Basements, Attics and Crawl Spaces - bulging interior walls

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etkind
11-04-09, 06:54 PM
A house I'm thinking about buying has bulging interior walls on either side of the central stairs leading from the main floor to the basement. The bulges are horizontal and run about 1/2 and 2/3 the width of the wall, roughly in the middle of the walls. There is a steel beam that runs the length of the house, but the steel beam is below the start of the bulge. The bulge is about 2 feet high from where it starts to bend inward to where the bulge ends. The pictures of the walls are here: wall - Folder Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage (http://www.box.net/shared/7vmy6fqlx6) I can't see the other sides of the walls. All floors on all levels of the house are level as far as I can tell.

Is this a structural problem? Is the house falling down? Will a structural engineer be able to assess the problem?

Thanks

Bud9051
11-05-09, 05:17 AM
Just so you have a response, I looked, but can't really tell what you are dealing with. Certainly an engineer or good contractor could spot the problem. Sometimes the people laying out the floor space forget which walls are necessary to support the weight above. It could be a structural issue so proceed with caution.

Bud