Todd,
obviously, best to see any problems with bowed walls so hard to say from here. :mrgreen:
we`ve done/waterproofed some bowed walls that were pushed in maybe, 1-2" and HO only wanted them waterproofed, they pretty much understood the “cause”. So, in “every” case when wall(s) were bowed in 1-2" or so, after hand digging em out, hauling all the clay,roots and other garbage away, waterproofing and backfilling with peastone, no further problems. No movement, no mold/efflorescence or leak.
have done some for HOs who had wall bowed in ALOT, shtt, if i remember right one was about 6"...they were getting tons of water in and ONLY wanted to stop the water from entering. Had to obv.write in contract that wall has lost alot of its 'lateral resistance' and couldn
t guarantee the possibilty and ‘some’ future movement…especially the opening/closing a few times a year of the horizontal crack but certainly did guarantee the waterproofing.
one was a house in Harper Woods and was done in 1997,parents of a friend and, to this day the wall has not moved anymore, they still live there. They had large roots right-up against the wall, plus clay.
so, sometimes…after relieving the cause, the pressure on outside, one could ‘save’ a wall if ya want to call it dat.
have had a buddy and seen other HOs who opted to jack up house and knock out entire wall or a lil more, rebuild the wall, waterproof it and backfill with gravel and/or underpin-beams-and other stuff and within 6 months or so, the new wall bowed in! Yes sir, have seen this occur about 50% of the time....they didn
t leak, just bowed in so, spending TONS of money to rebuild a wall is NOT an absolute happy ending `n will only pizz off a HO more, and rightly so, often not fault of contractors as they did what they could do. Its the ones who backfill w/same soil & garbage and not w/gravel ya gotta watch out for
most problems occur when people get talked in these wall anchors or grip tite etc and have an Inside systems installed and leave-the-soil/roots on outside of wall, they didn`t relieve/lessen the pressure…the most likely cause of why the dang wall bowed,cracked, leaked in the first place…big mistake.
And careful when using heavy equipment near/next to existing or new walls, weight of equipment alone can cause an underground-lateral-surcharge pressure which is transferred to the wall, could crack/bow a wall…read last paragraph --Careful on Construction Site
http://www.bobvila.com/HowTo_Library/Why_Foundations_Fail-Foundation-A2095.html
cost? depends how long walls are, how deep to footing, concrete/central ac in the way, trees/bushes etc. Lets say the linear footage is 85’ and depth to footing is 6’…to hand dig it out, waterproof it and backfill w/all gravel would be about $7,200…or $85 ish per ft.
If replacing/rebuilding wall(s) then one may gets bids around $150 per ft, like Mr Kage said, to maybe $200 or a lil more per ft…so now it could cost $12,750 to 17,000 or lil more :-& and with the possibilty of future movement…got milk? #-o
There aren`t other homes for sale there with less problems? ](*,)
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/publications/marineclay.htm#2
See -Basement Walls…CAUSE `n RESOLUTION
http://www.plickandassociates.com/newsletters/Mar06.pdf scroll down to…
—A Little Crack Can Mean Big problems
http://www.archicentre.com.au/survival_kit/cracking_brick.pdf
–Houses Crack Up In Drought
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21036007-5010020,00.html
http://www.riverwatchonline.org/news/winnipeg_press/07_09_05.html