Building Contractors Midlands
The team have been working hard over at Dudley Community Centre and with the demolition of the existing building completed, it was time for the mining survey to take place. It’s a well-known fact that Dudley and the surrounding area was heavily mined throughout the industrial revolution, you literally can’t throw a stone without hitting a mine, so it was no surprise to us as building contractors midlands when a mine shaft was discovered during the mining survey.
Talking to the expert drilling contractors, they explained that the mine shaft would have been a small, probably 1m to 1.5m square and extending diagonally across the site on a slight downward angle. The miners would have probably crawled through the mineshaft on hands and knees chipping away as they went. Following the coal seam, they would have also excavated to the left and right of the main shaft creating tunnels supported by the surrounding ground. Gradually, excavating the coal bit by bit, they would have begun to chip away at the supporting ground at the end of the tunnel back towards the entrance taking out every bit of coal as they retreated, ensuring (they hoped) that if there was a collapse they could hopefully still get out!! It would have been a precarious high-risk occupation.
Having excavated as much coal as they could, they would have simply left the mine shaft as it was and moved onto the next opportunity. Over the years some of these shafts would have either collapsed completely or experienced a partial collapse leaving underground cavities. For some building contractors midlands, the possibility of coming across mines on a project is a real problem. For us, we recognise that it presents quite a hazard for the stability of any building constructed on the site, particularly as the cavities will undermine the strength of the ground. Its therefore vital that we understand what’s happening, hence a mining survey was carried out. We’ve made a short video about the site and the rectification work we’ve had to carry out and you can see this on the project gallery page.
If you’d like to know more about the build, we’ve created an information page which is updated regularly and can learn more about the project here.
Building Contractors Midlands
If you have any questions about the project, or would like to know more about Gravitas Build Ltd feel free to check out our Building Contractors Midlands page or email us at info@gravitasbuild.co.uk Based in Kings Heath, we work throughout the West Midlands and we look forward to hearing from you.
If you would like to find out more about Gravitas Build’s services, have a question or would like us to visit you to discuss your project requirements, please contact us here. We will be pleased to help.
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