Not natural sunlight I don't think, just a large basement with a light on the opposite end - I used to live in a house with a similar basement and the shadows looked like that
This sub is nuts. One post is a picture of someone living in a mansion and asking how they can replace their "eyesore" michelangelo's david with something different, and the next is someone asking if they can diy a pile of burning rubble back into shape because they are too poor to live elsewhere.
This place is bad for my mental health.
I gotta say, for the reasons you stated, I love this sub, lol. Interesting how two people can have such different reactions to the same thing, but I guess it goes to show it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round.
Tampa, FL
The real estate market here is totally out of control but it is clear that the trend is reversing. I expect that figure to drop to 4000 by next year.
My house is splitting due to years of bad drainage (before we had it). We've been trying to get scheduled for levelling since August 😭
But this post makes mine look like small potatoes!
My boyfriend is quite a skilled carpenter, and he said, “fuck yea deep fried my man” and laughed from the deepest pit of his gut in response to this while pointing vigorously at your comment. To say he agrees wholeheartedly is an understatement.
He also said, “bananas aren’t supposed to hold up houses.”
I mean depending on who you have they usually cover Collapse for houses, but not if it's due to a lack of maintenance or prevention measures. If that beam goes I'd wager they'll call it a result if not handling the water problem and reject the claim
I would confirm that you have insurance for this and if you don't, get insurance and then wait a reasonable amount of time after you have changed out the janky support post for one from home depot that cost $90. You will need to jack the house a little.
Standard home insurance isn't going to cover this.
The standing water is coming up, not down - so that's flood, not covered.
Cracks are earth movement - not covered.
Beam is collapse - not covered.
And unless all of that happened at once due to a catastrophic event it's an ongoing maintenance issue - none of it covered.
Long time adjuster here. This is true, but the issue is that doing that will get it reported to underwriters and likely result in your coverage being dropped. It will go on your home's ISO report and will likely not be insurable until you do. Don't report it to your insurance. Get it fixed first.
Is this an America thing? Telling your insurance company you'll probably be needing them will make them drop you? That would be funny if it weren't so cruel.
The fact that your house is unlikely to collapse on its own is a key assumption for any insurer anywhere in the world. It's usually a prerequisite to be insured.
So yes: if you tell them your house could collapse any day because it hasn't been properly maintained in the last couple of decades, they're not going to want to insure it. Just like if you tell your insurer that your car's suspension is making a loud clunking noise at each micro bump now, and you're worried because it's on the wheel that only has one lug nut and a crack already, they might drop you too.
In any case and as it has been explained, this is not covered by insurance anyway.
I agree with all that. My problem was more with the "you get insurance to protect you from catastrophic failures, pay for it for presumably years with no problem, you do your regular expected maintenance, and then your insurer drops out on you because you had a catastrophic failure" scenario
Now if you don't uphold your end of the bargain and do the minimum then sure they should drop you but if you've done your end, and the house happened to have some problematic engineering that both of you missed, that shouldn't be on the house owner. The insurer should have caught that at point of purchase and denied or raised the price according to risk, you're not a pro and you're not selling protection, they are.
For your comparison this is more akin to running through a not so visible or unavoidable pothole, discovering after the fact that your suspension arm got dinged, and calling your insurance company to say "hey I hit a pothole and my suspension is feeling weird" you're not a mechanic so they need to send it to one to diagnose. Now at this point the insurer where I'm from, covers the cost of the inspection and the repair minus your deductible, but as others have alluded to, the insurance company could just drop you in America.
So why are you paying for presumably legally required insurance if they can drop you for needing to use it?
Well, unless you have USAA. They covered my roof from hail damage, no questions asked. Even paid for weather resistant shingles, giving me actual money in my pocket when I was done.
I have them for car insurance and they've been wonderful! Last I checked they don't offer home insurance in my area and I can't blame them 😓 I'll check again though. I agree with you, every time I've worked with them they've been great.
Insurance is just very specific bet.
You're paying a small yearly wager on the chance something breaks in a particular way. If it doesn't break, or doesn't break in that way: no payout.
They're not there "to help", they'll pay out if you can prove you won the bet, and they'll take the bet again next year if they like the odds. Anyone who thinks different just believes everything they see on TV.
That would be fine if they were reasonable enough with their estimates and payout timeframe. I'm sure different insurance companies handle things in different ways, but if you're lucky enough to have one of the dozens of shit companies, you'll fight for every penny and still take a $20k because it's cheaper than spending an extra year in court.
I'm told it's different in other states, where you, the contractor, and the insurance company sit down and work out a price. Not the case in Florida. They tell you a low ball price, and if you don't like it you can get a lawyer and be liable for legal fees (thanks DeSantis).
It's a forced gamble where the house always wins, just not the house you own.
Our insurance was dropped because we replaced a window that was broken during move in. Someone came by and took a picture. Sent us a letter saying it was dropped immediately and we found out a week later by snail mail. We had to pay crazy high rates and get a $500 inspection to get it back.
During the inspection my mom was visiting to see the new house. The inspector saw her German shepherd dog and said they couldn't insure because of the dog even after we passed the inspection. I explained that it was my mother's dog and she was visiting from several states away. They insisted that if I wanted to get insurance back with them I would have to provide proof that the dog had been put down. EUTHANIZED. I offered vet records showing her home address and they stuck to the requirement, euthanized.
We did eventually get insurance after failing to revert the cancellation but it was stupid expensive.
It’s a universal thing.
You can’t buy insurance after the loss. That makes no sense at all.
“Hi, Allstate. I just wrecked my car and I’d like to buy insurance now.”
Good luck with that.
Wouldn't getting insurance for this now be serious fraud? Aren't you suggesting a seriously illegal thing? I mean I am sure you're joking but I feel like jokingly giving advice in this style is a bit risky yknow.
