or more realistically project managed the build?

i'd be interested to hear of your views / issues / opinion / pit falls – the steeper your learning curve the better!!!

(i've seen a lovely plot that has a house on it which to my uneducated eye is falling down – big cracks all the way round full width of walls with previous history of subsidence)

As a fully qualified house rebuilding expert ( in other words, have watched every episode of Grand Desgins) one thing springs immediatly to mind.

SUBSIDENCE !!

Why, being the very important or indeed expensive question.

Mine workings/poor subsoil/insufficient foundations/water penetration/drainage or high water table ?

Hope for insufficient foundations and budget for a full soil survey.

How is your hand?

You need to know if the building looks dodgy because of something you can fix in a rebuild, like poor foundations or drying out clay, or something deeper like mineral workings. Like stucol said, only more so.

hi K – hand ok, hopefully the half cast i've had on for last 4 weeks will be off today and an x ray will show its still in good alignment 😀

Just get a Geotec survey done – I used to be in that business. Simple and shouldn't cost too much. You need to know the soil make up, it's drainage qualities and the "hardness" of the soil. Nothing fancy.

If you didn't live daaaaaaaaaarn sarf I'd have done the geotec at mleh rates. Bloody southerners.