[vrama]

Sorry this is long- I have been working on my daughter's bedroom. It is a back bedroom and we have had problems with flooding in this house. It seems like our house is lower than my nieghbors so when it floods everyones runoff comes to my backyard. My daughter's room is at the back of the house- right side.

When I took off the baseboards in her room I could see light from outside! When I got down on the floor I could literally see and hear the birds in the backyard. It measured about an inch to an inch and a half gap. But only on the outer corner of the room. Which makes sense because that is where the water came in one flood season.

First off- wth is going on! Second off- how can I even begin to fix this? I thought of getting that foam stuff- Great Stuff and redoing all the baseboards.

I can also see where there had been some plumbing problems because a horrible patch job was done on the drywall. On the other side of that wall is our shower, so that explains the bad drywall job. No leaks there- Thank God!!!

Any advice will be MUCH appreciated-
Stuck with a fixer upper in TX :furious:

 

[Ron6519]

You need to look at the floor joists and the foundation support for the joists. You need to either go into the basement or into the crawlspace to check this out.
Foam in a can has no place until the structure is examined and repaired.
Post photos of the situation under the floor as well as the space you see now.

 

[AGWhitehouse]

While you're following Rons advice, take some pictures from outside, inside, above and below and post them...

 

[vrama]

gap between drywall and foundation

sorry but there is no basement on our home. I am totally new to all this so could you explain what joists are? Thanks so much for all your help guys... I really appreciate it! I will take some pictures today when I get off work.

 

[AGWhitehouse]

A Joisted Floor System: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Joist_Floor.jpg

 

[vrama]

pictures of seperation

these are of the back of the house. When it flooded real bad one time, water came in- looking at the pictures you can see why. It looks like there may have been some kind of flashing/seal but it is torn now. It seems like the furthest corner of the house hase sunk in. I have photos that show the back window and how the brick is separating too. i didn't relize it was this bad till I started taking photos. I am REALLY worried now.

Sorry guys- photos are not posting- let me figure out why and see if i can get come pics up later- this is so frustrating!

 

[vrama]

pics not loading

ok guys --- I give up. I cannot get pics uploaded when I zip them. Don't know what I am doing wrong... they are in jpeg format so I am guessing that they are too big of a file to upload. Sorry.

I do not have a basement so there is no way I can get under or even go into a crawl space as this is an outside facing wall. It does seem very hollow sounding to me. It looks like that entire wall had been redone. I wonder if the people who lived here before put any type of insulation on that back wall. Other then gutting everything I don't know what to do.

It just seems like this house has more repairs then we can handle right now. Feeling a bit overwhelmed and hopeless---

The only other way I can think of sending pics is thru email???

Thanks again for taking the time to read my mess-

 

[Ron6519]

ok guys --- I give up. I cannot get pics uploaded when I zip them. Don't know what I am doing wrong... they are in jpeg format so I am guessing that they are too big of a file to upload. Sorry.

I do not have a basement so there is no way I can get under or even go into a crawl space as this is an outside facing wall. It does seem very hollow sounding to me. It looks like that entire wall had been redone. I wonder if the people who lived here before put any type of insulation on that back wall. Other then gutting everything I don't know what to do.

It just seems like this house has more repairs then we can handle right now. Feeling a bit overwhelmed and hopeless---

The only other way I can think of sending pics is thru email???

Thanks again for taking the time to read my mess-

There are instructions at the top of the "Building and Construction" category.

 

[vrama]

posting pics

I followed all the instructions as prompted. I think my images may be too big. I will try to bring camera to wk and upload from wk comp. I think my computer is just old- Thanks

 

[Ron6519]

I followed all the instructions as prompted. I think my images may be too big. I will try to bring camera to wk and upload from wk comp. I think my computer is just old- Thanks

Try posting the pictures to a photo hosting sight, you should be able to downsize the file through them.

 

[CyFree]

This sounds like a possible foundation issue to me.

Probably some foundation settlement due to erosion. The runoff from your neighbors might be washing away the soil underneath the house.

If that is the case I don't believe it is possible to get any help in an online forum.

Your best bet is to call in a couple of foundation repair professionals in your area for a free inspection. This way you will have not only an idea of what is really going on, as well as options to solve and estimates to have it fixed properly.