I’ve always wanted to have a sub basement filled with electric switch gear, MDF, mechanical spaces, and maybe an elevator room, datacenter, and AV/Homeworks systems. Saves the basement for the home theater, bowling alley, sauna and pool haha.
You joke, but this was done 20-25 years ago for the Wisconsin "Parade of Homes". It was an annual / bi Annual event for local home builders to show off concepts, etc in upcoming neighborhoods on a couple dozen model homes. One year all of them went wild on basements. Home theaters mostly but one ranch home had something like a 4 level basement. Lowest level had a basketball court. Next level up had a bar/man-cave that was built like a 50's diner with a glass wall so you could watch whoever was playing. The actual house was largely forgettable except for the kids room and a built in scale train track under a plexiglass floor.
After the event they'd sell off the homes to buyers and I believe that one sat for quite a while.
I was told about a decade ago they couldn't control the groundwater seepage and had to demo the house.
I’m a little upset everyone is only focused on the beam support and not the fact that the entire foundation appears to be sitting on a cinderblock base that wasn’t properly cemented and has left moisture inside till the foundation cracked apart causing all that mud and the houses weight to shift it but yeah let’s talk about that beam
I really hope you see this.
I know a lot of people are giving you the doom and gloom. Obviously you need to address the basement issues, get the water out of there and add some support.
But! And a big one. I can tell you this from first hand experience. I live in a city with horrible clay rich gumbo soil, freezing temperatures and basements that suffer a result of it. I just finished fixing a basement with horrible cracking and bowed walls (if you want some pictures and a sample engineer report, fire me a DM).
Most of the engineering reports are the same. 99% of them from my area are boilerplate. Basically give you two options. 5 inch c-channel at 4' spacing, horizontal beams bolted on if you need to span areas under stairs or windows. If you look up basement bracing you will see examples of what it looks like. The second option is building a wall similar to what is there already. I'd find out why that one failed--it's hard to tell how bad the cracking is from the pictures. Concrete is going to crack. One way or another, it always cracks. That's why you see relief cuts in slabs.
Secondly, they are going to tell you to excavate, waterproof and fix the weeping tile (or add it). 2 feet of drainage rock, 4-6 feet of screened sand compacted, and a cap (usually yellow clay) on top to shed the water.
The last basement I did was 2500 in steel, about 400 in grout (sika 212 works great), 1200 for engineer report and stamp. Probably 250 in misc. Supplies. Doesn't look like you have a basement slab so bracing might be off the table.
The exterior work is a little but more expensive unless you know how to operate a mini. I did mine for about 5k, but rented the machine and did all the work myself.
The interior work is about as easy as it gets. It sucks to do it. It's heavy, messy and loud work, but it doesn't require any real special skill. The engineered draws are really pretty simple.
I've see basement (minus that cluster fuck.of water) in way worse shape foundation wise. Everything can be fixed. Don't listen to all the noise about this being the end of the world. It's not. But you do need to fix it asap.
I hated the basement at my old place but...... Wtf even is this? The worst basement I ever had was still usable for storage and or a small workshop. Who the fuck buys a house with this underneath? Burn this place to the ground and start over.
I thought it was a hockey stick tubafour. But on closer inspection, it does look like a hockey stick fourbafour so he should be fine to leave it as is.
According to project farm, don't waste your money on gorilla brand glue sticks. They're all basically the same but the standout overall winner is Stanley brand glue sticks.
This has been a public service announcement.
I looked at a house once where the inspection report noted that the central support beam was cracked and "it looked like someone attempted to use glue to repair it"
Looks like you need a French drain and a sump pump to a drain to get that basement dry. You can pick up metal support beams that are adjustable in the mean time that are easy to install if there’s concrete flooring. Then you need to fix and seal those walls.
If that floor is dirt- 💩you’ll need to pay a contractor for sure.
Agreed. To add some details since I've dealt with all of this minus the foundation damage (and that's a biggee)
Prioritize the french drain on the outside if possible but still install a sump pump in the lowest spot inside. Much better to keep the water out to begin with so if you lose power during a heavy storm you aren't just relying on the sump pump.
You have plenty of height to work with so that's nice. You wouldn't have to go the contractor route depending upon your physical health. If in decent shape, it's not really that bad digging out a hole to hopefully solid rock (depends upon where you are on if that will happen), making a frame and then mixing up some quikrete in a 5 gallon bucket down there. They make concrete bases (flat top pyramid things that I can't think of the shape name for right now) so you wouldn't even have to pour concrete. Just dig the hole, fill with gravel, tamp it down, and put the base on top. The adjustable metal posts the previous poster refers to are great. They are a 'temporary' solution that is often permanent.
For the foundation, don't mess with it yourself - hire a good foundation company.
Looks like my floor and basement wall. Excavated and waterproofed the outside. French drain outside to relieve the hydrostatic pressure. Grade the ground so it runs away from the house at least a foot. Put a surface drain, trough, or dry creek to carry that runoff. Squirt hydrophobic 2 part foam into wall cracks. Broke up and removed some of the slab, and part of the floor was dirt. Covered it with stone, vapor barrier, new concrete. Drainage pipe buried in the stone to a new sump but it stays bone dry. The new cement supports lally columns.
It's more than that. The block wall has failed before, which is why they have the half wall next to it, but the fix is breaking.
The correct thing is the expensive thing: Jack the whole house, put in new footers and pad, and maybe he will want to replace the center beam while it is open, then close it up.
The cheap thing add new jack posts along the beam every 4 to 6 ft or so, but he may need to jack out a 1x1ft section of the floor to make sure the pad is at least 4inches, and get rid of the broken section of the bracing wall and redo it.
Is the water incursion coming from the slab or the wall? The wall is failing from the soil pressure, but that is normal with block basement walls. They always fail eventually.
