LIL YODA

i own a small home in SW ontario near lake huron. I have clay below my house with a three foot crawl space. The main beam that runs below my house has sunk a bit due to a faulty support pier.
We went down in the crawl space and dug a hole in which we planned to pour concrete and slowly jack the house. about two feet down, the hole began to fill with water and wont stop. can i possibly be hitting the water table? any input on what i should do now would be greatly appreciated.....

lxdollarsxl

How high above the lake are you? As a temp fix you could dig down about 1 ft and put in a concrete block to give you something to jack it up on. If your above the level of the lake, i would guess the amount of rain there has been has made the ground completely sodden and it would fill up the hole you dug.

Teetorbilt

You can try hydraulic cement, It will set underwater. Work fast because it sets more quickly than reg. cement too.

LIL YODA

now i want to run this by you guys. my nieghbour suggested lowering the water level below the crawl space by digging a three foot trench around my house and laying pipe with holes in it then covering it with stone and piping to to the drainage creek and the end of my property.... would this work? i know that you cant really picture my property but the idea... is it common practise or just something he is dreaming up?

Tscarborough

If it is clay, there isn't much hope of using a perimeter drain system to dry it out. A well-point system works well in sand, but sucks air in clay/loam. Are you sure you didn't hit a pipe?

LIL YODA

nope i definetely didnt hit a pipe there is a tree root i can make out at the bottom of the hole before it fills up again. but thats all i can see...
man i cannot believe this. i am thinking im going to have to wait until summer and hope the level goes down.....

Tscarborough

You could always fill the hole, then use staggered pads to provide a base to jack the house. Assuming that the pier has settled, you should be able to shim it.

LIL YODA

there is no way this house is going to be jacked on anything but a solid concrete blcok in the ground its just too soft.. its obvious that the previous owners had made many attempts to jack before i moved in with no avail... doubled up patio stones, lumber, and a chunk of steel all sunk into the ground.... the concrete is really the only proper solution and now with the water looking me in the face im not sure where to go...

Tscarborough

It can be done, don't worry about that. You may not be able to do it yourself, but it can be done.

clemrick

Since you haven't mentioned what your engineer says to do, I am assuming that you are trying to do this without the proper training and resources. This is one case where you really need to spend the money to get it done right. I don't know what structural engineers are called in Canada, but you probably need one and also a contractor who has done this before and knows how to either work with the water or get rid of the water.

johnlvs2run

Are you sure it's a tree root. A few years ago I was extending the side fence to the front of the property and there was a tough root where I was digging for one of the posts. I kept whacking it with the post hole digger and finally got through, then took a break and went in the house. I was going to make a phone call but for some reason the phone didn't work. Anyway it turned out that the root wasn't really a root. A phone company rep came out and fortunately didn't charge me anything for repair and said I'd done a good job on the "root". Also he moved it over a bit so I could finish putting the post in hehe.

Alan

Also in regards to draining the water from your property elsewhere, I'm not sure what its like up there, but around here, that is DEFINITELY against code, AND state wildlife laws. You just can't obscurely change the way water drains. Its one thing if you're nearby a drainage system, but just to drain water off your property onto another is highly illegal, not to mention rude.

Chuckman

ive delt with something like this not really with pouring concrete in the hole it was with a spetic tank and this guy was below water level, but i would get a vaccum pump and suck all the water out real quick and then fill it with concrete or that hydralic concrete they were talkin about earlier it wont take long for it to set up it u let it air out.