Hi folks. My wife and I have just bought a 3-storey semi-detached Victorian house in need of complete renovation. Needs pretty much everything doing except the roof. At some point in its history, the house has suffered subsidence, which is no longer an issue, but has left all kinds of weird angles to the floors and walls.
I'm posting here for some advice on the ground floor. It's a suspended timber floor over a dry void. I've been underneath, and the timbers are in great condition. To one side there's an old open fire, and beneath the floor a large stone buttress clearly built to carry the hearthstone. At some point, either this buttress has risen or the rest of the house has sunk. Either way, the joists that meet the buttress and a couple to either side are significantly higher than those around, leading to a massive hump in the floor. The drop is about 100mm over 2m.
How do I sort this?! I thought the floorboards could be lifted (which needs to happen anyway), the joists could be jacked up, the holes they sit in lowered to be level, and the joists lowered, then a new floor laid. But of the two builders I've had to quote on the house so far, one wanted to replace the entire wooden floor with new, and the other wanted to rip it all out and put in a concrete slab. Both of these seem pretty extreme to me. Would welcome any advice anyone has to offer. Thank you!