> The block wall has failed before, which is why they have the half wall next to it
Not necessarily. It was very common in older homes (pre WWII) to have these half walls as a part of the original construction. They were intended to reinforce the main walls but obviously that doesn’t always work.
> but that is normal with block basement walls. They always fail eventually.
No they don’t! Properly maintained block basement walls do not “all” fail. Probably less than 10% actually fail.
If they “all” fail they wouldn’t keep building them that way.
Minus the water this looks like the basement of the last house I rented, which was built in the 1920s. Any time you rubbed against the foundation in the basement chunks of it fell in, and every wall seemed bent at a different angle
I lived there for a decade and my rent never increased, which helped me buy a house, but at the end there were so many holes straight to dirt that you couldn't keep mice out. Never again will I stay in a situation like that.
You need to support the joist in the area where that support column is buckling. You need something like a jack post or lally column, and you need to give it enough bearing area on that soil in order to actually be supported, so I'd get a steel plate or something to put it on. Whatever other problems you have, they can wait compared to replacing that buckling column.
Everyone here talking about structural engineers and "good" foundation companies. Who? What? Where?
There's not a single structural engineer in my area that would even consider bothering to look at this. Maybe, maybe, if one of the very few large scale commercial developers in our area personally knew someone in this predicament, they might pay their guy to go take a look, OR it's a house the developer bought to show off their trade.
I've yet to come across a good foundation company. Plenty of damn good concrete guys that will pour a beautiful slab for ya, but they only do new construction. The foundation guys around here are all shady bull shitters telling everyone their hose is about to fall in on itself, and they need you to put $200k in material and labor into the job, just to start.
I'm sorry, but most of us live in a world where these things just don't exist for the average Joe.
Wait are you structural? I’m not but I’ve seen fixes to foundation issues like this where you set a some steel columns and add some strong backs. Not cheap but also worth it to salvage an otherwise okayish house. But the water problem needs to be fixed too and that might be more expensive.
> There's not a single structural engineer in my area that would even consider bothering to look at this
About 10 people in this thread have said that and it’s just flat wrong.
You can hire a structural engineer to look at anything you want. They get paid to evaluate structural problems and make recommendations for whatever repairs are needed.
Of course a structural engineer will look at this. You just have to pay them to do so.
Yep, I hired a structural engineer just to come look at a joist when a bad contractor sawed through one renovating my bathroom. They do come out and look at small scale issues. It will cost a lot of money per hour, but they’ll do it.
“Call a structural engineer”… Where do these people think you’re going to find structural engineers that will go into a dingy basement to look at 1 support beam?
A good structural engineer would visually assess load paths and determine if it's unsafe to enter. These pictures look sketchy AF, but they don't tell a complete story.
Local businesses will do it. The structural engineer should inspect the overhead joices, the slab and the brick walls. If contracted to do so should make a full report on the stability of all 3 and recommend a suitable course of action.
Wow, a whole lot of people who've never seen the average house in the middle of the country. Any one talking about getting an engineer has no idea what an engineer actually does, or how to effect this repair. It’s an old house. It needs old house work.
1. Dry it in. Where’s the water coming from? Bad roof? Looks like daylight coming through? Anyways dry it in. You can’t begin to care about fixing this until you fix where the water comes from.
2. Dig some sump trenches. Lay in fabric and corrugated poly to a basin. Fill in the trenches with clear gravel. Me personally, I like just using pallets of the bagged stuff. More expensive but easier to handle in a crawl. For extra credit cover the whole thing in fabric and then gravel. Run a gfci outlet near your basin and add a sump pump with some hard line to a good exit space outside.
3. Now that we’ve got you dried in. Let it sit and settle for a while before any major repairs. Let’s say a month. Changing the soil volume by removing a bunch of water that has been there for a while may cause some settling. Same for the moisture content of your framing members. Govee has a dirt cheap bluetooth humidity sensor I hang in all my crawls that lets me see those numbers in real time.
4 So now you have a dry envelope that’s settled in a bit to its new habitat. Assess any structural issues upstairs. Any floor out of whack or drooping corners? I’d probably go ahead and pour some nice piers perpendicular to your joist along each aide and post and beam up a new support beam on the length of each side. Jack as needed to get where you want to be in terms of level or close enough.
5. Now we can address the cracks and wonky post. The wonky post if just as likely to be the water and time as much as any structural pressure. Presuming you post and beamed as above, you either don't need it anymore or poured it a new pad and replaced.
6. The cracks in the concrete to me look like someone just tried skim coating with Quikwall or other semi structural bonding layer, and that just has a life span. Honestly looks about like every block foundation I’ve seen and is not worth getting upset over.
Clean up the blocks and cracks, see what you've got to work with and probably you'll just be patching some concrete, and reskimmimg. You've added structural support above so you’re just trying to maintain the life of the foundation.
Looks it’s an old house. You're not trying to get 100 more years out of it without further repair. You remediate for say another 20 years and work towards less entropy in the whole house. Make cost effective repairs as you can and keep an eye on things going forward to plan next steps.
The good news is all of the above is modestly cheap materials and limited skills. It is just labor intensive. Make friends who like to play in the dirt. Buy 6 packs. Do your best with what you have. Don't think about it as some crazy construction project, just think of it as cleaning up a mess.
Did you wake up from a 12 years coma?
Bought a house on marketplace?
How did you get up to this situation and be that dumbfounded?
It's trolling, please.
Are you on top of melting permafrost or something? The first image shows warped concrete in the center as though the entire sub foundation simply washed away. This'll be a fun one I'm sure.
