I am scoping out a basically abandoned brick house for potential cheap buy. The plan is to gut and rebuild because the roof has rotted in taking a lot of the interior with it, it's out of control and flooded, etc. The brick foundation appears to be well though. But I was checking it out and noticed a diagonal crack from the bottom of the first floor window to the middle of a basement window (see photos). I have been reading about why foundations do this; soil expansion and contraction due to variances in moisture, settling down into unevenly compacted soil, and other shifting around due to geographical reasons. This place has been abandoned for at least 10 years, and was built in the 1950's according to my in-the-know friend. So the property is pretty overgrown with trees and I'm thinking, like I heard from someone else, that if you cut down the trees and remove them, then wait a year, the soil can sponge up the water and partially correct the unevenness. This would sure beat the alternative, having helical piles driven down into the bedrock and bolted to the foundation to hold it up. (there are several sites online who offer this service, it's $3-$5,000!) Anyone have any experience in any of these soil conditions and foundation settling remedies, besides just fixing the cracks? These cracks are not just "stair step" cracks just in mortar, there are broken bricks as well.
