Good Reasons for Underpinning a House

Flooring and kitchen 3

If you’re reading this, you were probably told that your home’s foundation needs to be underpinned and that it’s a complicated process. That said, it’s a subject that most homeowners aren’t familiar with. 

Now, this is unfortunate as many people up wasting time and money by blindly jumping into the process. In this article, we endeavor to correct the matter by delving into the process of underpinning a home. More importantly, we’ll cite specific situations that make it necessary in the first place. Let’s get right to it!

So what exactly is underpinning?

Simply put, underpinning refers to the process of reinforcing and strengthening the foundation of an existing structure. This is primarily done for safety reasons, mainly when introducing additional load for which the original structure wasn’t designed to handle. Hence, there’s a risk that a house might collapse if underpinning isn’t done correctly.

You might also be wondering — are there other benefits to underpinning, and what are the signs that your house needs it? These are the kind of questions that most people have once they get an underpinning recommendation from their surveyor.

Consider the following reasons that your home may require underpinning:

In most cases, underpinning is only ever recommended if it is determined that your home’s foundations are no longer stable or not solid enough to support any changes to the original structure. In this case, the underpinning will be required to rectify the problem.

Other cases wherein underpinning is deemed necessary include the following:

You plan on repurposing the structure. Perhaps you’re looking to convert your home into a store? In any case, the underpinning will be necessary before renovations can begin if only to account for the added structural load. After all, converting a house into a store means that it’ll have to support additional foot traffic and merchandise.

The quality of the soil underneath the structure has degraded. This can happen for many reasons — a recent earthquake, soil erosion, or subtle soil movements over time. In any case, the underpinning will be necessary to reinforce the foundation supporting your home.

In some cases, the problem may not be related to your house’s foundation, but rather, the structures near it. A new building may have been constructed adjacent to your home, or perhaps you’ve added a shed? Such changes may have weakened the soil or foundation due to the added strain. As a result, you will need to get help from an expert on underpinning Houses in Melbourne to strengthen your home’s foundation.

You may have limited space, or the cost of buying land might be too high in your area. In this case, it might be cheaper to embark on an underpinning project to expand the amount of habitable living space. This means adding one or more floors to your property instead of buying an additional plot of land.

Conclusion

So there you have it — the various reasons where underpinning your home might be a necessity. As you may have already realized, it’s a complicated and costly undertaking, but otherwise necessary to keep your property safe.