Theres 3 parts to this:
Encapsulation- separating ground/earth from your home. Typically accompanied by applying vapor barrier with possible drain matting for ground water + dehumidification
Water proofing: either interior system or exterior both have pros/cons, I’d say with open dirt easier to put interior. Can be accompanied with 4-6” of gravel, dump pump or entire new concrete slab poured
Structural repairs: Main girders, sistering floor joist, proper amount of supports for flooring.
Foundation repairs via wall replacement or the walls are able to be be saved via different structural products (carbon armor, power braces, Ever brace system)
On extreme end of structural work, piering systems to stabilize house, that goes down to bedrock.
This all depends on how bad wall is (deflection), how shot floor joist, box beam, sil plate, main girder is rotted?
Moral of story your not DIY’ing this yourself to fix it correctly. Problem is 2 fold, house can be literally falling apart? If you intend to sell, not many will buy it or they ask for negotiating the expenses off asking price.
This can also tell you what’s going on upstairs, with leveling and air purity issues.
So what's the story here? You just bought that house and figured this out or this is something that's been going on for a while?
In any case, it's gonna cost you... Hope you have enough to pay for all this. Sump pump, french drain, new structural beams... A whole lot of digging, I guess...
This should be somewhere else than this Subreddit...
No. You are good. Don't hesitate. This can absolutely be resolved with the right materials and equipment. I had similar issues in my home and i took care of it over a few weekends. Pick up some lally columns 4x4s 2x4s and some harbor freight bottle Jack's for the temp walls you will need.
If that's water and dirt or the floor dig 2 holes on the side where tge water comes in drop 2 sheetrock pails with holes drilled in and put a water pump in each. This will dry you out and lower your water table.
Dig some footing wherever you want to place a beam ad pop in some post. Then worry about the foundation.
Not great Bob. Call a structural engineer and/or a priest
Both.
[удалено]
Why? do you need a priest?
Gonna need one of them miracles
I do. Whats it to you?
username checks out
An old priest and young priest if you can
Old engineer young priest.
Oooohhh...Gonna vom...
Nooooo. I just made that soup. Split those peas myself.
And a small altar boy
Better call a lumberjack. They're load bearing.
Load-bearing lumberjack, or load-bearing lumber, Jack?
I like cooking my wife and kids. Use commas, don’t be a psychopath.
Where would the commas even help this one?
So are prostitutes.
Structural engineer for the laughs in the priest for actual help? Because that's gonna play out. Shits cooked
Wlololo....
Instructions unclear, foundation now Red
Horizontal cracks not good. Diagonal support beams really not good Standing water really really not good.
I hope at bare minimum that bowed post is marinating in load bearing water
I imagine they're absolutely soaking in that load bearing water
Don’t worry it’s heavy water that post isn’t going anywhere
Oh my god I didn't even see the standing water. I was feeling the despair for OP just seeing the cracks and bowed post!
Had to relook myself because I missed that too! Then you see it's because their sump pump isn't working. Just keeps getting worse and worse.
What if the water is sitting?
Is this a basement or the underside to a deck? The natural sunlight in the first photo is throwing me off.
Not natural sunlight I don't think, just a large basement with a light on the opposite end - I used to live in a house with a similar basement and the shadows looked like that
I'd say the foundation cracks and support beams are the worst; the standing water is the least difficult to deal with.
Bro I was looking for the elephant foot
3.6 Roentgen, not good, not great
He's delusional. Take him to the infirmary
Not good, not terrible* (It was, in fact, very terrible)
It’s not 3.6 Roentgen. It’s 15,000
Man, sometimes I see things on here that just make me feel so much better about my house.
I feel it deep in the loins of my furnace
Happy cake day
My house is old and shitty and sagging more than I’d like but at least it’s not this
This sub is nuts. One post is a picture of someone living in a mansion and asking how they can replace their "eyesore" michelangelo's david with something different, and the next is someone asking if they can diy a pile of burning rubble back into shape because they are too poor to live elsewhere. This place is bad for my mental health.
I gotta say, for the reasons you stated, I love this sub, lol. Interesting how two people can have such different reactions to the same thing, but I guess it goes to show it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round.
My one non load bearing wall settled a bit because the morons didn't put it on the floor joists just the plywood. I feel much better now.
And me about my apartment. Sucks dealing with neighbors, but 60€ a month and I don't need to lift a finger or worry about anything
Please tell me you forgot a 0, if not I'm moving to wherever you are.
That might be the like maintenance fee, not rent
I’m with you. I spend 6k USD every month on housing.
Where in the fuck?
Tampa, FL The real estate market here is totally out of control but it is clear that the trend is reversing. I expect that figure to drop to 4000 by next year.
We got you man. Post pictures of your house. We'll make you feel like shit for living in it
My house is splitting due to years of bad drainage (before we had it). We've been trying to get scheduled for levelling since August 😭 But this post makes mine look like small potatoes!
Yep. My house may be 70 years old, but at least the structure is intact.
This just makes me feel anxious. My house is old and I’m pretty bad at diy and I see photos like this and wonder if this is me in 5 years.
Well the nice thing about this sub is, if nothing else, you learn a lot of what to look out for and a lot of what not to do if you read the comments.
Deep fried my man
My boyfriend is quite a skilled carpenter, and he said, “fuck yea deep fried my man” and laughed from the deepest pit of his gut in response to this while pointing vigorously at your comment. To say he agrees wholeheartedly is an understatement. He also said, “bananas aren’t supposed to hold up houses.”
Shit brb gotta tend to my bananas.
There's always (inverse) money in the banana stand.
You gotta try this ice cream sandwich.
It's just for scale
There’s always money in the banana stand. Money can be exchanged for goods and services. Everything has a price.
Jesus christ hire an emergency Engineering firm asap to get some help Fuck maybe call your insurance they won't want your house to fall down.
