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So if you're anywhere in the UK 
right now, you really don't need

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me to tell you what the 
weather's like. 

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No, just look out the window. 
Exactly. 

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It's February 2026 and the the 
weather charts we're looking at,

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they're just a solid wall of 
blue. 

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It has been absolutely 
relentless. 

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Relentless is the perfect word. 
And you know, usually when we 

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talk about this kind of weather,
this constant soaking rain, the 

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conversation's pretty surface 
level, isn't it? 

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Oh yeah, it's all about the 
commute being a disaster. 

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Or, you know, the park turning 
into a swamp. 

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Right, the usual complaints. 
The national pastime. 

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But for this deep dive, we're 
going, well, we're going way 

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below the surface. 
We've got a stack of 

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geotechnical surveys, climate 
data, engineering reports, and 

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they're all flagging something a
bit more significant. 

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We're talking about what all 
this water is actually doing to 

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the ground under our feet. 
And that's a really important 

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distinction. 
This isn't just about water 

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falling on the ground. 
This is about how the ground 

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itself reacts when it's been 
waterlogged for for months on 

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end. 
And specifically, it's about 

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this collision right between our
21st century climate and, well, 

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19th century houses. 
Precisely. 

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That's the core conflict we're 
unpacking, right? 

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You have hundreds of thousands 
of homes in London and the 

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southeast. 
All those beautiful Victorian 

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terraces, the Adordian semis, 
the houses built between what, 

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1900 and the 30s? 
Yep, and they're all sitting on 

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this geological ticking clock. 
The London Clay, the. 

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London Clay. 
That's the antagonist in our 

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story today. 
OK, but before everyone starts 

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staring nervously at their 
skirting boards, let's just be 

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clear The sources we're looking 
at, they're not predicting A 

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catastrophe, are they? 
No, no, not at all. 

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And that is a crucial disclaimer
to make right up front. 

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This isn't about alarmism. 
I mean, these houses have stood 

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for over a century. 
They've been through world wars,

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the Blitz, plenty of bad 
winters. 

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00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:53,280
They are robust. 
What we're discussing here is 

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more of a professional risk 
assessment. 

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It's about shifting our mindset 
away from just maintenance and 

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more towards, you know, 
structural understanding. 

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00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:04,640
So it's about knowing the 
mechanics of the soil to keep 

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00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:06,400
them standing for another 100 
years. 

46
00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:08,360
Exactly. 
It's not magic, it's just 

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engineering. 
Right. 

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00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:12,240
So let's start with the engine 
driving this whole thing. 

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The atmosphere, the climate data
and the sources is, well, it's 

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pretty stark. 
It is. 

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It's a fundamental shift in the 
baseline. 

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00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:25,440
If you look at the records, and 
the UK has amazing records going

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00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:30,640
back over 120 years. 
Yeah, winters now are roughly 10

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00:02:30,640 --> 00:02:33,680
to 20% wetter than they were in 
the early 1900s. 

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And that's not a fluctuation, 
that's a trend. 

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And the physics behind that is 
it's something called the 

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Clausius Clapeyron relation. 
It sounds like a mouthful, 

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00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:44,360
doesn't it? 
But the concept is actually very

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00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:46,880
simple. 
It's just that warmer air holds 

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00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:50,080
more moisture. 
The rule of thumb is for every 

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00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:56,280
1°C of warming, the atmosphere 
can hold about 7% more water. 7%

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00:02:56,440 --> 00:02:58,720
That feels like a massive 
compounding factor. 

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00:02:58,720 --> 00:03:00,120
It's not linear. 
Not at all. 

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You warm the planet, you're 
essentially loading the dice for

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a heavier rainfall. 
The atmosphere is a bigger 

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00:03:05,040 --> 00:03:06,760
sponge. 
And when you squeeze a bigger, 

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wetter sponge. 
More water comes out, but 

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00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:14,120
there's a second factor that the
2026 data really highlights. 

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00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:16,600
And I think this is even more 
critical for homeowners. 

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It's the delivery. 
You mean the weather system 

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00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:20,960
stalling the blocking patterns? 
That's it. 

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00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:23,560
The jet stream is well, it's 
wobblier. 

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00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:26,600
So instead of a storm blowing 
through in 24 hours, it just 

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00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:28,960
parks itself over the Southeast 
for a week. 

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So the ground never gets a 
chance to dry out. 

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00:03:31,560 --> 00:03:33,200
It never gets that crucial 
intermission. 

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00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:35,280
It's just soak after soak after 
soak. 

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00:03:35,320 --> 00:03:38,640
And this is where the geology, 
the London clay, becomes the 

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villain of the piece. 
Eocene era deposits. 

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It's all across S northwest 
London. 

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00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:49,240
In the geotech world, this stuff
is famous. 

