Is this you?

So you live in a charming home, steeped in character with original features galore. However, your walls aren't straight, you suffer hairline cracking, the elevations of your home bow outwards, children and pets roll across the floor when you set them down, your windows don't open, in fact its a wonder they still fit in their openings.

If the above descriptions sound familiar to you, the chances are that your home is Victorian.

Why is this?

Victoria's reign was a time of rapid industrial growth, the demand for housing was great, however the funds available for this huge growth were limited.

In addition, building technology was far less advanced than it is today, the regulatory structure was virtually non-existent, and the laws governing house building were lax.

What's happening?

A number of factors could be affecting your home, individually or all at the same time. The key to understanding what is happneing to your home, and more importantly what can be done to remedy it, is to have an understanding of how Victrorian properties were built.

Sloping floors are invariably the result of rotten joist ends, Modern homes use joist hangers, anodised brackets to secure the joist to the building's shell. Victorian construction saw timber joists sunk directly into the brickwork, over time the joist ends become damp and the lower edge fo the joist errodes, thus causing a sloping effect across the floors in your home.

Your Victorian home does not benefit from cavity walls, rather than two leaves of brickwork or blockwork tied together with steel ties, a Victorian property will have two leaves of brickwork tied together with bricks spanning the two leaves.

This is one area that legislation did not really extend to, whereas there were laws governing the chimneys and foundations, the actual walls of the property were one area where corners could be cut. It is not unusual to find that the "headers" that are intended to span the two courses actually don't, and if they do there is the possibility that they have been constructed with a lower grade of brick that is unable to withstand the stresses and strains that they have been placed under over time. In the second instance the header bricks are prone to snapping. The effect that this will have on your home is that the inner leaf of your wall will remain realtively straight, whereas the outer leaf will bow, particularly if located at the end of a terrace.

Movements in the foundations of your property can explain instances of craking within your home, aside from the fact that Victorian foundations weren't as ample as modern foundations. many other factors will have had an effect on your home over the last 150 years. Rising water tables, movement in sewers and WWII ordnance have all been blamed for movement in Victorian properties

Should I be worried?

Probably not, YES your home has been slowly falling apart for the last 150 years, but NO, this process was ongoing before you noticed a few cracks and the chances are your home is not going to experience a catastrophic faliure during the course of this month.

Further to this, technology has advanced greatly over the last few years and remedies for your problems are plentiful, sympathetic and discrete.

Abating the problems in your Victorian home has never been more cost effective, cleaner and quicker than it is today. Innovative systems are readily available to prevent your walls bowing further, to halt the sloping of your floors and to permanently repair cracking to brickwork.

Furthermore, constructa: is here to help, we are expert in the thoughtful and efficient preservation of the Victorian properties that make up the character of so many of our cities. We hope you have found this page useful, informative and reassuring, for additional advice, please feel free to email us.

info@constructa.co.uk

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