Stone Foundation 'Temporary' Repair...

itsreallyconc

once bought an 1860's home w/stone fnd in the same condition,,, never considered shotcrete nor would i in your home,,, our fix was jacking up the house 1/2" & replacing the original stone fnd walls,,, no orig footer so that was 1st step,,, 40yrs later,the ridgeline's still straight & floors aren't wavy.

$8 to $12 is a big swing for 1 contractor to quote on the same job, pete,,, have you considered block walls ?

__________________
taxpayers voting for obama are as idiotic as chickens who voted for Col. Sanders !
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

if you hear it from a guy in the apron store, be VERY suspicious the mtl/method will work,,, when it time to build something together, they won't answer phones NOR help
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Peter B.

Again, thanks to all for your replies... you've got me thinking... which is always a dangerous thing.

Right now, it's a problem getting down to the basement for photos, but when I can, I'll post some... they might be worth a few laughs here.

Meanwhile, I'll tell you a little more about the foundation, the house and my situation. Maybe someone can suggest a wild card solution.

The problem part of the basement was originally a crawl space on stone footings. At some point, years before I ever bought the house, it was partially excavated and partially shored up. 'Partially' in both cases should be taken as literal. In the immediate area of the house, limestone is only about a foot below the soil surface. A complete or tidy excavation wasn't readily possible (I guess) and the resulting floor and walls of the basement are quite irregular. In some areas, the limestone formation (left from the incomplete excavation) still juts into the basement. In others - where the soil was a little deeper - the soil still shows. In one spot, a chunk of the footing maybe two and a half feet long has caved into the basement... and the gap is now covered (above, outside) by hay bales covered with heavy plastic. Another area of the footing is getting pretty precarious.

The methods used to shore up the footings range from a fairly proper attempt at building a supporting wall to an obviously improper approach in another area - simply 'facing' the wall with thin vertically set stone... having no load bearing capability whatsoever. Other areas were left with no shoring at all.

So... to sum up, this is not a 'typical' situation.

If I were to actually spring for a proper foundation repair/replacement, it would (probably) mean raising the house, ripping out ALL the footings and shoring, excavating the space to the point that the soil/limestone walls were vertical enough to build a block (or poured) foundation, and so on and so forth.

If the foundation were the only significant problem with the house, I think I would go for it... but it also needs siding, windows, a roof, a porch tear off and rewiring... to name a few items.

The house is situated on a partly wooded five acre parcel, served by a maintained dead end road - a reasonably marketable property. But the first thing a buyer would do is raze the house and start fresh, so money invested in the house is simply not recoverable.

My purpose in effecting a quick and dirty foundation repair would be to ensure that the house didn't collapse in the next few years... and that the weather could be kept out of the basement without resorting to more hay bales and plastic.

I can likely live with the other defects of the house... for a while.

I'm considering other housing options at the moment (and giving myself the winter to make a decision). The alternatives appear to be converting a garage to living space, or buying a small trailer home. Neither excite me particularly, but either may be a better bet in terms of 'buying' comfort for myself until (inevitably) I sell the property.

So all this may put a different complexion on the whole situation.

Peter B.

-----

Bondo

Ayuh,... Ramblin' thoughts, after readin' your's,...

Are you saying the native terrain is flat limestone bedrock, at varying depths,..??
As in Stable bedrock,..??
What's the linear run of the failing areas,..??
Where's the stable bedrock in relation to the failures,..??

I'm thinkin' salvaged steel beams can be run, pillar to pillar to support the house....
Only the area of the pillar will need diggin', 'n the interior crawlspace can be left alone....
That, 'n regrading the area around the building to shed water Away, might be enough for a few Years...

Then fix the Roof,... It's darn near as Important as the foundation ya know....