# Basement wall caving in



## JT Wood (Dec 17, 2007)

Hi some of us were talking in chat a few weeks ago, on ways to remediate a caving in basement wall.

I'm a framer, but I have been asked if I want to do this job. Before I talk to a homeowner I want to inform myself.

I haven't looked at this house yet. This is what I have been told.

-100 yr old house
-The original wall was starting to buckle inwards sometime in the past.
-somebody put a cinder block wall on the inside I don't know if it was filled with concrete. It is now starting to buckle too.


Having said this, I know step one is an engineer,
but I wanted to ask a few questions here first.

1. My original thought is to put up a temporary wall and redo the cinderblock wall, or redo a concrete wall. Is that advisable? Is it possible to pour concrete properly in a cinderblock wall if it is up to the joists?

2. Second thought is to try to do a wooded foundation wall on the inside?
I don't know how I could tie it into the floor system above properly

3. In chat we talked about putting vertical metal I beams anchored to the concrete floor, then to the joist(s) above. then *I assume* some horizontal i beams or something to shore up the existing cinderblock, If it is filled with concrete.


I am a rookie in this arena so I would appreciate any advice.

Rest assured I will not tackle this job without proper guidance, and engineering.

Thanks :thumbsup:

John


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## parkers5150 (Dec 5, 2008)

_I_ personally wouldn't waste my time with block. I would form up a wall (engineers recommended thickness and steel), probably need a new footing for tie in. Epoxy steel into side walls. set up wall to floor connection prior to forming wall. when you set up your wall form, make it so you have an 18/24" panel across the top that you install just after you pump your conc. up to that level, that way you have access for pump and vibrator. Your panel should have a few cut outs where the pumper can stick his hose in and top off. make sure you have plywood plugs for these cutouts. 
The most important thing about this whole process that I cannot stress enough is the importance of bracing your forms sufficiently (one of my own little nightmares) OVERBUILD.


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## griz (Nov 26, 2009)

Not that I don't want to help, but when you speak with your Engineer, run your ideas by him. Most actually are human beings.

We can all by guess & by golly this project but for your peace of mind & to mitigate any future liability listen to the SE. Good Luck.


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## JT Wood (Dec 17, 2007)

Yeah, I indend to spend a LONG time in conversation with the engineer.

I'll probably bid time+materials too. (If I bid)

I'm mostly just wanting to get a basic idea of how this repair is going to happen so I can have a clue when I go look at the house.



In another town close by, a guy I know was contracted to build a wood foundation under an OLD house with a crawl space. The house was jacked up 6' or so then set down on the foundation. I'll go talk to him as well.


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## JT Wood (Dec 17, 2007)

parkers5150 said:


> The most important thing about this whole process that I cannot stress enough is the importance of bracing your forms sufficiently (one of my own little nightmares) OVERBUILD.


Yeah a blow out would be pretty bad.:shutup:


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## rotarex (Mar 31, 2008)

i posted pics with a jobs like this before, my plan was to jack the house up, excavate, footings and new poured wall, H.O didn't like my price


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## rotarex (Mar 31, 2008)

your issue should be something like this


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## Curb Guy (Oct 23, 2008)

that is definently an issue...


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## Hmrepairs (Sep 11, 2010)

So what is causing the problem in the first place?


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## OCRS (Apr 29, 2008)

There is/was a helluva lot of pressure from outside to not only buckle the first but also the second wall. I'd be supporting those joists, releiving the outside force and some sort of interior temp retaining wall before I touched anything. IMO they need to excavate.


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## tinner666 (Nov 3, 2004)

No engineer here. I would cut the floor and go down 3' and pour 3' wide pads and set posts and beams under the floor, and jack it into place, then redo the footing and the walls.


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## Snobnd (Jul 1, 2008)

rotarex said:


> your issue should be something like this


 

:shutup:



I have seen a few walls in my area buckle due to Water & Poor drainage and a lot of the Foundations are made of Stone ( Leek like hell) 

You may end up having to Lift up the House and replace all Of the Foundation - Best Option. 
I would be concerned about the Tie in in the Corners causing problems in the Future.

