Hello all,
we bought a new house a few months back, it's a three storey house where the garden is on the first floor at the back. There is a long space at the back of the house, behind the double garage, which would be perfect for a pinball room. Half of this long space (about 6 metres x 2.1 metres) is already exposed and usable. The other half was blocked up.
I've knocked a hole through the trench block wall (supporting the concrete beams above) and the space is open but filled about halfway up with dolomite sloping towards the rear retaining wall. I suspected this might be to push back against the retaining wall which is underground so got a structural surveyor involved.
The first chap was helpful, asked me to dig down through the dolomite to see what was underneath, really to check for a stepped footing. There wasn't one, but I did find the toe of the wall. In the end he said he could not definitely give me an answer but if it were him he would have a go, proceeding with caution. He was not convinced the dolomite was really doing anything.
I got another surveyor out who said that I would need to undertake massive investigation work to be able to do anything, basically a non-starter. He was more of a commercial/industrial surveyor.
I'm now thinking a compromise might be the answer, so to remove half the dolomite, build a solid wall and gain about 3m x 1.7m. Obviously the retaining wall would still need some attention. What I now need is more of a common sense approach based on the existing support, does anyone on here have knowledge of retaining walls and what would/would not be acceptable? I can share some pics/drawings if that would help.
Cheers, Kris
we bought a new house a few months back, it's a three storey house where the garden is on the first floor at the back. There is a long space at the back of the house, behind the double garage, which would be perfect for a pinball room. Half of this long space (about 6 metres x 2.1 metres) is already exposed and usable. The other half was blocked up.
I've knocked a hole through the trench block wall (supporting the concrete beams above) and the space is open but filled about halfway up with dolomite sloping towards the rear retaining wall. I suspected this might be to push back against the retaining wall which is underground so got a structural surveyor involved.
The first chap was helpful, asked me to dig down through the dolomite to see what was underneath, really to check for a stepped footing. There wasn't one, but I did find the toe of the wall. In the end he said he could not definitely give me an answer but if it were him he would have a go, proceeding with caution. He was not convinced the dolomite was really doing anything.
I got another surveyor out who said that I would need to undertake massive investigation work to be able to do anything, basically a non-starter. He was more of a commercial/industrial surveyor.
I'm now thinking a compromise might be the answer, so to remove half the dolomite, build a solid wall and gain about 3m x 1.7m. Obviously the retaining wall would still need some attention. What I now need is more of a common sense approach based on the existing support, does anyone on here have knowledge of retaining walls and what would/would not be acceptable? I can share some pics/drawings if that would help.
Cheers, Kris
