My daughter & SIL are trying to buy a farm in NW North Dakota. (Stanley, ND)
Questions about the house’s foundation: Horizontal crack.
SIL says the foundation wall seems to be concrete, not block or field stone. The soil has some clay with a mix of small softball size rock. There is very little slope to the surrounding landscape. Wheat fields and oil country.
The house is a two story typical farmhouse (is there such a thing?) .
Built in the mid 20’s and had an add-on over the years. The foundation has a crack about 1/2″ wide running horizontally about 4 ft from the floor. It is about 5-6 ft long and SIL says the wall is bowing inward about 1 – 2 inches.
I haven’t seen it nor do I have any photos.
He said the basement seems to be dry, stuff that has been stored there the last 15 years have no undue dampness or apparent moisture problems.
They are due to have an appraisal done in about 10 days.
They are about 70-80 miles from Minot, Williston 100 miles and Bismarck 150 miles, towns that would be large enough to have engineering and contractors that might help but just far enough away to not be able to “run out there for a quick looksee”.
Where would one start to evaluate and repair? Any web sites for the novice to educate oneself?
Your suggestions will be forwarded and will be appreciated,
bum
…The unspoken word is capital. We can invest it or we can squander it. -Mark Twain…Be kind to your children….they will choose your nursing home.…aim low boys, they’re ridin’ shetland ponies !!
Edited 4/29/2009 3:27 am by oldbeachbum
Replies
Get some photos from them, Am sure somebody around here could make the call!
Fist guess, is that the wall has broken under a distributed load at about 4-feet down. Being North Dakota, my guess to cause would be a hard freeze of the saturated clays.
These are just guesses though.
I just did an estimate for repair on a similar that is common here. $$$18-22K
The place was built in the late seventies and the ground around it has settled in, so the surface water drains to the house. The roof gutters have fallen into a state of disrepair so the drops send the water directly TO the foundation. We have clay soils, and I can't tell if there was ever a perimeter drain at footing or not.
So freezing and expansive soils have created a horizontal crack about 4' down, pushing the wall in an inch or so, and water is coming thru other unbroken walls enough to show efflorescense.
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Wall anchors for repair?
???Asking what my estimate was for?
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Wondering what type of repair, not so much estimate.
We planned to dig around 3/4s ( 120 lin ft)of the foundation, install new perimeter drain to daylight, in stone and fabric, replace about 40-48' of CMU wall with cores poured and rebar, water proof and drane plane, and backfill with gravel. This also included replacing a 3Yd patio that was sloping 3-4" to the house.Haven't heard back. The owner sounded like I was way outside his budget...
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Alot of work, sounds about right. We had one done using the "Chance" wall anchor kit, although it was a poured wall. Pretty simple and straight forward repair.
I've seen basement walls about that vintage that were broken during construction by concreate trucks too close to new backfill. When surface runoff was well controled there was no leakage. Many of the geologically young clays in the upper midwest do not expand when water saturated so they don't but additional pressure on the wall as southern clays would.
You might want him to research the age of the crack & deflection.
Yes, I asked SIL to put a weighted string/ plumbbob at the apex (?) of the bow and measure it to the foot of the wall.
The current owners have been there just shy of 20 years....hope they can tell us more....The unspoken word is capital. We can invest it or we can squander it. -Mark Twain...Be kind to your children....they will choose your nursing home....aim low boys, they're ridin' shetland ponies !!