I've been puzzling this out for a week. I'm not sure how long this has been going on. The enclosed pictures are the basement steps in my soon to be eight year old home. The basement is unfinished and the steps go down to a landing and then down the rest of the way to the basement. The only wall is the one in the pictures and there is framing that goes under the landing for storage. The steps appear to be sinking and have separated from the edge of the wall. Because this is Colorado, the wall is a floating wall and the steps are attached to the landing and not to the floor. I talked to a structural engineer and he said that he can't really tell what's going on from the few pictures that I sent him, but the basement slab might be settling. I also attached an image of the floating wall. Some of the spike still have some room to move and some are right at the very top and have no more room.
I have literally no idea what I'm doing, but I did some very unscientific measurements tonight. I used a laser measuring tool to go around the basement and measure the distance from the floor to the first floor subfloor I found that the floor on the south side of the basement was almost an inch lower than the floor on the north side of the basement. The lowest point was the SE corner of the house but the SW corner was also lower. It sloped up pretty quickly as I moved to the north.
The basement floor is a bunch of big concrete blocks with control joints. There are a few small cracks along the control joints, but no cracks on the blocks themselves. I can't check the basement walls for cracks because the builder put up insulation on all of the walls. I looked on the outside and aside from a few very small hairline cracks on the concrete above one of the basement windows, I can't find any. The walls inside show no cracks and I have only one door that gets sticky in the winter. It's the bathroom door and I think that has more to do with the way that it was framed. It also has a vertical crack above it. It is not on a load bearing wall.
I am just trying to figure out if I have anything to be concerned about. I know that Colorado is famous for its expansive and semi-expansive soils. I am likely going to have the structural engineer out to do a proper inspection of the property and land. I have a builder warranty on structural issues and I have two years remaining on it.
And information or advice would be appreciated. I know nothing about this type of things, so I'm sorry if my explanation about what's happening is difficult to understand.
Thanks
I have literally no idea what I'm doing, but I did some very unscientific measurements tonight. I used a laser measuring tool to go around the basement and measure the distance from the floor to the first floor subfloor I found that the floor on the south side of the basement was almost an inch lower than the floor on the north side of the basement. The lowest point was the SE corner of the house but the SW corner was also lower. It sloped up pretty quickly as I moved to the north.
The basement floor is a bunch of big concrete blocks with control joints. There are a few small cracks along the control joints, but no cracks on the blocks themselves. I can't check the basement walls for cracks because the builder put up insulation on all of the walls. I looked on the outside and aside from a few very small hairline cracks on the concrete above one of the basement windows, I can't find any. The walls inside show no cracks and I have only one door that gets sticky in the winter. It's the bathroom door and I think that has more to do with the way that it was framed. It also has a vertical crack above it. It is not on a load bearing wall.
I am just trying to figure out if I have anything to be concerned about. I know that Colorado is famous for its expansive and semi-expansive soils. I am likely going to have the structural engineer out to do a proper inspection of the property and land. I have a builder warranty on structural issues and I have two years remaining on it.
And information or advice would be appreciated. I know nothing about this type of things, so I'm sorry if my explanation about what's happening is difficult to understand.
Thanks
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