wattscroft
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- Jul 28, 2008
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Hello, I am new to this board and have been researching a worrisome thing I noticed about a vacation house we are buying in an historic district which doesn't allow tear downs. The house has an outward bend at about two feet up from the ground. The basement is dry but the monster next door (very close by at 8 feet away) is draining its roof onto the side yard. Anyway, we had a house inspector look at the house and he declared it very solid and wasn't worried about the buckle - said we could put in reinforcements. I didn't know what to call this situation, I now know from online research that this component is called a cripple wall because there are all kinds of earthquake articles about cripple wall failure. So this is what I can see from standing in the cellar: The sill plate is up about an inch away from the stone, tilting backwards. The cripple wall seems to be putting most of its weight on the outside edge of the sill plate wood and tilting that. Then at the top of the cripple wall, the floor joists seem to be pushing it back a little. The inspector told us it probably had been like that for fifty years. HOwever, the house was supposedly recently painted and I can tell from the outside that there has been more outward pressure at the buckle because the paint is popped away. So does a new foundation wall need to be poured out where the cripple wall is now or does the house have to be pulled in 2-3 inches or is this just hopeless? It is a 2-story house and the second story floor at the opposite end is sagging. I wonder if it is moving backward and the front porch is hanging onto the front wall and the floor joists are pulling apart up there to allow the back end to sag out.
Anyway is this the type of thing that is repairable by jacking the house? Thank you for any insight because my house inspector is not the worrying type.
Anyway is this the type of thing that is repairable by jacking the house? Thank you for any insight because my house inspector is not the worrying type.