both of which route from the front of the houses. From a bit of searching on the internet it seems drains before a certain time weren't documented and it can be just luck as to whether anything turns up when you dig. The building controls man said that there's no way the original house build should've been approved with this setup, but of course that doesn't help us much now.