Foundation Concern - A grave personal dilemma.

[Diana Reese]

Thanks again. I am going to make sure to buy a crack monitor this weekend. I know that it's also possible the cracks in the stucco reopened in a few places due to other reasons beyond continuing movement.

To me, the difficult thing to determine is whether the continuing movement, if any, is new or just a continuing effect of the "original" movement. At what point would someone reasonably expect the movement to stop?

Thankfully, the house is very functional, and that's why there is such a dilemma. I am concerned the situation may be getting worse before we can afford to do substantial repairs, and yet the house doesn't seem near bad enough to sell at a loss. Yet if we wait too long, the situation could get conceivably worse and you know the rest of the story.

I have examined the attic as much as possible for problems there [it's nearly impossible to maneuver through], as the ceiling area in the garage shows signs of settling because the surface is no longer completely flat, but more like you can see the impressions from the beams above. Yet with the exception of one connecting joint in the attic, I see no beams pulling apart from each other, and the one I do see looks like the nails are pulling away maybe the distance of a 1/2 inch. It's impossible to say if movement caused this or something else, as it's not the norm.

I did find what appears to be a very knowledgeable and trustworthy foundation company in our area that may be able to help us with an inspection. Of course, they might scare the daylights out of me. I mean, they are a business, right?

I really do appreciate everyone's time here.

[Diana Reese]

Hi Blaine. I will post photos this weekend of the differential cracks in the grade beam. I'm not sure how to detail the amount of differential settlement there is, except the width from one side of the crack to the other is between 1/16" and 1/8". You can see a slab crack leading directly to the crack and connecting to the higher, raised portion of the crack. And I'm not sure what a high point in the stucco is or looks like.

I don't believe there is any differential settlement in the slab cracks themselves. The windows [not all] show very small, straight line cracks in their interior upper corners, and slight separation under the panes. They do not stick at all. On the exterior side, there were diagonal cracks in the same general area leading up toward the roof.

The doors do not stick and do not look unlevel in their frames. A few of the doorframe trims show slight separation. Case in point, I had just painted several door frames in July 2004. I noticed a couple of months later, after all three hurricanes blew nearby, that the paint had cracked and showed fine open lines.

There's an almost unmeasurable horizontal crack right above the left corner area of the sliding glass door that travels a few inches. And a similar, but even smaller one right above the garage door leading into the kitchen on the interior side and very close to the ceiling line.

Some baseboards, the most noticable area being in the entry way near the front porch, show slight separation.

I honestly don't believe any of this was there until after those monsterous storms.

Anyway, I will try to get photos posted soon.

Thank you!

p.s. I am in Brandon.

[Blaine Wiley]

Without seeing them, they sound like normal building movement cracks, but again, I haven't seen them. Whenever you paint a small hairline crack on a wall the crack will reappear down the road because the paint will tend to shrink and pull back from the open area of the crack. The crack that has me the most curious is the one you mention that you can see light through from the outside.


Baseboards showing separation is very common. If they are painted, the gaps are usually caulked, and the caulk and paint shrink.


With the heat here in FL, we do develop small cracks in the block walls as they expand and contract. Most of the time they do not indicate a significant concern. I have many of them on my house, they are similar to what you describe, and none of them are structural in nature.


Perhaps you should contact one of our inspectors in the Brandon area for an opinion!

[Dan Bowers, CMI]

Diana -

Not to dwell on the point, but - many home inspectors come from a wide variety of backgrounds. My lead inspector was a foundation contractor. I grew up in a foundation, heavy equipment family. We built highways, streets, basements, etc. I had engineers working for me since I was 19. We do a lot of expert witness work - we specialize in stucco, construction defects and engineers. We have not lost yet. We get hired by engineers to be their expert witness in various cases. My foundation contractor has done expert witness 5 times in the past 2-5 years to help homeowners go after engineers that did bad inspections. Hes been on the winning side each time and he teaches classes to local engineers on crack analysis and repairs. What I'm saying is their are a lot of home inspectors, foundation contractors and engineers that can probably tell you whats going on - BUT - not online.

