« Back to Home

Two Reasons to Underpin the Foundation of a House With no Serious Structural Damage

Posted on

If your house has a subsidence problem but this has not yet led to serious structural damage, you may see no need to urgently use a house underpinning service. Here are two reasons why you should, despite the building being in reasonably good condition.

Any improvements you make to the house will be short-lived

If you decide to do some home improvements without first using an underpinning service, you should assume that the positive results of those improvements will be short-lived, even if there are currently very few visible signs of subsidence-related deterioration. For example, if you have your interior walls replastered, many of them may develop diagonal cracks which will spoil their smooth appearance. Likewise, if you install new windows, their frames could warp and result in the windows gradually become more and more difficult to open and close.

This deterioration will occur because, after subsidence starts happening, it will not come to a halt until the building's foundation has been stabilised by the installation of structural supporting components. As such, if you proceed with home improvements without underpinning the house's foundation, you will have to accept that many of these improvements will not have the lifespan that they should and you'll need to re-do them after you've used an underpinning service.

The house will be hard to sell

If you sell your house, you'll have to declare its subsidence issue to anyone interested in purchasing it. A house whose foundation is sinking downward and which has not undergone the necessary underpinning needed to stabilise it will probably be very hard to sell unless you price it much lower than the similarly-sized houses in the area.

This is because if someone likes the house and buys it, they'll have to cover the cost of getting it underpinned and wait until this essential work is done before they can start living in it or decorating it. This could be hugely off-putting, as purchasing a house and moving is expensive enough, without tacking on extra repair-related expenses. Furthermore, with the exception of those who buy properties with the goal of fully renovating them, most house-buyers want to be able to move into their newly-purchased properties as soon as possible after purchasing them. As such, if you want to sell over or at your asking price and would like the process of attracting a buyer and selling your house to be reasonably quick, you must get its foundation underpinned.


Share