We may be in need of foundation repair on one side of the house. It is an addition that was put on many years ago before we purchase the home.
There are repair cracks in the walls and one door that was repair for sticking, and several months later the cracks and the door with the problem has returned. At the time the person doing the door repair said we might have a foundation issue. Of course, his company does foundation repair.
I know there are companies that do this kind of work, but I know nothing about construction or this type of work. So I didn’t want a company’s salesman pushing us to getting expensive work done if it isn’t necessary or is overkill for the underlying problem.
I’m wondering if the best thing to do what be to hire a professional engineer to give an evaluation of the foundation of our house. Not exactly sure what the job title of that person would be, is that a Structural Engineer? Or would a licensed Architect be the person to consult for us? What I am imaging is that this person (Engineer?) would produce a written evaluation report and recommendations for repairs that would be needed.
Has anyone been through this? Did you have someone consult first that wasn’t a salesman? Or did you simply find the best company that does foundation repair and go with their recommendations? Also, did it truly fix the problem years later?
Here we have people who are licensed to do this kind of work, and they’re called Home Inspectors … if not, then a structural engineer would be a good place to start … at a minimum they’d be able to tell you who to contact for this …
One thing you can do yourself is look at the place where the walls meet the ceiling … this line should be dead level throughout the whole house … anyplace that is sagging along the outside walls is the most likely place your foundation is sinking … this isn’t definitive, but it can again point you in the right direction …
There could be a foundation problem, but it could be something else. Rather than guess, having someone who knows how investigate is logical.
The symptoms do match that whatever the door is attached to is moving. It could be due to termites eating away a support beam or base plate, rather than the foundation. Or it could be that the design of the addition framing is wrong. And when something on a house moves, it can be due to failure of support from below, or addition of pressure from above, or even stress from the side.
We have a local disaster in that hundreds of homes and businesses were built using concrete that contained an impurity that causes the pour to disintegrate… after a decade. We were lucky (our house was built in that era, but the contractor used another provider), but it’s a statewide emergency that is being petitioned for federal relief. WTF do you do with a (newer, expensive) 2-story house built on a crumbling basement/foundation? The answers are not clear. A lift, re-excavate and re-pour can approach $200k. Even staged excavate/repour by section can approach $100k and may not be possible in all cases.
You definitely need an engineer to evaluate the situation. Foundation cracks may be virtually harmless requiring just some filler to seal the crack, or they could be the start of the collapse of your house. At the lower end of the scale there are a number of techniques to repair some pretty serious cracks that will cost you a few thousand dollars but well worth it. At the upper end, as the Barbarian says, this can cost you a fortune to have the house raised and a new foundation built. Get an engineer.
I also recommend looking into an engineer. A home inspector might be knowledgeable enough but from my experience many of them really don’t have much or any actual building experience. I get engineers for various building issues and often a short site visit and a letter is as little as a couple hundred dollars. They can look at the situation and supply a mitigation plan, but also they can properly assess whether it actually requires a fix.
I also have a reputable foundation specialist company I deal with. For myself I would just call them up and have them take a look at it because I trust them to give me a straight answer. With a little searching you may find someone in your area that has such a reputation. It cant hurt to get a free quote.
Houses move, and even properly built foundations can move a bit. I was living in a 60+ year old but well built bungalow a few years ago that was quite stable until we had a 200 year flood event. We did not get flooded but were on the plain close to the escarpment. Ground water flow must have shifted and the old patio slab went from flat to cracked and slumped in a matter of a couple months, and cracks developed in the drywall ceiling so the house foundation must have shifted too. Even new homes shift, and very little in any house is perfectly level or on plane, ask any finishing carpenter.
Finally foundation repair can be a huge deal but isn’t always, or doesn’t have to be with a contractor with the right expertise and techniques.
Just a counterpoise: A crack in the floor and wall with a sticky door doesn’t necessitate a panic. You may have major foundation problems, you may not. The multi-hundred of thousands of dollars that could be possible in repairs, depends on your house. If you live in a mega-million dollar home and the entire foundation is faulty, then yes. Reside in a $100 to $250-K home, and your cost will be much less.
