Let me start by saying I am a female! So, if I don’t use the terms you guys are accustomed to, it is because I am just the supervisor! My husband or the contractor does the work!
I try to visit and read a little of what you have to say every day. There are probably a lot more women reading than you realize. Anyway, we bought a 107 year old six-plex, three story brick building in Butte Montana a couple of years ago. What an experience! Both Butte and an old building. Prior to that nothing we owned was over 30 years old! Is anyone familiar with Butte? The building is on Park St about 8 feet lower than the lot and house next door. The lower part of the wall of our building is basically the retaining wall for the lot next door!! An eight foot wall at the front of the building where the stairs go up to the second (main) floor and that holds up the third floor porch with a column has moved about an inch or an inch and a half this winter. I expect the unexposed wall has moved too, but I just can’t see it! The house next door is about 8 feet above street level and has a retaining wall in front. Originally the retaining walls on all these properties here were granite slabs and naturally, water was able to seep out between the slabs. Well, they replaced that wall with a solid concrete wall with no provisions for drainage. My thought (remember, I am just the supervisor!) is that the water that goes down into the soil there has no place to go but to our wall. There is more movement this year than in prior years and I think that may be because the damage has been done gradually over the years and something is ready to fail.
My question for you guys is who do we use to advise us about what to do with their retaining wall and what we need to do to correct the damage to our building. Do we need a specific type of engineer? Or an architect?
Replies
Hi -
If you've had that much movement in the walls and structure in only one year, you definitely have a serious problem. It won't be an easy or cheap fix.
I would start by talking to a *civil* engineer, one with soils engineering expertise and knowledgeable about the type of soils you have in your area. He/She may be able to suggest designs to relieve the soils pressure on the wall without too much demolition, etc. You need to get rid of the water on the far side of the wall, and determine whether or not you have expansive type soils against it and how to relieve the pressure.
A *structural* engineer would be the one to give you advice on how stable the wall is and what you may need to do to reinforce it. Trust me,.... mother nature wins in the long run. There is nothing you can do to prevent further damage without addressing the soils pressure thing. Well, maybe there is a solution but I it would be at a considerable effort, just based on what you've described thus far.
These old buildings are indeed worthy of rescue if you have the means and energy. But a civil/soils engineer would be my first stop. But I wouldn't neglect to enlist the advice of a structural engineer as well for the building proper.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
Thanks Dennis. My duaghter just graduated from Montana Tech here with a masters in Civil, undergrad was geophysical. So, we do have some good resources here. And, I know it won't be cheap!!
We definitely want to save the building. Too many of these buildings are being neglected and destroyed. And, that is about all Butte has left is it's history and great architecture.
Does anyone have experience dealing with the uphill neighbor? I tried talking with her today. She is very elderly. I wanted to get some info on her retaining wall and how long it had been there. I ended up talking with her daughter and telling her that we needed to find out why we have this movement. Her response was, "Your building is old; it should be falling down!". Other than this problem, it is in great shape for it's age and we have remodeled almost all the apartments with a lot of expensive upgrades, new windows, etc..
You might want to bite the bullet and pay someone other than your daughter to do the analysis. You might be able to prove, after much investigation and gnashing of teeth, that your neighbor (or whoever installed the concrete wall) is at fault, and it might look better if there is a truly outside party on your side, rather than a relative. Maybe pay a visit to city hall and see if a permit was issued for the work, and see if there is any documentation.
Do it right, or do it twice.
Oh, I definitely plan to use someone besides my daughter! She is very bright, but probably a typical engineer! If you ask her if she knows what time it is, she (very absent-mindedly) replies, "Yes" and goes on with whatever she is doing! I am going to be out of town for a few weeks, but when I return, I think I will start with a construction lawyer and then the engineers. I was just saying that since we have MT Tech here in town, there should be some good engineers available. What we lack here in Butte and Montana in general are good contractors. Montana basically does not license contractors. Am I wrong in expecting that the contractor would have provided for some kind of drainage?