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00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:51,800
Maybe infamous because it's 
highly plastic. 

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00:03:51,800 --> 00:03:54,240
OK, when you say plastic, you 
don't mean like a plastic bag? 

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00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:56,760
You mean it's moldable? 
I mean, it's reactive, its 

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00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,680
volume, its strength, it all 
changes depending on how much 

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00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,080
water is in it. 
Now, usually when people think 

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00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:03,920
of clay and rain, they think of 
heave. 

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00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:05,760
Yeah, that's the classic idea, 
right? 

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00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:08,680
The ground gets wet, it swells 
up and it pushes the house up. 

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00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:12,640
Which can happen, yes, but the 
sources are pointing to 

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00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,720
something different. 
In a year like this, with such 

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00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,920
prolonged deep saturation, we're
seeing a loss of sheer strength.

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00:04:20,959 --> 00:04:24,000
This was the real aha moment for
me in the reading. 

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00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,400
It's not just moving up and 
down, it's it's losing its 

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00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:27,640
integrity. 
Precisely. 

96
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:30,680
Think about walking on a clay 
field in summer. 

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00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,640
It's like concrete. 
In a normal winter, it's sticky.

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00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:36,160
But in a winter like this one, 
you sink. 

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00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:38,320
You sink. 
Your boot goes 6 inches into 

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00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:41,440
this, the slurry. 
The clay is softened. 

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00:04:41,640 --> 00:04:43,920
It's turned to soup. 
But the bearing capacity just 

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00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:45,960
drops. 
The ground literally can't 

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00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:48,240
support the weight it used. 
To And that's where the age of 

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00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:50,080
the house is the critical 
factor. 

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00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:52,360
You know, if we were talking 
about a modern building, 

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00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:55,120
something like the Shard, it's 
sitting on deep piles. 

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00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:56,640
Right, they go down meters and 
meters. 

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00:04:56,640 --> 00:04:59,720
They bypass the soggy layer 
completely, but we're not 

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00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,400
talking about skyscrapers. 
We're talking about the classic 

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00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,520
Victorian terrace. 
Which is a heavy, brittle brick 

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00:05:05,520 --> 00:05:09,080
box and crucially it is very 
shallow foundations. 

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00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:11,040
I was actually amazed by the 
numbers. 

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00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:15,800
The reports say strip 
foundations are only maybe 300 

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00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:18,520
to 600mm deep. 
Sometimes less. 

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00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:20,640
That's. 
I mean, that's barely a foot or 

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two in the ground. 
By modern standards it's 

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negligible. 
You're sitting right in that 

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00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:28,880
zone of maximum moisture. 
Change the Victorians and you 

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00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:30,280
can't blame them. 
They were building for their 

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00:05:30,280 --> 00:05:32,480
time. 
They just assumed the ground was

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00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,280
a constant. 
They dug down till it felt firm,

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00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:38,960
laid some bricks and stopped. 
They never imagined a climate 

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00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:42,160
where that firm clay turns to 
soup for three months straight. 

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00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:44,360
And the house itself is so 
rigid. 

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00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:47,360
Solid brick walls, no steel 
frames. 

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00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:50,360
Nope. 
It relies on gravity and mass to

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00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:53,280
stay put, and it's all held 
together with lime mortar. 

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00:05:53,400 --> 00:05:55,960
Now, I've always heard that lime
mortar is a good thing, that it 

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00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:58,120
lets old houses breathe. 
It is good. 

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00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:00,080
It's what we call sacrificial. 
It's a cushion. 

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00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:03,240
It allows for tiny movements 
without cracking the bricks. 

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00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,240
But even long has a limit. 
It's not elastic. 

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00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,480
It's not elastic, no, So the 
ground softens unevenly and say 

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00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:11,680
there's a leaking drain on one 
side of the house. 

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00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:14,520
So 1 patch of clay gets softer 
than the other. 

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00:06:14,720 --> 00:06:16,640
Exactly. 
You get differential settlement.

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00:06:16,840 --> 00:06:19,480
One side sinks into the soup, 
the other stays put. 

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00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:21,760
The whole box twists. 
And that's when you see the 

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00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:25,400
cracks, the stepped cracking 
around the windows and doors. 

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00:06:25,400 --> 00:06:27,480
That's the building trying to 
tell you it's being stressed. 

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00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:30,600
The masonry is shearing. 
There is another layer to this 

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00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:33,560
in the research that honestly, 
it gave me the creeps a little 

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00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:35,280
bit. 
It's what's happening under the 

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00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:38,440
floorboards. 
Yes, the suspended timber 

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00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:40,960
floors. 
A classic feature. 

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00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:43,440
And the mechanism is just 
terrifyingly simple. 