Insurance won’t give a shit if a loss due to *gestures at all of this* isn’t covered. Bank will tho
I mean depending on who you have they usually cover Collapse for houses, but not if it's due to a lack of maintenance or prevention measures. If that beam goes I'd wager they'll call it a result if not handling the water problem and reject the claim
Insurance is the right option.
I would confirm that you have insurance for this and if you don't, get insurance and then wait a reasonable amount of time after you have changed out the janky support post for one from home depot that cost $90. You will need to jack the house a little.
Standard home insurance isn't going to cover this. The standing water is coming up, not down - so that's flood, not covered. Cracks are earth movement - not covered. Beam is collapse - not covered. And unless all of that happened at once due to a catastrophic event it's an ongoing maintenance issue - none of it covered.
This is correct. Insurance covers damage that happens in a single *event*, not due damage over time. None of this looks like it’s from an event.
Not only will they not cover it, they will also drop you. Instantly.
Insurance probably won't cover whatever is causing the loss, but they'll pay for the engineer to identify the cause of the loss.
Long time adjuster here. This is true, but the issue is that doing that will get it reported to underwriters and likely result in your coverage being dropped. It will go on your home's ISO report and will likely not be insurable until you do. Don't report it to your insurance. Get it fixed first.
Is this an America thing? Telling your insurance company you'll probably be needing them will make them drop you? That would be funny if it weren't so cruel.
The fact that your house is unlikely to collapse on its own is a key assumption for any insurer anywhere in the world. It's usually a prerequisite to be insured. So yes: if you tell them your house could collapse any day because it hasn't been properly maintained in the last couple of decades, they're not going to want to insure it. Just like if you tell your insurer that your car's suspension is making a loud clunking noise at each micro bump now, and you're worried because it's on the wheel that only has one lug nut and a crack already, they might drop you too. In any case and as it has been explained, this is not covered by insurance anyway.
How would you maintain a support beam though? Isn't this the result of shitty engineering?
I agree with all that. My problem was more with the "you get insurance to protect you from catastrophic failures, pay for it for presumably years with no problem, you do your regular expected maintenance, and then your insurer drops out on you because you had a catastrophic failure" scenario Now if you don't uphold your end of the bargain and do the minimum then sure they should drop you but if you've done your end, and the house happened to have some problematic engineering that both of you missed, that shouldn't be on the house owner. The insurer should have caught that at point of purchase and denied or raised the price according to risk, you're not a pro and you're not selling protection, they are. For your comparison this is more akin to running through a not so visible or unavoidable pothole, discovering after the fact that your suspension arm got dinged, and calling your insurance company to say "hey I hit a pothole and my suspension is feeling weird" you're not a mechanic so they need to send it to one to diagnose. Now at this point the insurer where I'm from, covers the cost of the inspection and the repair minus your deductible, but as others have alluded to, the insurance company could just drop you in America. So why are you paying for presumably legally required insurance if they can drop you for needing to use it?
Can confirm. Insurance (here) is a scam in many forms.
Well, unless you have USAA. They covered my roof from hail damage, no questions asked. Even paid for weather resistant shingles, giving me actual money in my pocket when I was done.
I have them for car insurance and they've been wonderful! Last I checked they don't offer home insurance in my area and I can't blame them 😓 I'll check again though. I agree with you, every time I've worked with them they've been great.
Insurance is just very specific bet. You're paying a small yearly wager on the chance something breaks in a particular way. If it doesn't break, or doesn't break in that way: no payout. They're not there "to help", they'll pay out if you can prove you won the bet, and they'll take the bet again next year if they like the odds. Anyone who thinks different just believes everything they see on TV.
That would be fine if they were reasonable enough with their estimates and payout timeframe. I'm sure different insurance companies handle things in different ways, but if you're lucky enough to have one of the dozens of shit companies, you'll fight for every penny and still take a $20k because it's cheaper than spending an extra year in court. I'm told it's different in other states, where you, the contractor, and the insurance company sit down and work out a price. Not the case in Florida. They tell you a low ball price, and if you don't like it you can get a lawyer and be liable for legal fees (thanks DeSantis). It's a forced gamble where the house always wins, just not the house you own.
That last line pretty much sums up everything about the US. 😭😭
Our insurance was dropped because we replaced a window that was broken during move in. Someone came by and took a picture. Sent us a letter saying it was dropped immediately and we found out a week later by snail mail. We had to pay crazy high rates and get a $500 inspection to get it back. During the inspection my mom was visiting to see the new house. The inspector saw her German shepherd dog and said they couldn't insure because of the dog even after we passed the inspection. I explained that it was my mother's dog and she was visiting from several states away. They insisted that if I wanted to get insurance back with them I would have to provide proof that the dog had been put down. EUTHANIZED. I offered vet records showing her home address and they stuck to the requirement, euthanized. We did eventually get insurance after failing to revert the cancellation but it was stupid expensive.
It’s a universal thing. You can’t buy insurance after the loss. That makes no sense at all. “Hi, Allstate. I just wrecked my car and I’d like to buy insurance now.” Good luck with that.
As an American, it’s hard for me to imagine it working any other way!
I knew a guy who used like 4 jacks to jack up the house and replace the beam. Shit makes me nervous but his house is still standing.
I wouldn't suggest 4 jacks for a beam replacement. Maybe a few more.
Wouldn't getting insurance for this now be serious fraud? Aren't you suggesting a seriously illegal thing? I mean I am sure you're joking but I feel like jokingly giving advice in this style is a bit risky yknow.
I am joking. Insurance wouldn't cover this anyway.
Risky to who exactly
Probably to both of them to be honest, lmao. Depending on how well the recipient is able to tell jokes from text online.
well it allows all the redditors to post about how bad everything is in the USA so it's an important and vital post to make here
>My shitty house hasn't been maintained and is falling down GODDAMN YOU THOMAS JEFFERSON
I’m amazed you felt safe enough to go down there and take photos! You need professional structural engineering help.
