Shire Consulting was commissioned by a national house builder warranty provider to design and deliver a traditional underpinning scheme for a residential property in Matlock, Derbyshire, restoring structural integrity and providing long-term foundation stability.
Shire Consulting was commissioned by a national house builder warranty provider to design and deliver a traditional underpinning scheme for a residential property in Matlock, Derbyshire, restoring structural integrity and providing long-term foundation stability.
The property had a history of structural movement and had previously undergone crack stitching as a remedial measure. However, it became clear that the movement hadn’t stopped; it was ongoing, and something more fundamental was going on beneath the surface. Further investigation confirmed what Shire’s engineers suspected: the foundations themselves were unstable, and a more permanent solution was needed.
Why Traditional Underpinning?
Piling is often the go-to for foundation remediation, but here it simply wasn’t the right call. The property already had deep foundations, and to connect any piled solution properly, those foundations would have needed to be fully exposed regardless. That immediately removed piling’s main advantage, minimal disruption and excavation, so traditional underpinning became the clear, practical choice.
It gave Shire’s engineers direct access to extend the existing foundation depth, creating a reliable load path and a solution built to last. It also meant greater control over how the works were sequenced and how ground conditions were managed, which turned out to be more important than anticipated.
The Challenge
Excavations reached depths of up to 4.2 metres to expose the underside of the existing foundations. At that depth, there’s no room for shortcuts on safety. Shire designs a bespoke shoring solution for every underpinning project; this one was no different. The works were carefully sequenced so that only a controlled proportion of the foundation was ever exposed at any one time, keeping the structure stable and the team safe throughout.
The property sits on a hillside, and as excavations went deeper, significant groundwater ingress became a real problem. Shire’s team responded by installing sump pumps in each excavation zone once the formation level was reached, keeping conditions manageable and ensuring the concrete underpin could be placed properly.
The Shire Solution
With the foundations exposed to the required width, anti-heave measures were put in place before shuttering was erected to support each underpin pour, deepening the foundations bay by bay in a controlled, methodical way.
Then there was the access. The site was extremely restricted, and getting equipment and materials in and out couldn’t be done with the plant. Everything was moved by hand. It’s the kind of unglamorous, demanding work that rarely makes it into project write-ups, but it’s exactly the sort of problem Shire’s teams are used to solving on the ground.
The Outcome
The underpinning works successfully stopped the progressive foundation movement and left the property with a stable, deepened foundation system designed to perform for the long term. The project was completed safely and to the client’s satisfaction, despite the challenging ground conditions, groundwater management demands, and the logistical headache of a heavily restricted site.
It’s a good example of what Shire does: take a complex, site-specific problem and find a solution that’s practical, safe, and built to last.
