Subsidence, settlement and heave
Where a report pairs an adit with the hillside drain, what stays open about water the home survey did not trace to a working?
The path of the water stays open, because the home survey did not trace it to a working. An adit is a near-horizontal mine opening, often a drainage mouth in a hillside. The hillside drain is the channel or pipe seen on the slope. Pairing the two records that both were mentioned. It does not show that water from the drain enters the adit, that the adit joins recorded workings, or that the flow is only surface rain. A Coal Authority search is a separate product from this visit. The survey has not decided where the water goes once it leaves view.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Hillside water can be rain, a spring, or drainage from old mine passages. An adit mouth may sit near a drain without being the drain. The survey can see wet ground, a pipe and a stone or brick opening. It cannot follow the water underground to a working, and this visit did not. Tracing would be a different investigation, and the mining records are a Coal Authority product, not a paragraph in the home survey. The pair of names is a prompt, not a map of the flow.
Give the solicitor both the adit note and a Coal Authority search if you commission one, and keep them labelled as different products. A drainage firm can look at the hillside drain as a surface system. Do not brief them that the survey traced the water into workings. The report has not done that. What stays open is the connection, if any, between the drain you can see and the old mine opening named beside it.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Did you see water moving, or only the adit and the drain as features?
- Was any connection between the hillside drain and a working actually traced?
- Is the Coal Authority search still a separate product from this visit?
What are the typical next steps?
- Keep the adit and the hillside drain as an untraced pair.
- Commission a Coal Authority search rather than reading one into the survey.
- Tell the solicitor the water was not followed to a working.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
Does a dry ditch on the day mean the adit is inactive?
No. A dry hillside drain on one visit does not show that an adit is inactive or that it never carries water. The survey did not trace flow to a working in any case. Weather on the day is not a mining record. A Coal Authority search remains a separate product from what was seen on the slope.
Can the home survey map old workings from the surface opening?
No. Seeing an adit mouth, or a drain near it, does not map workings. The home survey did not trace water underground and does not replace a Coal Authority search. The opening is a surface feature. Where it leads, and whether recorded coal workings lie beyond it, stays outside this visit.