It was all going so well....

Slight complication today. The contractor wanted to dig out the foundations for the northern wall today, while the concrete poured behind the blockwork underpinning is allowed to set. However, he has found that this part of the ground has a different composition to the rest. He dug to a depth of 5 feet before reaching something solid. This is 5 foot below the 7 foot already dug out for our basement space.

The contractor was not happy as this is not the sort of base that the rest of the work enjoys, and is not of the building quality that the detailed plans assume. He called in the building inspector from the council who agreed that the design needs to be checked to either make sure that it still works, or in order that it can be redesigned to meet this obstacle.

What we think has happened is that we have started to impinge on the old quarry working at the top part of our garden. This was filled in by the gas board when a housing estate was built in the vicinity. As a consequence the rock base that we have hit with the rest of the foundations, was long ago removed by quarry men and used to build stuff. We knew of the fact it was there somewhere, but not it's exact location. We checked with the previous owners, but they could not be sure either. I think we now know at least where it's southerly boundary is.

Checking on the specification of works from our structural engineer, we see that the calculated "Ground Bearing Pressure" for the retaining walls is 30.6 KNewtons/sqr metre and that there is an assumption that the "Ground Bearing Capacity" is > 100 KN/m2. I guess this all hinges on whether that assumption is still valid. The contractor was confident it is not an insurmountable problem - more concrete, more steel, & more money should see it resolved !

The structural Engineer has agreed to come on-site tomorrow to discuss the way forward. However, he still believes we are in dispute over the fees for the original work (see March 16th). At the moment he is not prepared to work further for us unless that dispute is settled. Whether or not this will happen tomorrow, only time will tell ! We are stuck in a cleft stick really. If we refuse to settle the previous dispute, he may refuse to consult on any required re-design, and we will be forced to find an alternative engineer prepared to rework somebody elses plans. The delays will probably cost more than the amount we are arguing about and we will then have two designers with shared responsibility. But then there is the principle of the thing - we do not believe we are being unreasonable.

Hopefully common sense will prevail.