I'd also be looking at the town's building department. Assumably, they issued a permit for that wall you describe. That permit would/should contain drawings of the proposed work and whether or not it was built according to the permit. That information will direct any claim - either to the contractor/property owner or the municipality for allowing damage to occur to your structure.
If no permit was pulled, ...that opens many other questions.
I've found that when I do my own research, I get better information faster at a lower cost. Your town's records and record keepers can be your friend.
It wouldn't be fair of me or anyone to try to make a judgement on adequacy of the installation of your neighbor's retaining wall. Unfortunately, a lot of people do do work, without permits and without much regard to designing it so as not to create problems for others. But again, that's a value judgement that someone like us should not and cannot make from a distance.
It doesn't sound like you have much sympathy from your neighbors. That's a shame - could get ugly. But I agree, hire an independent professional and do investigate the design and construction of the retaining wall.
Good luck!
...........
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
Dennis, thank you. I read all this to my husband last night and he agrees we learned a lot from all of you. You pulled it all together. We were just concerned about stabilizing and fixing our building. We hadn't considered the soil might impact it. We will definitely cover all the bases you mentioned and really appreciate your time and input.
You live in a state that is still full of a wide open attitude and can-do anything frontier charm. That's probably part of the reason that you live there.
Unfortunately, that means that scenarios like you describe are all too common. You do have a problem and you will need an experienced soils engineer and a real eastate lawyer who does litigation work (some of them like to avoid the courtroom and stick to research) to adress this all the way to a favorable end. The engineer will need to document that the recent work did you damage and the lawyer will need to pursue remuneration to make you whole again.
In other states where this has been dealt with times innumberable, case law and legislation has set a system in place to avoid such scenes in the first place via requirements for engineering prior to permitting. You may indeed have sucha system that was not appropriatly adhered to.
Get set for a time of discovery and pursuit. Look at it as a good hunt.
Antelope are elusive game.
luck.
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin, I talk about you a lot. Often, I say to my husband "Too bad we don't have a Piffin here!". If you were ever inclined to move here, you could make a killing! the contractors are so bad. We called every brick contractor in the area and received not one return call. Then I went to the library to find a book so we could do the work ourselves and the typical, unmarried, meek librarian told me I was lucky none of them called me back because I wouldn't want them to do the work anyway. She told me they were so bad. And, by the way, I didn't call them all in one day. I am a CPA who specialized in contruction and know you guys don't make money giving estimates. So, when I call, I want you to do the work. I gave each of them two weeks to call me back before I called the next one!
I am not sure why we are here! We originally bought a house for our daughter to go to school. And, Butte has a lot of opportunities for investment properties. For instance, we bought a duplex for $ 18,000. We will put in about $ 10,000 and have $ 900 in rent. Not bad. But, the downside is Butte is the armpit of Montana, far worse than the other parts of the state where we also have property. Permit wise, they file them by year, not address. And, each department files their own permits, so electrical is in one department, sewer in another, etc. And, we have been unable to find permits on any of our properties, although we know some of the work was done with permits. Unless you know the year, they will not help you. They will not look through several years for you.
I appreciate all your advice. I am going to talk to my daughter's advisor at Tech and have him look at it and them ask for a referral to engineers who will write reports. Then I will have to go several hundred miles for a construction attorney and the hard part will be paying someone from out of town to come in and do the work.
Thanks!
I ain't THAT good.
;).
Excellence is its own reward!
Very interesting story. I guess you pay for the wide open spaces and beautiful views with a shortage of other things, many that we take for granted. My father lives in Casper Wyo, and I think there are more people in San Antonio than in the entire state of Wyo. Based on your descriptions of the house and city, my mind pictures a dingy sooty mining town with boarded up windows and lots of For Sale signs.
Do it right, or do it twice.
Your picture is correct! Not quite that bad, but almost. But they have one of the top engineering schools in the country and those students make great renters! Fortunately for us, we don't have to be here all the time. And the architecture is phenomenal. There was a lot of money here in the "copper king" days.
Ya mean contractors are sposta call you back when you call 'em?Formerly BEMW at The High Desert Group LLC