My garden caved when we dug it over to reveal a 9 foot deep hole!!?

Question

The opening to the hole is 1.5 ft squared. After investigating the hole we discovered roughly an 8 foot square hole underneath part of the garden and heading under the house, this is as far as the eye can see, so we are unsure if it goes further. The hole itself is too neat to have been dug by an animal.
The health and safety officer was useless and our landlord is completely baffled can anyone help us identify where this hole may have come before the rest of the garden caves in.
It is confirmed not to be a cesspit.

Answer 1

It could be where a vane of water runs wet weather or all the time. It could be if you are in a mining area the ground is settling. Either way you need to check it out to see how bad it is & hire a contractor to fix the problem.

There is a cople ways you can see how far it is traviling. You can drive a rod in the ground or you can take two pices of copper wire 14" long bent into L shapes & stick the short ends itno pop bottels holding one in each hand in frount of your chest & walk along the path of it's direction. The two pices of copper will point at each other where there is a hollow place in the ground. This workes all the way down to a 1" pipe in the ground.(This is hard to explain in writeing.) If you don't understand how to do this send me a email with your questions.

Hope you the best.
[e-mail]

Answer 2

Just thought i would mention that you should call a safety inspector ( building and structor inspector). They can go in the whole and see how far under your house it goes and if it poses and threat to the structor of your house and not just your garden. They will also be able to tell you how to go about filling it in.

As far as why the whole is there in the first place, maybe you can go back on the land titles or deeds. This way you might be able to find out if the house originally had a root cellar or a bomb shelter. If you end up not being able to get any info or cooperation from your land lord call your local news. THis way other professionals will want to get involved. Hope everything works out! Good luck to you!

Answer 3

Hi I come from a gold mining community it sounds like a mine shaft breather hole we had one in our front yard for over 50 years until we got it capped. they dig down a distance put a piece of pipe there as a breather vent and then cement over an extra metre or so on each side.then if ground gives way again you may hear a whoosh but no physical danger is present. more cases are noticed after lots of rain where water fills shafts and increases pressure and when water drains pressure goes down and so does your yard. dry periods also effect dirt and if in the shaft somewhere a company blows pressurised air thru same effect.
Hope this helps you didn't say what part of world, country you are from. Helen

Answer 4

It could be an old dug well from years ago. We found one on our property and it had the old handle and leather type bucket for the water still in it. We filled it in with rocks and gravel because otherwise it would be a sink hole in the spring.

Answer 5

It could be an old mining shaft- when your landlord purchased the house his conveyancers should have done a Coal Mining Search as this could have been extremely dangerous - there could now be implications in relation to his mortgage lender. I would tell him to speak to the Coal Authority 08457626848 to see if this is indeed a coal mining shaft.

Answer 6

Call the EPA
EPA Contact Us
http://www.epa.gov/epahome/comments2.htm
******************************************* If that hole was at one time a well it needs to be filled up to protect anyone from falling into it. Or worse yet having it cave in on them.
Your landlords responsibility.

Answer 7

no idea but it sounds like your landlords got a nice bill on the way.

Answer 8

it maybe some old mine workings

Answer 9

It could be an old bomb shelter !!