In my part of the world, foundation problems are commonplace. It is very hilly here, and the subsoil is greasy clay that tends to slip, especially with substandard construction methodology, causing all kinds of foundation issues. People deal with it all the time. Excavate, jack the affected portion of the house up, replace foundation, done. It’s not rocket science, and certainly nothing that requires one to take on a second mortgage. YMMV.
There are other causes. It could be poor building method of the wall, or rot ,borer and whiteant in the wall(s) ?
If its in the foundation itself,
Is it seasonal ? is it particular wet or dry there ? if so, it will just reverse when weather normalises…
Is the construction on piers ? so you can just raise and lower joists ?? use a car jack, lift up the joist, adjust the level, drop it back down… of course if the pier is no longer stable, then make it stable first… If you are in an area prone to movement or ground heave, you have a house on piers ? Where the foundations were made from wood, then they can rot away, and need replacement.
is there ground water flowing ? you might have to first install drainage system to prevent ground water flowing through your foundations.
4.What makes you think the fault is repairable ? If its a slab, its hard to repair. You repair the crack in the foundations at one place, it cracks right next door. A repair is not curing the cause of the cracking… There can be repairs to be made, eg if the ground is rocky, a section of rock could become loose and so require the repair … and a cure of ground water issues ?
I was in the insurance business for about 30 years and was involved in numerous structural foundation issues. My first call was to a structural engineer to evaluate the issue and present corrective recommendations. We always wanted an expert unbiased opinion.
Not necessarily. A very modest house on a failing basement foundation can easily have repair costs exceeding market value. It becomes a total loss - tear down and rebuild is more cost-effective than any attempt to repair.
Super-expensive houses can absorb a couple of hundred $k in repair costs without owner or insurance losing out too much, yes. But the ones in the middle - where the repairs represent about half to a third of market value - those are the trouble spots.
Barbarian laid it out just above, a very expensive house is worth doing the expensive repairs on, when the work is done the house will still be very valuable, the loss won’t be total. For something at the very low end with little market value it can be better to just level the place and start over, but the mid-range is where the pain is. By the time it’s all completed the owner can end up with no equity or effectively negative equity and a very long wait before the costs could be recouped in a sale.
I never thought about it until just now but I wonder if homeowners insurance would cover any of this.
There’s company that solves problems like this by pumping a special expanding polymer under the foundation, to lift and stabilize it. This can be a lot cheaper and easier than most other methods.
Yeah, how does this work if you have a mortgage? Let’s suppose the house is 300k, and you find this out after living there a few years, but have just 30k in equity in the house.
You have no incentive to pay off the rest of the mortgage for a house that is worthless (because, say, it needs 200k in repairs and the cost to replace the structure is 200k) and is going to be condemned after this problem progresses for long enough. (say, in 5 more years, the foundation shifting is expected to progress to the point that the structure is in danger of collapse)
So if the insurance you were required to get as part of the mortgage won’t pay to replace the structure, and the home inspection prior to sale didn’t spot the problem, what now?
The logical thing to do as a homeowner would be to rent another place, “jingle mail” the keys to the bank, and basically let it foreclose. Declare bankruptcy in some cases. If your savings are in a 401k or IRA, I understand a bankruptcy can’t touch those, so in practice the bank gets soaked with the bill and you just have to wait out the time for a bankruptcy or just have your spouse without a bankruptcy on his/her credit record be the one who applies for the next house.
You would expect that the bank would require insurance that covers risks like this, to prevent this very thing.
Thanks for the comments. I wanted to give an update.
I hired a structural engineer to do an inspection and create a report with a recommendation. The addition does indeed need structural repair. It isn’t a major repair which some feared that would run into the $100Ks to fix. What is needed is a few helical piles.
For those that don’t know, a helical pile is where they screw these long pipes into the ground according to one video I saw. They attach to the structure with a coupling device where they can lift the building. Apparently helical piles are used for construction of large commercial buildings.
So there are companies which specialize in installing helical piles. And the engineer I hired for this is a real one, his company doesn’t do the repair or have some sister company which does construction.
In selecting a company to do the repair, I was warned to avoid those who are primarily a basement waterproofing installer. They can do helical piles as part of their basement repair work, but since there are companies which specialize in helical piles installation it would be better to go with them.