Hi!
We've bought our first house at the beginning of this year, and are planning to change the flooring, from carpet to laminate.
The previous home owners had an addition built to the house about 10 years ago, but something went wrong when pouring the slab, as the right half of the addition is sunken from the left part about 1-2in. They mentioned this to us, too. When I started peeking under the carpet today, I realized that the slab is basically broken in half along the room, and along the edge of the wall. The actual foundation (so, the "rim") doens't have any issues, but just the "plate" on top (sorry, I'm German, I'm sure I'm not using the right words here, hope you know what I mean ).
The room is about 15'x19', and the plate is broken pretty much right down the middle (lengthwise). It sags maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in the middle, and 1 to 1 1/2 inch at the outside on one corner and about half that on the other. They apparently tried to "fix" this, as there is what looks like spackle along the crack (yeah, that'll help... ).
So, question is: What do I do with this? I read about mud jacking and slab jacking, but that sounds like an expensive solution, and we're really on a budget. I was thinking of just pouring concrete on top of the broken part, and leveling it out like that. I realize that the added weight might cause it to crack again, but the way I see it, the worst that can happens is that I'm back to where I started (and have only spent a couple of hundred dollars on concrete, which would be a risk I'm willing to take, I think, if the odds are right).
First of all, is there anything really wrong with this approach? If so, what alternatives are there, and (roughly) how much would that cost? If this is a viable solution, what concrete should I use? I saw that the self leveling stuff I looked at is rated "up to 1in", whereas the normal concrete was rated "2" and more", so that leaves me right in the middle
Any comments much appreciated,
Thomas
We've bought our first house at the beginning of this year, and are planning to change the flooring, from carpet to laminate.
The previous home owners had an addition built to the house about 10 years ago, but something went wrong when pouring the slab, as the right half of the addition is sunken from the left part about 1-2in. They mentioned this to us, too. When I started peeking under the carpet today, I realized that the slab is basically broken in half along the room, and along the edge of the wall. The actual foundation (so, the "rim") doens't have any issues, but just the "plate" on top (sorry, I'm German, I'm sure I'm not using the right words here, hope you know what I mean ).
The room is about 15'x19', and the plate is broken pretty much right down the middle (lengthwise). It sags maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in the middle, and 1 to 1 1/2 inch at the outside on one corner and about half that on the other. They apparently tried to "fix" this, as there is what looks like spackle along the crack (yeah, that'll help... ).
So, question is: What do I do with this? I read about mud jacking and slab jacking, but that sounds like an expensive solution, and we're really on a budget. I was thinking of just pouring concrete on top of the broken part, and leveling it out like that. I realize that the added weight might cause it to crack again, but the way I see it, the worst that can happens is that I'm back to where I started (and have only spent a couple of hundred dollars on concrete, which would be a risk I'm willing to take, I think, if the odds are right).
First of all, is there anything really wrong with this approach? If so, what alternatives are there, and (roughly) how much would that cost? If this is a viable solution, what concrete should I use? I saw that the self leveling stuff I looked at is rated "up to 1in", whereas the normal concrete was rated "2" and more", so that leaves me right in the middle
Any comments much appreciated,
Thomas