What should you do if you are worried about the structure of a property that you own?

First of all just fill in the contact form at the top of this page. We will contact you and ask you plenty of questions regarding your plans for the property etc and If we think we can help we will visit and provide a preliminary report.

This preliminary structural defects report will include an appraisal of the problems, describe the possible solutions and the range of remedial works costs that might be involved as well as a fixed price cost for the investigation stage (See below). This preliminary report will be provided totally free of charge provided that we can arrange the time of visit to fit in with other business trips to your area.

If you do not own the property we make a small charge for the site visit and report - click on Structural defects reports for more information.

What should we do if structural repairs have already been undertaken and you are not sure whether they have been done properly?

Underpinning to stop cracking is quite rare in France but it has sometimes been undertaken when an old stone building has been constructed on a hillside and rainwater running down the hill has eroded the supporting soil foundation zone.

Various other types of structural repair are often found to have been undertaken and these include:

1. Tie bars through the building with anchor plates on the outside of the walls (sometimes in the form of an S, X or sometimes a decorative casting)
2. Butresses to leaning walls
3. Concrete anchor / tie beams at eaves level
4. Short ties in the form of rods fixed across the line of a crack using cement mortar

All these types of repair are frequently encountered - somtimes they have been done well and are working properly and sometimes they are totally inadequate. Type 4 rarely works and is almost cosmetic.

Where is subsidence and cracking likely to occur in France

Click on the following link to visit our sister site on swimming pools in France and fosse installations

bluepools.co.uk

Click on the following link to see details of houses near us in Jonzac

maisons.co.uk