The wall that appears to have come adrift from the house that was exposed when we removed all of the plaster has been the subject of further discussion.
It is now very clear that the flank and back walls were never attached to each other when the property was originally built. So much for Victorian build quality! In some respects, as it has been like this for a 100 years, we could just fill it and suggested before but I feel uncomfortable about this.
I took the oportunity to telephone Chawton Hill, the surveying firm who we used in the first place, to talk it though with them. It makes life so much easier when you can just send a high quality picture over email so no site visit is necessary! I think the receptionist thought it was quite funny that I wanted to send the surveyor a picture of a wall. I don't suppose their acceptable use policy for the internet mentions picture of bricks.
There are two solutions. The first is to take away several columns of bricks and re-build the corner of the house. This would take time and be very expensive as a full scaffold rig would be required. The second method is to purchase some galvanised steel straps to hold the wall together from the inside and fill the hole with a sand and cement mix as a sort of glue. The straps would then be plastered over and everything will be fine.
Our builder is comfortable taking either approach and I see little point in taking the first option. It doesn't add anything to the house (unless we were planning on leaving exposed brick at the back of the house) and gives us added unnecessary expense.
Steel straps it is then.
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