Well, not exactly sliding off. The bottom of the north side exterior wall of my house (along the driveway) has moved out 3/8″. Noticed that the shoe moulding in my kitchen has slid outward on the tile and the door between the kitchen and living room now drags on the floor. Plus several new cracks in the plaster. It seems to be that way all along the side of the house.
It has been VERY hot and dry here this summer. Never had this happen before. This is a slab on grade built in 1947. The soil next to the footing has pulled away 1″ from the concrete. I think the footing has rolled over towards the outside taking the bottom of the wall with it. There is only about 6″ of footing exposed and it looks to be leaning out about 1/8″ out of plumb. Cracked in 2 or 3 places. Could the heat and drought have settled the ground beneath the footing causing it to roll over a bit?
Now what, wait for winter? Any ideas?
Thank you
Mark
Replies
Not much help here, but someone told me that down in some parts Texas, etc, they water the area around their foundation to help to keep extensive drying of the soil from damaging their foundation.
pot...what you are describing sound like the classic symptoms of clay soil...
where do you live.. is this an unusal drought year ?
the footings may have been poorly detailed in a 1947 house adn the compacted clay soil was doing all of the real support
if you dry an expansive clay soil it will shrink and no longer give the same support it does in it's natural moist condition
I'd try adding water. I might help slow down any further damage.
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"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." Voltaire
I'm in Kansas and there is clay about a foot down. We are in a very unusual heat wave and drought. It gets hot here but this year we've had over 100* about 15 or 16 times. 109* this past Sunday! More this week. I just looked at where my yard meets the curb and the yard has pulled away about 1 1/2". I can see down under the street!
From what I could see when tileing my kitchen is that my slab floor does not sit on top of my foundation but is seperated by a fiberboard expansion joint. The bottom plate of the wall is on top of the foundation and the slab is inside that. The gap is now about an inch instead of the 1/2" that was filled with fiberboard.
I suppose I could remove a couple of rows of siding and gently jack the wall back over. Or just caulK the new gaps and forget about it. Have to rehang the kitchen door though.
Mark
I lived in OK for a vew years and the clays in the soil in that area are very prone to expansion & contraction. Ihis happens both vertically & horizontally. In very dry years the clay under a shallow footing contracts enough that it allows the footing to crack & settle unevenly. Remember in that area footings don't need to be very deep to be below frost.
Once the settleing has occoured it is not uncomon to see the whole footing move as much as 3-4 in. out. I have even seen the slab floor fall off the inside of the stem wall. The movement of the stem wall tends to be a rolling out at the top while the bottom stays pretty much in the original lateral plane.
In mild cases most people find that a soaker hose next to the foundation used intermittantly in dry years will stop the movement from getting worse. It will not move the footing back to its original position.
In sever cases the last resort to stop further movement is to drill steel piers deep into the subsoil & jack it up. Doing this frequently leaves the conc. floor floating on the jacked up stem wall & hollow under the floor. Fortunatly it doesn't sound like yours is to that stage, but I would get some water on it.