OT - Foundation Woes

[Rob Wright]

This is a little OT but I thought that I would share some interesting photos from the house that is being built next to mine. Background – the site was 4-ft lower than the roadway on two sides of the house. It is a corner lot and one of the lowest spots in my subdivision. The excavator dug approximately 5-ft of rich, organic topsoil from the site prior to getting to a silty sand. Material appeared to be free draining during the few times we got appreciable rain. The fill material consisted of bank run sand and pit run gravel that was hauled by truck to raise the site. The foundation was excavated, and the owner wanted 13-ft ceiling in the basement so he could hit golf balls in a virtual simulator. Egress windows were paced at the proper height off of the floor – but the window wells did not make it anywhere near to the ground surface since most pre manufactured window “escape wells” are setup for 8’9” or 9’ poured wall height in my area. An extension was cobbled onto the wells and the site backfilled.

House is being built last fall and we have a few rainstorms. House is at the low point and receives much of the water. Water ends up flowing into and around the window wells and eventually into the basement. The rain deposits 2” of silt over the entire floor of the basement. Basement is cleaned, foundation is backfilled again, it rains, it happens again.

Work on the house appears to cease for a month or two. One night I go out after a thunderstorm for a walk and think I hear running water. I walk onto this lot and HEAR water rushing into the basement again. A few days later I venture into the house through the basement door form the garage and this is what I see. The pictures tell a pretty good story.



Enjoy the pic's and this is not my house!

[Rob Wright]

More Pics.

last pic is a transverse crack about 4' off of the wall that goes around 2/3 of the basement. Slope 3/4" to 1" to the wall form the floor.

[David G Baker]

The things that nightmares are made of.
Thanks for sharing.

[Ben Grunow]

Is the area of the slab lower by the wall or higher? I have seen a slab float due to pressure from below from ground water.

[Rob Wright]

Well - the bottom of the wall is lower than the floor. The crack is 3-4ft out from the wall and the floor slopes from the crack down towards the wall. A 3/4" settling of the walls could easily cause a 6" bow in a 13' post.

My theory is two fold and along the similar thoughts that of the floating slab. I think that a combination of the footing sinking and the slab rising caused the floor joist to follow the poured walls. The large main beam in the center then was supporting more of the weight and the column pads either held up ok, or they may have floated a little, causing the height/ distance from the floor to beam to shorten and then causing the laminating 2x6's to bend under the additional pressure.

This is a massive house - 4000+ sqft on the first floor and LOTS of brick. I think that the soils were questionable under the footing, additional weight of the house and 4-ft extra of poured wall made the footing sink on the soils and cause the footing to settle. Hydraulic pressure from all of the water coming to this low point most likely compounds the problem.

Glad it's not mine - just wish it was finished or fixed!

[Steve Clardy]

Looks pretty bad to me.

Basement walls and footing looks to be settling.

[John Schreiber]

Somebody's having a very, very, very bad day. Shows how important it is to have real engineering work done rather than just fudging things. (My guess of course.)

[David G Baker]

In California they are still building housing tracks on old land slides even after all the soil engineering has been done. Few years later folks start wondering why their houses are sliding off the foundation.

[Mike Cutler]

You're scaring me Rob.
I have a house going in next to me that is being built 2' above the 100year flood line, and 3 feet above the level of the river behind our house.
Same scenario. Backfill 4' of gravel and stone, and raise the plot. Dig basement and foundation, etc..
A swale had to be built from the road to the river, and man was it running last week. I've never seen the water run from the road to the river before. The silt fence was the only thing keeping the river out of the back of his yard.
My biggest fear is that the house will one day sit empty because of this. The fellow building the house seems like a pretty decent guy, but the water problems that could occur have me concerned.

[Jason Roehl]

Mike, some people are just "river people". Their house could flood twice in three years or so, and they would still want to stay and rebuild. That's why FEMA has rules on how many times a given structure can have damage repaired through flood insurance due to flooding. I beilieve it's even cumulative in some fashion--like if 50% of the house is repaired twice, they won't ever pay on it again.

My house is in a low spot in a small town. What can I say? I was young when I bought. What's that saying? Experience is what you have right after you need it? I haven't gotten water in the house proper yet, but my crawlspace and basement(cellar-like) have flooded "to the brim", and I have had times I couldn't step out of the house without eventually walking through a foot of water.

In the case of the OP, I think one of the builder, a sub or an engineer are going to be getting hurt in the pocketbook this year. It looks like they may have to dig under the foundation and/or the slab and install some piers that go much deeper than the current foundation, but they'll probably need a company that specializes in that type of work.

[Curt Fuller]

Boy that's some nice looking work! Regardless of the soil type, if the footings were placed on undisturbed soil they would not settle that soon. Maybe over a period of years, but not during construction. It looks to me as though the hole was over excavated and then refilled to bring it back up to the desired grade without using granular fill and compacting, which is a major code violation for obvious reasons. You mentioned that work has seemed to stop on the house recently. Did you notice any red tag, stop work orders nailed to the house? I wonder were the building inspector was eating donuts and drinking coffee when those footings were poured?

It would be interesting to see some above ground photos of what that settleing is doing to the rest of the framing. If the trusses are on, they're probably rocking like a teeter totter on the center bearing walls if the out sidewalls are sinking out from underneath them.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

More Pics.

last pic is a transverse crack about 4' off of the wall that goes around 2/3 of the basement. Slope 3/4" to 1" to the wall form the floor.

Thanks for the lesson in how to bend your own 2x4's

What tolerances do you imagine they were able to achieve using a house and the press.

[Rob Wright]

The building was not red-tagged. I recently found out that the original potential buyer walked away from the project. It was turnkey from the builder so he didn't owe the builder anything at that point - kind of like a spec home. The builder went bankrupt and the parcel and house was sold at sheriff's auction for $275k. A new builder will be starting soon. I spoke with the town's building inspector and he had "noticed" the problems. We will wait and see....

[Jeffrey Fusaro]

rob--

this is interesting. thanks for sharing.

i have a question...

i keep looking at these pics and i don't see any steel columns in the basement to support the over head beams. there appears to be one adjustable steel column, but it does not appear to be connected to the beam above. all other supports appear to be 2x4's that we put in place after the fact.

was it the builder's intention to support the weight of the floors above by using the floor joists and wooden beams alone?

what a disaster...

[Rob Wright]

Jeffrey -

It looks as though he was going to put some sort of posts to support the lvl beams that were installed but decided that a doubled or tripled up 2x6 was going to be good enough. In the one picture where you can see the steel FHA post, I think that it arrived on-site after the column had failed. It wasn't even long enough to reach the beam(13' floor to ceiling) he must have had an OMG moment and ran to the BORG to try and get a quick fix.

I looked into the basement windows last night and saw that a the new owner/builder has started and has hammered out a good portion of the floor, the column pads can be seen and look substantial. He has replaced the bent columns with 6x6 wood posts. I can't see too far into the place anymore and it is secured at this time. Again - I am glad I don't live there!