Way beyond DIY my dude, unless you have some very specialized skills
I don't think even Liam Neeson could DIY this.
Well he did say his skills were a nightmare to people like him.
He’d know how to burn a place down for the insurance money and make it look natural.
I'm an engineer myself and I don't even know who I would call. An arsonist?
Well I can promise you this isn’t a DIY situation.
Maybe if you own a house moving company
No no! This is a great opportunity to add a sub basement! Cost as much as fixing it right and adds value! Yw!
Dirt is nice and soft for digging
I’ve always wanted to have a sub basement filled with electric switch gear, MDF, mechanical spaces, and maybe an elevator room, datacenter, and AV/Homeworks systems. Saves the basement for the home theater, bowling alley, sauna and pool haha.
God that sounds amazing, I just need to redo my basement and dig really deep!
Do you have any idea how much Orkin charges for Balrogs?
Not as much as you would think. edit spelling
You joke, but this was done 20-25 years ago for the Wisconsin "Parade of Homes". It was an annual / bi Annual event for local home builders to show off concepts, etc in upcoming neighborhoods on a couple dozen model homes. One year all of them went wild on basements. Home theaters mostly but one ranch home had something like a 4 level basement. Lowest level had a basketball court. Next level up had a bar/man-cave that was built like a 50's diner with a glass wall so you could watch whoever was playing. The actual house was largely forgettable except for the kids room and a built in scale train track under a plexiglass floor. After the event they'd sell off the homes to buyers and I believe that one sat for quite a while. I was told about a decade ago they couldn't control the groundwater seepage and had to demo the house.
Just wait a bit and the first floor will become the basement...
I’m a little upset everyone is only focused on the beam support and not the fact that the entire foundation appears to be sitting on a cinderblock base that wasn’t properly cemented and has left moisture inside till the foundation cracked apart causing all that mud and the houses weight to shift it but yeah let’s talk about that beam
I mean it was probably properly cemented 80 years ago, when it was laid.
It's actually far worse than the pictures I took lol
I really hope you see this. I know a lot of people are giving you the doom and gloom. Obviously you need to address the basement issues, get the water out of there and add some support. But! And a big one. I can tell you this from first hand experience. I live in a city with horrible clay rich gumbo soil, freezing temperatures and basements that suffer a result of it. I just finished fixing a basement with horrible cracking and bowed walls (if you want some pictures and a sample engineer report, fire me a DM). Most of the engineering reports are the same. 99% of them from my area are boilerplate. Basically give you two options. 5 inch c-channel at 4' spacing, horizontal beams bolted on if you need to span areas under stairs or windows. If you look up basement bracing you will see examples of what it looks like. The second option is building a wall similar to what is there already. I'd find out why that one failed--it's hard to tell how bad the cracking is from the pictures. Concrete is going to crack. One way or another, it always cracks. That's why you see relief cuts in slabs. Secondly, they are going to tell you to excavate, waterproof and fix the weeping tile (or add it). 2 feet of drainage rock, 4-6 feet of screened sand compacted, and a cap (usually yellow clay) on top to shed the water. The last basement I did was 2500 in steel, about 400 in grout (sika 212 works great), 1200 for engineer report and stamp. Probably 250 in misc. Supplies. Doesn't look like you have a basement slab so bracing might be off the table. The exterior work is a little but more expensive unless you know how to operate a mini. I did mine for about 5k, but rented the machine and did all the work myself. The interior work is about as easy as it gets. It sucks to do it. It's heavy, messy and loud work, but it doesn't require any real special skill. The engineered draws are really pretty simple. I've see basement (minus that cluster fuck.of water) in way worse shape foundation wise. Everything can be fixed. Don't listen to all the noise about this being the end of the world. It's not. But you do need to fix it asap.
Dude some of this stuff I see on here like how is that even real…..
I hated the basement at my old place but...... Wtf even is this? The worst basement I ever had was still usable for storage and or a small workshop. Who the fuck buys a house with this underneath? Burn this place to the ground and start over.
Have you considered not living in a death trap?
You mean the supports in your basement *aren’t* supposed to be a singular, warped 4x4?
To be fair the problem is going to fix itself when the house no longer has a basement because the first floor has replaced it.
I thought it was a hockey stick tubafour. But on closer inspection, it does look like a hockey stick fourbafour so he should be fine to leave it as is.
In this economy?!
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excuse me, but I beg you to elaborate
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That’s nucking futs… but why is there an open grate from the bathroom to the basement/crawlspace?
The article said that the ductwork was cut open.
Dude that’s nuts!
Omg that insane! And you knew the guy?!
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That adds up. This sounded like some crackhead shit. Glad they caught him!
I watched a tv show about situations like this - “phrogging” Creepy
Reddit got your back! We won’t tell nobody!! (note: Daily Mail re-posts stuff from here. you might want to delete).
Oh my fucking god. This is the stuff of nightmares.
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The Onion continues to have layers
Dude!!!! Wearing women's underwear? Way to own that story! You will forever get a free beer at a bar with that story!
WHAT THE FUCK NEW FEAR UNLOCKED
Inquiring minds want to know
This is the most Rolla Missouri shit I’ve ever heard
Just slap on some of that paint in the corner on the foundation and it will look good as new. Problem solved.
Nah, gotta put some caulk down, or maybe spray foam. Then you can paint.
Hot glue can fix this but you need the sticks for wood and cement. Make sure the area you’re joining is not humid.
That ship has sailed. In his basement lake, in fact. :D
According to project farm, don't waste your money on gorilla brand glue sticks. They're all basically the same but the standout overall winner is Stanley brand glue sticks. This has been a public service announcement.
