Now that we're heading into day three of The Shoring Of Our Foundation, I'd thought I'd share. During the summer Jen and I noticed that the foundation at the SE corner of our house was beginning to sink. We had no rain since like May here in Southern Indiana so the soil below the house is completely dry. Well we decided to put up a retaining wall and called a bunch of landscapers in to look at the situation. (On a side note you'd think in a middle of the worse recession since the Great Depression more landscapers would have returned our calls. Hell, they could just come our and tell me fuck you, at least that would be a response. Guess all the landscapers here are independently wealthy and don't need the work. Too bad I was going to throw money at them.) Long story short it was decided that the tree next to the house needed to come down and the foundation fixed before a retaining wall could be put up. It was a good call too as you'll see.
SE corner. The worst spot. That block by the spout is loosened up enough to remove. Not good.
Well finding a tree remover was a pain in the ass because of where the tree is (or was, now.) Next to the house and in between power lines. Not to mention it was sixty feet tall. Well we got a company to take it down at a reasonable price (first guy who quoted us I think was shopping for a new truck and I swear his pupils turned to dollar signs.) They sent the hillbilly version of Larry, Moe and Curly over to remove our tree. I swear if I ever hire these guys again (for the record, they didn't destroy anything and the tree is gone) I'm setting up a video camera. The trunk of the tree about four or five feet up was infested, if thats the right word, with the roots of the vines that have been living on the tree since we bought the house seven years ago. It was only a matter of time before that tree was going to fall and either take out our house or knock out the power (and probably start a fire.) Maybe both.
The trunk about four or five foot up. That dirt looking stuff in there are roots from the vines that have been attached to the tree for years. They were suffocating the tree. It was definatly on its way out.
Now the foundation needs to dealt with. We got a company in here that had a very good solution. Here's the plan: brackets are mounted to the footers under the house which is the actually foundation that sits on the soil. Then piers, essentially really long steel poles about four inches in diameter, are attached to brackets. Hydraulic pressure is applied to these poles, there will be nine total, until they hit bedrock way down below. Then the poles are tightened to the brackets and the pressure will bring the foundation back up and level. In our case the house itself hasn't started to sag. So now the foundation will be resting on the bedrock and not shitty Indiana clay/soil. Sounds easy, no? Sure enough, as nothing ever goes right in any big job, Mr. Murphy would be proud of this mess.
A two day job has now become, so far, maybe five. As they were digging the trenches along the foundation they hit cement. Yes, cement. And we're on top of a hill. At first the foreman had no idea why there was cement about two feet down. He thought that maybe the house was built on a slab. But that didn't make any sense as the concrete was higher than the footers. WTF? After a day of jackhammering they realized this was a huge amount of concrete. On day three it was jackhammering all day for eight hours. Two brackets got mounted. Out of nine. (only one hole had no cement, so the mounting of that bracket wasn't a big deal.) The owner of the company came by and was dumbfounded as to what we had here. The theory right now is the previous owners, or even before them, had a sinking problem too. Its common here. But instead of doing it right, which would entail having the foundation set so it doesn't rest on the unstable soil, they dug out all the soil and literally filled it with cement. Probably an entire truck load. Which might explain the huge truck tracks in the front of the yard when we bought the house. Whatever that was it had to be huge and heavy. We're still wondering what they did with all the dirt. I don't want to know.
It looks like an excavation in Egypt. I'm waiting for them to pull up bones.
So, they kept at it until quitting time. Come Monday morning its back to hammering. Hopefully, by Tuesday we'll have the brackets mounted and the piers driven into the ground. Then Wednesday they can wrap it up.
Then its on to the retaining wall. Maybe someday we'll get the backyard done. I know one thing though, I'm not getting rid of the cement patio in the back. I've had my fill of jackhammering for awhile now.
I've posted a bunch of pictures on my gallery here, here and here
Hint: double click the images for a larger view and more information.
Posts
