Knocking down half a semi?

[tonyvid]

Not that kind of semi...

I have to confess that I watched some of "Homes under the hammer" this morning - 2 chaps bought a house to do up, you know the usual sort of thing, but it turns out to be a concrete built place with loads of cracks. A few months on and they have decided to rebuild it rather than refurb but....it is half of a semi, they left the roof supported on scaffold and demolished the rest. If I was the neighbour I would be about it all. Can you imagine how unpleasant it would be living next to all that?

They planned to do a conventional brick build under the old roof - so, how does all that tie into the other house, can you just knock down half of a block and put something else there? It all looked very dodgy and rather unfair to the neighbours to me.

[Alfa_75_Steve]

Can't see any reason why not - loads of terrace blocks have been chopped short over the years.

Mostly by the Luftwaffe, but still, it shows it can be done

[Davi]

Do you recall what sort of concrete it was? most of these problematic concrete places it's just the outer skin (which is a non-load bearing structure) and it is perfectly normal to knock the outer down and rebuild with traditional brick / block.

Not that expensive or time consuming either!

[tonyvid]

It looked like the whole place had been poured in one go but that would be daft - they said it was almost impossible to get a mortgage on such builds but they didn't realise the construction when they bought it . It seemed a sort of 50s type house.

[camgear]

I usually find a cold shower helps

[Davi]

tonyvid said:

they said it was almost impossible to get a mortgage on such builds but they didn't realise the construction when they bought it . It seemed a sort of 50s type house.

yeah sounds like the standard "problematic" concrete houses. No drama at all, outside walls on a house do bugger all apart from create the cavity and (in the UK at least) somewhere to put the windows.

Edited by Davi on Monday 19th January 12:06

[pikeyboy]

near me someone ahs bought a semi demolished it leaving next door now detatched so that they can gain access to the back garden where they are building 3 or 4 houses....

[Mr POD]

tonyvid said:

It looked like the whole place had been poured in one go but that would be daft - they said it was almost impossible to get a mortgage on such builds but they didn't realise the construction when they bought it . It seemed a sort of 50s type house.

Wimpy No FINES ?

Expected to last 25 - 30 years max.

[TWSTEEL]

camgear said:

I usually find a cold shower helps

That did not get the appreciation it deserved

[AndrewTait]

I know of a distant relation who lived in an end terraced until a gas explosion demolished it with her inside. The insurance co. didn't want to rebild, so just made good the party wall, and roof.