Bricks, Masonry, Asphalt and Concrete - Foundation repair (crack) choices

Hi All, I have a 1926 craftsman that has a bit of a foundation problem that has me a little nervous. When my wife and I bought the house 2 years ago, the inspector gave it a clean bill of health, but did notice a crack in the foundation which he said should be repaired, and estimated that it would cost around 2k. Recently, I've been working with a contractor on a kitchen and he saw the crack and seems to think its a much larger issue than the inspector lead us to believe (big surprise there huh?) He called the city and looked at some blueprints and thinks he figured out what happened. Near the corner of our house there is a rectangular concrete drain water reservoir that collapsed many many years ago. This caused the ground to sink into the newly created void and thus the corner of our house sank too. From one corner of our house to the other (25ft) there is about a 3.5" elevation drop. This created a pretty good size crack in the foundation in the middle of the wall in the basement.

The basement wall is about 5 feet of concrete, with a 4' framed pony wall (I think that's what it's called) sitting on the concrete sill which supports the floor joists. If you look down the wall, it appears the concrete wall has moved inward about 1.5 to 2 inches inward at the top of the wall. The pony wall that sits on the foundation is angled out slightly, maybe 10 degrees. My contractor seems to think this is major and would need the entire wall replaced to the tune of $50,000 !! My questions are

1) The event that caused the settling occurred at least 25 years ago, and there hasn't been movement since then. Since everything appears to be stable, with the foundation coming to rest where it is, can we simply do nothing? Is there a chance that while obviously not 100%, it's still structurally sound enough to leave alone?

2) are there other tried and true repair methods other than full blown excavation and repair that I could use so I don't have to repour the entire wall?

3) if I do have to repour the wall, is that estimate close? Or could I do it cheaper than that? (I'm in seattle by the way).

If it helps, I can post pictures later.

Thanks!

Your questions can really only be answered by a structural engineer inspecting the house.

That said, if you can live with a house that far out of level, you could probably repair the crack cosmetically. Remember that when you sell the house you will have to disclose this as a known defect, however.

I was under the impression that unless I know something's a problem, there isn't anything to disclose. So unless I had a structural engineer out who said there was an issue, I wouldn't have to disclose anything, because as best to my knowledge, there's nothing wrong. But in any case, you think that as long as I'm willing to live with the slope all I'd need to do is patch the crack? That would be good news. But at the same time if there's an issue there, I want to address it properly. Thanks for your help!

Sure you could patch the crack with some cement and forget it. Don't know if that would be smart tho. If I were you, I'd talk to another contractor. 50 grand seems way too high.

Before we moved, we were considering putting a basement under our old house. We almost did it, but changed our minds and got another place with a basement instead. That said, I had estimates for 26,000, 30,000 and 33,000 to put a basement under it. That did not include jacking up the house, but it included everything else.

Joe Michel

Talk to an engineer to find out what you have, what is going on and if/how you should repair it. This is far better than talking to someone that wants to sell you a job at $50,000, whether or not it is necessary.

If you think you can plea "I didn't know, so I couldn't disclose", forget about it. It is visable. You have already you have a problem (even if you really don't) noted by one contractor. If you hire a professional, the report is yours. If there is no new problem (pre-existing condition) you can show a future purchaser the report to put everyone at ease that is not an active crack.

What if you sold it and the new owner contacted a contractor that says it was obvious (or I looked at it before the sale)? The job would then be repaired and the contractor may have a blank check.

You certainly do not want it to come up as a result of a home inspection after you have accepted an offer. In that case, you will have to walk away(and be legally made aware of the problem), fix it immediately to the purchaser's satisfaction or reduce the price substantially.

Its your choice what you do and when.

Dick

So you're saying because the crack is in plain sight, I'd have to disclose it regardless of whether I knew it was an issue or not? That doesn't seem right, only because it wasn't disclosed to us at the time of sale, though we obviously knew it was there due to it being in plain sight. It's more than likely that I could be wrong though...

I guess I'm losing the "burry my head in the sand and dump this place" option ;-)

I guess a bit of potential good news is that there may not be an issue if the crack is inactive (which I believe it is) - even though the wall has moved inward about an inch and a half.