|
Oklahoma | I am "pseudo-managing" a rent house for my parents. We have come to a point where I am not sure its worth the trouble or hassle of fixing it.
It was originally built in the 40s as a duplex and approx. 800 sf on a rock foundation ( primarily sand rock which crumbles easily). Sometime in the 60-70s it was added onto in the back with a cinder block foundation and is now about 1000 sf. My folks bought the place in the late 90s with a land purchase. They converted it into single living and cleaned it up, rented it out for several years before it was totally trashed at which time I "inherited the project". I rented it out for a while but due to a transfer in work it has sat a year or two vacant and now we are back to thinking about it/working on it. We have know the foundation was going bad but it is now starting to crumble and one floor needs replaced so I am coming to the opinion that we need to either fix the whole thing right or burn the place down.
I contacted several companies like Olshan and Ramjack and others and basically they have all said either "we don't fix rock foundations" or "we will fix it for $10K+ with no guarentee". After having a neighbor try the no guarentee route, I am not jumping to do that and I want it fixed right IF possible. Seeing that the house at the peak of the home market was maybe worth 35K we don't want to invest the entire value of the house in this.
Dad has suggested jacking the whole house up and pouring a pad under it. We started jacking the house up but nothing in this house is level so we are having trouble determining how much to raise here or lower there. The floor joists aren't all the same thickness, they sag here or there, and jacking in this spot might raise a whole wall while jacking here does nothing. This is compounded by the front being rock foundation and then the back being cinder block and they aren't tied together level. So now we are back to square one asking what do we do? Any ideas.
One thought I have wondered about is tearing out all the floors and building a form inside the rock wall. Then go about every 3 ft and knock the rock out with a form on the outside so that you are basically pouring a series of piers that are tied together by a inside concrete wall. We still have the same problem though in getting the house level. Dad thinks we can get a laser line level and maybe get it done.
Sorry this got so long.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas.
Edited by jcs 9/24/2008 13:03
| |
|
Questions on repairing house foundation???