Get someone out to see your issues.

[David A. Andersen]

I do not recommend that you bail out!
You could bail into a house worse than the one you have now!

One thing you must also consider, is that for many years you had site drainage problems resulting and water flowing towards the house. This will cause any expansive soils in your area to expand. After you corrected some of the water intrusion problems the soil must now dry out. This can result in considerable shrinkage, depending on your soil. To repair while this process is ongoing will result in the damage recurring.

You mentioned cracking, but do you have any lateral movement?

As posted, some photographs would be helpful here.

You mentioned that there is no significant deficiency associated with the cracking on the inside of the house. In other words doors and windows operate correctly, there is no cracking of the sheet rock or ceiling nail pops etc.
If this is the case, it is unlikely that cracking is associated with major structural deficiency as it is not affecting the main structure of the house.

If you do not have major lateral movement that is affecting the upper structure of the house, I see no reason for you to take a loss on your home. Contractors are there to sell you something and if you have a tendency to be an alarmist, they may push you over the edge. Keep a level head.

It's impossible to fully diagnose a situation over the Internet, so I would take some time and let the soil dry out around your house for a year and do more research on contractors who mediate these types of situations. There are crack monitors available that can be fastened to the structure to indicate directional movement and quantity of movement which you may wish to install at this point. Take a lot of photographs for historical reference (use a measuring tape).

I have a substantial crack at my front porch that also goes up through a window opening to the roofline that opens and closes on a seasonal time frame. Currently it is getting very large! There are no other structural defects associated with this cracking. It drives me crazy when I sit there to drink my coffee in the morning and look at it every fall but it has been going back and forth for several years now. I have a friend that was a geologist from Florida that has done electromagnetic scans of the soil below the house and through the concrete. There is a large object (man-made or natural) directly below the crack and is likely the cause of this focal point of stress. At this point, I see no reason to do any further probing or to remove the object.

All houses will move with age and cracking will occur. You indicate there is soil movement. Florida is awfully flat for movement other than downward into a sinkhole! You naturally have a very high water table and the vast elevation changes of this water table over the past few years has been substantial. These hydraulic changes will result in movement of the upper soils.

If you send some photographs I will have my geologist take a look at them as well. Also, your general address would be helpful in conducting a geological background check of the area.

Sent by e-mail to: AndersenInspections@charter.net.
Ensure the word inspection is in the subject line!

[Diana Reese]

Hello David -- you are kind to make such an offer. I will be posting a LOT of photos in the next few days in a separate posting. After all, I have heightened everyone's curiousity. I'll do my best at taking them and providing detailed explanations.

Your msg. is interesting and it kind of supports one of my strongest views -- as long as the situation is responding in one way or another, repairs, if needed, would not be wise at this time. But waiting for the outcome can be agonizing, and of course stressful.

As for the structural integrity of the house itself, I have seen a few nail pops and what I believe are additional nail pops about to surface through one of the interior walls on the SE corner. When my husband was installing the gutters, he noticed that the SE corner appears to be lower than the NE corner. He did not notice this visually. It had something to do with a measurement. We were quite surprised and I have wondered if perhaps that corner sits on organic material, but the interior room on that corner shows no cracks or separations that I can find. Kind of bizarre to me.

Considering what this foundation has endured for so long, I am astounded at the punishment it can take.

Anyway, I hope the photos will answer some of everyone's questions.

I'll be in touch. Diana

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by dbowers

Do yourself a favor - call several local foundation contractors to come out look at the house, let them tell you their opinion on what is going on and what they feel it will take to fix it then make a decision. They're not going to charge you to look.

Makes a lot more sense than trying to get people on this board to diagnose something they've never seen or give advise on it.

I think Dan covered it .