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00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:46,680
These houses have air bricks to 
keep air flowing underneath. 

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00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,160
But in a year like this? 
The ground level is so high and 

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00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:53,520
there's so much surface water 
that those vents get blocked or 

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00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:56,600
even submerged. 
So the void under your house 

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00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:59,680
basically becomes a damp cave, a
reservoir. 

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00:06:59,680 --> 00:07:02,240
You might not have water coming 
through your carpet, but 

153
00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:07,320
underneath in that dark space, 
you've got standing water for 

154
00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:10,440
the very least 100% humidity. 
And that moisture has to go 

155
00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:14,160
somewhere. 
And timber is like a Wick, the 

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00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:16,840
joists just absorb it month 
after month. 

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00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:19,800
You're not just looking at 
warped floorboards anymore, you 

158
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:24,000
are creating the perfect 
conditions for wet rot or dry 

159
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:25,720
rot. 
Which is a silent killer for a 

160
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:27,000
house. 
You don't know what's happening 

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00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:28,800
until. 
Until the piano goes through the

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00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:32,960
floor or you get that musty 
mushroomy smell that just will 

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00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,640
not go away. 
It's a biological attack 

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00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:37,480
triggered by a hydrological 
event. 

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00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:39,560
OK, so that's a grim picture for
winter. 

166
00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:43,200
Soft ground, sinking 
foundations, rotting joists. 

167
00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:47,200
But let's play this forward. 
Eventually, the rain has to stop

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00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:50,840
and the forecast suggest we 
might flip into a hot, dry 

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00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:52,640
summer. 
Which brings us to what the 

170
00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:55,000
insurance industry calls the 
double whammy. 

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00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:57,840
This is the scenario that keeps 
structural engineers up at 

172
00:07:57,840 --> 00:07:59,240
night. 
Because you'd think drying out 

173
00:07:59,240 --> 00:08:01,120
is good, right? 
The ground gets hard again, the 

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00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,160
sinking stops. 
Problem solved. 

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00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:05,520
You would hope so, but clay has 
a long memory. 

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00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:08,800
When it dries, it shrinks, and 
because it's currently so 

177
00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:12,040
saturated, the potential for 
volume reduction is huge. 

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00:08:12,040 --> 00:08:14,120
So it's like a sponge you leave 
on the side of the sink, It just

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00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:16,280
shrivels up. 
Exactly, and this is where 

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00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:17,920
vegetation really comes into 
play. 

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00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:22,440
The sources are very clear about
the role of trees in this phase.

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00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:24,280
Because trees get thirsty in the
summer. 

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00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:28,080
Very thirsty. 
A large tree, an oak, a Willow. 

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00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:31,960
It's basically a hydraulic pump.
In a hot summer, that tree is 

185
00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:35,600
fighting to survive. 
And it will aggressively pull 

186
00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:37,720
moisture from the soil. 
We call it matrix suction. 

187
00:08:37,799 --> 00:08:40,880
So the tree is literally sucking
the water out from under your 

188
00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:43,159
house. 
Aggressively and unevenly. 

189
00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:45,920
If you have a big tree near the 
front of the house, that area 

190
00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:48,840
dries out and shrinks much, much
faster than the back. 

191
00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:52,160
So in winter the house sank 
because the ground was too weak 

192
00:08:52,160 --> 00:08:56,320
to hold it, and in summer the 
house sinks or twists because 

193
00:08:56,320 --> 00:08:58,200
the ground is physically pulling
away from it. 

194
00:08:58,200 --> 00:08:59,520
The. 
Cracks might look the same to 

195
00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:02,640
you, but the physical cause has 
completely reversed. 

196
00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:06,680
It's a brutal cycle of fatigue. 
Expand contract. 

197
00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:09,400
Soften Harden. 
You're just bending a paper clip

198
00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:11,320
back and forth. 
Eventually the masonry, the 

199
00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:15,040
warder, it gives up the snaps. 
So. 

200
00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:17,360
If I'm a listener standing in my
hallway right now and I'm 

201
00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:20,200
staring at a crack, how do I 
know if it's just old house 

202
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:23,520
charm or something much worse? 
That's the $1,000,000 question, 

203
00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:25,240
isn't it? 
We need to be precise. 

204
00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:30,760
Subsidence is a very specific 
insurance term, but really every

205
00:09:30,760 --> 00:09:34,040
old house moves a little. 
Yeah, doors stick in the winter.

206
00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:35,520
That's normal. 
That's character. 