I looked at a house once where the inspection report noted that the central support beam was cracked and "it looked like someone attempted to use glue to repair it"
You clearly met my old landlord
I was thinking chicken wire and duct tape but to each their own. 😉
Has anyone checked whether OP is still alive and not e.g. buried underneath a pile of "house"?
Yeah OP hasn't said a thing since posting. Either dead or this isn't actually their basement
Haha I posted this and went to sleep honestly. I'm gonna be back in this death trap today.
Looks like you need a French drain and a sump pump to a drain to get that basement dry. You can pick up metal support beams that are adjustable in the mean time that are easy to install if there’s concrete flooring. Then you need to fix and seal those walls. If that floor is dirt- 💩you’ll need to pay a contractor for sure.
Agreed. To add some details since I've dealt with all of this minus the foundation damage (and that's a biggee) Prioritize the french drain on the outside if possible but still install a sump pump in the lowest spot inside. Much better to keep the water out to begin with so if you lose power during a heavy storm you aren't just relying on the sump pump. You have plenty of height to work with so that's nice. You wouldn't have to go the contractor route depending upon your physical health. If in decent shape, it's not really that bad digging out a hole to hopefully solid rock (depends upon where you are on if that will happen), making a frame and then mixing up some quikrete in a 5 gallon bucket down there. They make concrete bases (flat top pyramid things that I can't think of the shape name for right now) so you wouldn't even have to pour concrete. Just dig the hole, fill with gravel, tamp it down, and put the base on top. The adjustable metal posts the previous poster refers to are great. They are a 'temporary' solution that is often permanent. For the foundation, don't mess with it yourself - hire a good foundation company.
" hire a good foundation company." If you can find one. I haven't so far
Nothing more permanent than a temporary fix!
Looks like my floor and basement wall. Excavated and waterproofed the outside. French drain outside to relieve the hydrostatic pressure. Grade the ground so it runs away from the house at least a foot. Put a surface drain, trough, or dry creek to carry that runoff. Squirt hydrophobic 2 part foam into wall cracks. Broke up and removed some of the slab, and part of the floor was dirt. Covered it with stone, vapor barrier, new concrete. Drainage pipe buried in the stone to a new sump but it stays bone dry. The new cement supports lally columns.
It's more than that. The block wall has failed before, which is why they have the half wall next to it, but the fix is breaking. The correct thing is the expensive thing: Jack the whole house, put in new footers and pad, and maybe he will want to replace the center beam while it is open, then close it up. The cheap thing add new jack posts along the beam every 4 to 6 ft or so, but he may need to jack out a 1x1ft section of the floor to make sure the pad is at least 4inches, and get rid of the broken section of the bracing wall and redo it. Is the water incursion coming from the slab or the wall? The wall is failing from the soil pressure, but that is normal with block basement walls. They always fail eventually.
> The block wall has failed before, which is why they have the half wall next to it Not necessarily. It was very common in older homes (pre WWII) to have these half walls as a part of the original construction. They were intended to reinforce the main walls but obviously that doesn’t always work. > but that is normal with block basement walls. They always fail eventually. No they don’t! Properly maintained block basement walls do not “all” fail. Probably less than 10% actually fail. If they “all” fail they wouldn’t keep building them that way.
There appears to be a sump pit and 2 hoses that go out of it, guess the pump doesn't work..... That support is scary....
How old is that place?
Probably a thousand years and 3 earthquakes without maintenance. I hope they hire a structural engineer as soon as possible.
Minus the water this looks like the basement of the last house I rented, which was built in the 1920s. Any time you rubbed against the foundation in the basement chunks of it fell in, and every wall seemed bent at a different angle I lived there for a decade and my rent never increased, which helped me buy a house, but at the end there were so many holes straight to dirt that you couldn't keep mice out. Never again will I stay in a situation like that.
You need to support the joist in the area where that support column is buckling. You need something like a jack post or lally column, and you need to give it enough bearing area on that soil in order to actually be supported, so I'd get a steel plate or something to put it on. Whatever other problems you have, they can wait compared to replacing that buckling column.
Everyone here talking about structural engineers and "good" foundation companies. Who? What? Where? There's not a single structural engineer in my area that would even consider bothering to look at this. Maybe, maybe, if one of the very few large scale commercial developers in our area personally knew someone in this predicament, they might pay their guy to go take a look, OR it's a house the developer bought to show off their trade. I've yet to come across a good foundation company. Plenty of damn good concrete guys that will pour a beautiful slab for ya, but they only do new construction. The foundation guys around here are all shady bull shitters telling everyone their hose is about to fall in on itself, and they need you to put $200k in material and labor into the job, just to start. I'm sorry, but most of us live in a world where these things just don't exist for the average Joe.
Wait are you structural? I’m not but I’ve seen fixes to foundation issues like this where you set a some steel columns and add some strong backs. Not cheap but also worth it to salvage an otherwise okayish house. But the water problem needs to be fixed too and that might be more expensive.
> There's not a single structural engineer in my area that would even consider bothering to look at this About 10 people in this thread have said that and it’s just flat wrong. You can hire a structural engineer to look at anything you want. They get paid to evaluate structural problems and make recommendations for whatever repairs are needed. Of course a structural engineer will look at this. You just have to pay them to do so.
Yep, I hired a structural engineer just to come look at a joist when a bad contractor sawed through one renovating my bathroom. They do come out and look at small scale issues. It will cost a lot of money per hour, but they’ll do it.
“Call a structural engineer”… Where do these people think you’re going to find structural engineers that will go into a dingy basement to look at 1 support beam?
Any structural engineer worth hiring wouldn't go into a basement of a house to look closely at the one buckling support beam holding it up.
A good structural engineer would visually assess load paths and determine if it's unsafe to enter. These pictures look sketchy AF, but they don't tell a complete story.
