Got a call today from a home owner that was looking for a foundation repair company I could refer to fix their sinking foundation. The nice lady on the other side of the phone explained that when they first looked at the house 3 years ago the living room floor seemed ok. After buying the house, and moving in, the floor seemed to slope to the corner. They have been there for 3 years now and said it didn’t seem to have gotten any worse. She also said the home was over 120 years old with a stone foundation. (Ok, all the houses in this neighborhood are the same way.) When I asked her why she was concerned about it after being there for three years and it hasn’t changed, she explained to me that she had been dealing with cancer treatments and her balance isn’t what it used to be and she can’t walk in there any more without thinking she was going to fall over. Before she called me, she had just finished getting a quote from some outfit that wanted 40K to jack up the corner of the house and basically just put a wedge under it. What??? I explained to her that I would not recommend anyone or anything without seeing what was going on myself. Since I was heading home and had to pass her neighborhood, I told her I could swing by and take a quick look. When I got there, the first thing I noticed was that the center of that room had a crown to it. Using a 4 foot level, I figured out the perimeter was fairly level and the center of the room was 2" higher. The home had a post construction basement area under where the fireplace used to be and was being used for the new furnace and water heater. In the wall I saw a small opening where I could see under the room with the humped floor. Through the opening, new 2x material was visible nailed to the floor joists. These boards were directly under the hump. Turns out, when they bought the house, the HI wrote up squeeky flooring. The seller agreed to fix the floor. And voila… DIY project that only made things worse. So not only did I convince her to not spend 40K to jack up a foundation that probably hasn’t moved in a century, I convinced her to consult an SE first to verify what little I was able to find and got an Annual Maintenance Inspection scheduled for next month when she is done with her cancer treatments. She said she knew of several people that were house shopping and asked me for a business card or ten. LOL. so she could tell people about me and give out my cards…
Sometimes it pays off to do something for someone just to be nice…
Here is what I could see from the hole in the wall from the “basement”
