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"Rich Greenberg" <richgr@panix.com> wrote in message
news:f2nop2$npo$1@reader2.panix.com...
> In article <1179606638.581958.14380@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
> stasya <matasa@shaw.ca> wrote:
>>Ok so I bought this old house and have entirely renovated the
>>interior.
Chuckle. Saw this several times when I was house shopping a couple years
ago. Interior upstairs was remodeled, acres of fresh drywall/carpet/tile/oak
trim, but I go in the basement, and the foundation and/or floor structure
hasn't been touched, and wouldn't pass muster for a chicken coop. One
memorable place had 2x6 joists, and a literal forest of lally columns in
basement, holding up short pieces of timber to keep floor from flexing. I
passed. Note to new homeowners planning renovations- 1. foundation, 2. roof,
3. mechanicals. Then and only then, make the inside pretty, or you just
pissing your money away. Either the house will be worthless, or you will
have to rip out part of your work to go back and do what you should have
started with.
>>Before my original contractor left halfway through his
>>contract in a snit, he'd jacked up various parts of the basement and
>>braced it so that the walls and floors are now more or less level.
>>This didn't affect any part of the foundation except under the front
>>porch where the foundation doesn't actually meet the wall in one
>>corner. He put in wedges to keep it all level. How exactly would I go
>>about sealing the crack between the wall and the foundation?
>
> Find another contractor and do not piss this one off.
>
You do not 'fill the crack'. You fix the foundation as needed to hold up
whatever is above it. Are you <sure> it is through sagging? If house had to
be jacked at multiple points to level it up (versus, say, a low corner or
wall section that got undercut by water), that tells me entire foundation
needs a looksee by a real engineer. In some cases, such as improper or
missing footers, the cure is to jack the house back up, support it on beams,
tear out old foundation system, and start over. See my comments above about
not spending a dime on a house unless and until it has a good foundation
under it. Is porch foundation actually part of house foundation, or grafted
on? If he had to jack center part of house, need to make sure something is
under the columns that hold the centerline beam.
aem sends....
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Re: Old house foundation repair