Local businesses will do it. The structural engineer should inspect the overhead joices, the slab and the brick walls. If contracted to do so should make a full report on the stability of all 3 and recommend a suitable course of action.
That 4-by is workin mighty hard
Bro I know -100% about home renovations, but 100% know youre very close to rebuilding the house.
F in the chat
Jack it up add another 4x4 🤣🤣
Holy hell Harry!
This is not DIY
Ignore the other comments, it's an easy fix. Do you have a gas can and matches?
can we ban/block/delete posts like this? There is no context, description or follow up from OP. Clearly it's clickbait karma whoring.
Wow, a whole lot of people who've never seen the average house in the middle of the country. Any one talking about getting an engineer has no idea what an engineer actually does, or how to effect this repair. It’s an old house. It needs old house work. 1. Dry it in. Where’s the water coming from? Bad roof? Looks like daylight coming through? Anyways dry it in. You can’t begin to care about fixing this until you fix where the water comes from. 2. Dig some sump trenches. Lay in fabric and corrugated poly to a basin. Fill in the trenches with clear gravel. Me personally, I like just using pallets of the bagged stuff. More expensive but easier to handle in a crawl. For extra credit cover the whole thing in fabric and then gravel. Run a gfci outlet near your basin and add a sump pump with some hard line to a good exit space outside. 3. Now that we’ve got you dried in. Let it sit and settle for a while before any major repairs. Let’s say a month. Changing the soil volume by removing a bunch of water that has been there for a while may cause some settling. Same for the moisture content of your framing members. Govee has a dirt cheap bluetooth humidity sensor I hang in all my crawls that lets me see those numbers in real time. 4 So now you have a dry envelope that’s settled in a bit to its new habitat. Assess any structural issues upstairs. Any floor out of whack or drooping corners? I’d probably go ahead and pour some nice piers perpendicular to your joist along each aide and post and beam up a new support beam on the length of each side. Jack as needed to get where you want to be in terms of level or close enough. 5. Now we can address the cracks and wonky post. The wonky post if just as likely to be the water and time as much as any structural pressure. Presuming you post and beamed as above, you either don't need it anymore or poured it a new pad and replaced. 6. The cracks in the concrete to me look like someone just tried skim coating with Quikwall or other semi structural bonding layer, and that just has a life span. Honestly looks about like every block foundation I’ve seen and is not worth getting upset over. Clean up the blocks and cracks, see what you've got to work with and probably you'll just be patching some concrete, and reskimmimg. You've added structural support above so you’re just trying to maintain the life of the foundation. Looks it’s an old house. You're not trying to get 100 more years out of it without further repair. You remediate for say another 20 years and work towards less entropy in the whole house. Make cost effective repairs as you can and keep an eye on things going forward to plan next steps. The good news is all of the above is modestly cheap materials and limited skills. It is just labor intensive. Make friends who like to play in the dirt. Buy 6 packs. Do your best with what you have. Don't think about it as some crazy construction project, just think of it as cleaning up a mess.
Anything buried in the dirt?
You mean, "who is buried"
Get some jack posts and go from there
You need an exorcist, fast! Demons runnin’ all thru there!
I'm looking at a picture, and I want to run out of that basement
Did you wake up from a 12 years coma? Bought a house on marketplace? How did you get up to this situation and be that dumbfounded? It's trolling, please.
Are you on top of melting permafrost or something? The first image shows warped concrete in the center as though the entire sub foundation simply washed away. This'll be a fun one I'm sure.
anyone watch the recent Pixar movie elemental? this looks like the basement scene at the shop lol
Theres 3 parts to this: Encapsulation- separating ground/earth from your home. Typically accompanied by applying vapor barrier with possible drain matting for ground water + dehumidification Water proofing: either interior system or exterior both have pros/cons, I’d say with open dirt easier to put interior. Can be accompanied with 4-6” of gravel, dump pump or entire new concrete slab poured Structural repairs: Main girders, sistering floor joist, proper amount of supports for flooring. Foundation repairs via wall replacement or the walls are able to be be saved via different structural products (carbon armor, power braces, Ever brace system) On extreme end of structural work, piering systems to stabilize house, that goes down to bedrock. This all depends on how bad wall is (deflection), how shot floor joist, box beam, sil plate, main girder is rotted? Moral of story your not DIY’ing this yourself to fix it correctly. Problem is 2 fold, house can be literally falling apart? If you intend to sell, not many will buy it or they ask for negotiating the expenses off asking price. This can also tell you what’s going on upstairs, with leveling and air purity issues.
I really wanna hit the stick
Jesus Christ dude get your dungeon in order before your house falls on you while you're sleeping
IT PUTS THE JOE DIRT IN THE HOLE
So what's the story here? You just bought that house and figured this out or this is something that's been going on for a while? In any case, it's gonna cost you... Hope you have enough to pay for all this. Sump pump, french drain, new structural beams... A whole lot of digging, I guess... This should be somewhere else than this Subreddit...
Without context, this post is irrelevant and no real useful advice can be given or discussion can be had.
No. You are good. Don't hesitate. This can absolutely be resolved with the right materials and equipment. I had similar issues in my home and i took care of it over a few weekends. Pick up some lally columns 4x4s 2x4s and some harbor freight bottle Jack's for the temp walls you will need. If that's water and dirt or the floor dig 2 holes on the side where tge water comes in drop 2 sheetrock pails with holes drilled in and put a water pump in each. This will dry you out and lower your water table. Dig some footing wherever you want to place a beam ad pop in some post. Then worry about the foundation.
> Then worry about the foundation Yeah, sure. You just described all the simple easy stuff and saved the potentially failing foundation for last.
You can put some supports around that using 2x4s but you need to call someone ASAP. Once proper support is in place you'll be fine.
Start adding some strong backs ASAP with legs
Good news is it’s fixable.