Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer?

   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #1  

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I have a crack in my home foundation. I plan to sell my home in the spring and I know any inspector with a pair of eyes will see it. So do I call a concrete foundation contractor or engineer. The foundation is poured concrete and is 28 years old. The height of the wall is 8'. I noticed the crack about 3 years ago and it seems to getting worse. The crack is from the top of the wall to the bottom, and the floor also has a crack in it about 7' long. About 6 months ago I notices water stains at the bottom of the crack. About 18" to the left of the crack is the main support beam for the house. I do not have any cracks on the 1st floor to indicate the beam is moving.

As I see it I have a few choices 1. Call a foundation contractor to get his recommendation for repair. 2. Call a structural engineer to review the crack and develop a plan to repair and then gets quotes based on his specification.

I am leaning towards #2 since if I was buying the home I would ask how do I know it was done correctly and will I have problems in the future.

So what would you do? I do not have the tools or the expertise to do this myself. Thanks
 
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   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #2  
I would try and investigate what caused the cracks if it just happened recently. You might have some water drainage issues. Can you tell if the wall is pushing at all?
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #3  
I have a crack in my home foundation. I plan to sell my home in the spring and I know any inspector with a pair of eyes will see it. So do I call a concrete foundation contractor or engineer. The foundation is poured concrete and is 28 years old. The height of the wall is 8'. I noticed the crack about 3 years ago and it seems to getting worse. The crack is from the top of the wall to the bottom, and the floor also has a crack in it about 7' long. About 6 months ago I notices water stains at the bottom of the crack. About 18" to the left of the crack is the main support beam for the house. I do not have any cracks on the 1st floor to indicate the beam is moving.

As I see it I have a few choices 1. Call a foundation contractor to get his recommendation for repair. 2. Call a structural engineer to review the crack and develop a plan to repair and then gets quotes based on his specification.

I am leaning towards #2 since if I was buying the home I would ask how do I know it was done correctly and will I have problems in the future.

So what would you do? I do not have the tools or the expertise to do this myself. Thanks

Get 2-3 quotes for the repair. Disclose crack in your listing,if you are listing for sale, then when you get a contract, negotiate an agreeable price and let the buyer get it fixed to suite themselves. you don't have put up with the mess. lt190b
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #4  
Concrete cracks are not unusual. In the past when we have had any cracking, if it was not opening or leaking and just a hairline, it would be left alone. If it is opening or leaking, first we would figure out why, and if it was drainage issues we would address that. Also would excavate down to the footing and V groove the crack, fill it with hydro cement and then rubberized coat the repair. We would also lay ice and water barrier against the wall before back filling. Then V groove the inside and pack it with hydrolic cement as well. On the inside we spend a bit more time to make it look pretty.
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #5  
Get 2-3 quotes for the repair. Disclose crack in your listing,if you are listing for sale, then when you get a contract, negotiate an agreeable price and let the buyer get it fixed to suite themselves. you don't have put up with the mess. lt190b
Many if not most lending agencies will not make a loan on a house with an un-repaired foundation crack. You will need to get it fixed prior to the sale. I had mine fixed by a contractor that used hydraulic pressure to push in a bunch of 4"x12" concrete piles called CoreLocked by patent. If I had it to do over, I would have had drilled and poured footing. The corelocked depends on the slab weight to push the piles into the ground and I don't think that they are very stabile at least not as much as a drilled and poured pile is. This was over 15 years ago and they were $250 per pile for perimeter and $500 for interior piles.
In Houston area there was only 2 companies that did foundation repair and both were owned by the same parent company so not much choice on fixing but they give lifetime transferrable warranty on their work
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #6  
Get the Engineer. The engineer ain't going to make money on the repair so his/her plan to fix the problem is what the contractor needs to do. A coworker had some settling of his house so he had a structural engineer look at the problem The engineer's solution was a concrete pad and a 4x4 under a section of floor. It cost my coworker less than $100 in materials to fix the problem. It costs a few hours/hundred dollars to pay for the engineer's time and plan.

I would bet the coworker would have paid FAR more money to a contractor and who knows if the problem would have been solved.

Later,
Dan
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #7  
You are gonna need two Engineers. A soils engineer and a structural engineer.
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #8  
In Virginia we had a major crack caused by an earthquake. Since I've lived in Northern Virginia since 1975 and never felt a tremor we didn't have earthquake insurance and found out our house insurance didn't cover it.. We got a registered engineer ($$) who recommended several firms. Three firms cam in with bids around $18K, they were going to excavate outside, dig under the footing, build the Taj Mahal. They were all accustomed to billing the insurance agency.

The engineer recommended one more, a small firm, they came in and basically put long rebar down two walls and rebuilt from the inside and the bill came to around 7 or 8K AND PASSED THE ENGINEERS APPROVAL. The engineer wasn't going to pass it if I had done the work my self.

So get an engineer that you can work with and get it approved.
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer? #9  
You are gonna need two Engineers. A soils engineer and a structural engineer.

I think Egon is absolutely right. Especially if you are selling the house soon. This must all her disclosed and a nice neat package with engineer's stamped letters, plans, inspector approvals, etc. will go a long way toward removing the negatives. I would not disclose the issue in the listing -- no one will come to see the house. The disclosure goes with the rest of the disclosures. If the repair is cosmetically good, the buyer may not even notice it in looking at the house. This is really important.
 
   / Cracked Foundation Contractor or Engineer?
  • Thread Starter
#10  
I am starting the process of finding an engineer. I am hoping it can all be done inside the basement and not involve the outside as I have a 20' wide deck on the other side of the wall. What ever it takes, I got to get it done the last thing I want is the sale falling through because of a crack. We worked hard to upkeep the home new roof, windows, kitchen, bathrooms, etc. I had the track home build seems like yesterday, everything wears out......good thing I am not getting old too...LOL
 
 
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