207
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:38,520
It becomes a claim when the 
distortion is permanent or it 

208
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:42,760
affects how the house works. 
If a crack is jagged, wider than

209
00:09:42,760 --> 00:09:46,720
a pound coin, maybe 3mm, or if 
you can see daylight through it,

210
00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:50,240
that is not character. 
If a door frame is so skewed you

211
00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:53,160
have to shoulder barge it open, 
that implies the geometry of the

212
00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:55,680
house is changing. 
And the advice in the articles 

213
00:09:55,680 --> 00:09:58,480
is interesting because the first
line of defense isn't call an 

214
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:00,760
engineer, it's check your 
gutters. 

215
00:10:01,520 --> 00:10:04,720
Sounds so boring, doesn't it? 
But it's the most important 

216
00:10:04,720 --> 00:10:07,320
thing you could do. 
It's all about water management.

217
00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:10,560
How so? 
A blocked, overflowing gutter is

218
00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:14,640
dumping hundreds of liters of 
water in one concentrated spot 

219
00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:17,360
right next to your foundation. 
You're basically creating your 

220
00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:20,920
own mini subsidence event. 
So fix the gutters, make sure 

221
00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:24,320
patios slope away for the house,
keep the air bricks clear. 

222
00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:26,280
Control the variables you can 
control. 

223
00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,800
You can't stop the rain, but you
can stop it pooling against your

224
00:10:29,800 --> 00:10:31,400
brickwork. 
Let's talk about monitoring, 

225
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:34,320
though, because the problem with
cracks is psychological. 

226
00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:36,840
You see one, you panic, you 
stare at it every day and you 

227
00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:41,560
think, is that bigger? 
And our memory is just awful for

228
00:10:41,560 --> 00:10:43,600
that sort of thing. 
Anxiety makes it worse. 

229
00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:45,880
You convince yourself it's 
moving when it isn't. 

230
00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:47,880
Right. 
And this is where the source 

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material brings up a tool called
Crack Guide. 

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It's an app from Auk company 
Survey All Now. 

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We're not selling it, but the 
tech is fascinating. 

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It uses Lidar. 
It's a brilliant use of consumer

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tech. 
The newer smartphones have Lidar

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scanners built in, you know, for
photography and AR games. 

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This app just repurposes that 
sensor to map the surface of a 

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wall in 3D. 
So it's not just taking a photo,

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it's measuring the depth and the
width of the crack. 

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It creates a digital baseline. 
You scan the crack today, you 

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scan it again next month. 
The AI overlays the two scans 

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and tells you with sub 
millimeter precision if and how 

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it's changed. 
That completely changes the 

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conversation instead of calling 
a surveyor and saying I've got 

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bad vibes about this wall. 
You hand them a data log. 

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On February 15th it was 2mm. 
On March 15th it's 2.5. 

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That trend line is gold dust for
an engineer. 

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It tells you the rate of 
movement. 

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Is it accelerating? 
Is it stopping? 

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We can diagnose the root cause 
so much faster. 

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It basically outsources the 
anxiety to an algorithm. 

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And that's key. 
Often the app will show you that

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the crack hasn't moved even 
though you were sure it had. 

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That's Peace of Mind. 
So to pull it all together, then

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we've got a climate loading the 
dice with more rain, we have 

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this very sensitive geology that
reacts to it and an aging 

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housing stock caught in the 
middle. 

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Sound daunting when you stack it
up like that, but I think it's 

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important to remember how 
resilient these buildings are. 

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They're tough old things. 
They survived the blitz, the 

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Great freeze of 63, the drought 
of 76. 

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They are not fragile. 
But they're not invincible. 

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00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,840
The key phrase from our sources 
that stuck with me was informed 

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observation. 
Yes, we have to stop viewing the

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ground as this static concrete 
platform. 

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It's not. 
Especially not London clay. 

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The ground is a living, 
breathing participant in the 

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life of the building. 
It swells, it shrinks, It's 

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soft. 
And it's the climate changes 

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that participant is getting a 
lot more active, a rowdier 

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neighbor. 
Right. 

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So our relationship with our 
homes has to evolve. 

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We have to be active stewards, 
not just passive occupants. 

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We have to understand that water
cycle. 

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A shift from home ownership to 
home partnership. 

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I like that and using the tools 
you have, whether it's a ladder 

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to clear a drain or an app to 
track a crack. 

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Here's a thought to leave you 
with then. 

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If our homes are becoming more 
dynamic and our ability to 

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monitor them is becoming so much
more sophisticated with AI, are 

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we moving to a future where the 
house effectively self diagnosis

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where your wall sends you a 
notification saying my 

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foundation is slipping, please 
check the oak tree. 

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The smart home of the future 
might be less about voice 

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activated lights and more about 
structural survival. 

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It's a fascinating, if slightly 
unsettling thought. 

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Something to think about next 
time you're out in the rain 

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clearing those air bricks. 
Stay dry. 

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Keep watching the walls. 
And thanks for listening to this

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deep dive. 
Take care.