No matter what Direction you go in, I would Shore up all floor Joists in the Basement as much as possible (CYA)


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## concretemasonry (Dec 1, 2006)

For a situation that bad, the real cause is the poor soil and lack of drainage.

1. Dig out the soil

2. Put in an exterior drain tile with a place to drain the water

3. The existing footing may be O.K.

4. Rebuild the wall with whatever thickness (8, 10, 12") was there and reinforce as required by the engineer. Grout the cells with rebar in them.

5. Arbitrarily filling the rest of the cores is worthless and gives a false sense of security, especially since the wall has 3 times the vertical strength needed and dumping empty cells does little for lateral or flexural strength.


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## jomama (Oct 25, 2008)

concretemasonry said:


> For a situation that bad, the real cause is the poor soil and lack of drainage.
> 
> 1. Dig out the soil
> 
> ...


 
I'm with Dick on this one, don't write off repalcement of the current wal completely and good drainage at the toe of the wall.

I've done my share of foundation repairs in the past, and most fall into parameter's put together by a regional foundation repair association. The ones that don't (walls with too much deflection, old stone, rubble or brick walls, foundations that have seen major rotation at the footing, etc...) require job specific on site engineering. Obviously, your open to that, which is great. We've done repairs to some fairly bad foundations with steel restraints, but that obviously doesn't adress the water issuses. The best suggestion I can give you is to seek out more than a SE, find an SE that specializes in foundation repair and the job will be far easier to handle. Here in my area, that individual is the same guy who put the regs together for the assoc., and he's probably troubleshot thousands of different foundation problems in his career, and most importantly, he has a good understanding on what's feasable & what isn't. Good luck with the project.


On edit, I wanted to say that I couldn't agree with Dick more on #5. I was alled in by a realator and buyer on a house a few years ao that had recently had a new foundation installed. The entire block wall was filled with crete, and subsequently, had shrinkage cracks right through the webs every 20' or so..........

Oooops, the contractor who did the repair, although it was solid & waasn't going anywhere IMO, scared a potential buyer off on that one. I'd go as far as saying that the open cells are a far bigger advantage than pouring them, especially w/o re-inforcement.






And............... it gives us masons a place to put our empties................ lol


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## FRAME2FINISH (Aug 31, 2010)

i rented a house years ago and the basement wall caved in, lucky me huh how convienent for them lol

we had an underground spring that ran behind the house, heave thaw freeze equals a caved in wall.

i rebuilt the wall and regraded the property, it isn't rocket science just hard work imo thats why not alot of people do it hahaha


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## woodchuck2 (Feb 27, 2008)

I did one home similar to this about 10yrs ago. Home was built in 1849 on a stone foundation, sill's had rotted, floors sagged and one wall had started to give away. I jacked up the floors with mono post's, raised a beam along the sill about 12"inside and shimmed to keep the floor beams in original location. Then removed the stone foundation, poured new footings, put up a block wall filling every other hole full of crete with rebar stuffed down through and after it sat for a few days I block bonded both sides. I then replaced the whole sill on that side of the home with PT 8"X8" which i had to notch for every floor beam. All the 8"X8" were also notched to each other and all beams were lag bolted in. The house was fairly small so jacking was not too bad. If memory serves me the house was only about 40' long and about 28' wide at most.


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## CONCRETE MIKE (Jan 11, 2010)

concretemasonry said:


> For a situation that bad, the real cause is the poor soil and lack of drainage.
> 
> 1. Dig out the soil
> 
> ...


 :thumbsup:


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## CONCRETE MIKE (Jan 11, 2010)

hughjazz said:


> Hi some of us were talking in chat a few weeks ago, on ways to remediate a caving in basement wall.
> 
> I'm a framer, but I have been asked if I want to do this job. Before I talk to a homeowner I want to inform myself.
> 
> ...


Brace from interior using 6x6 as header plate, use steel support jacks ( you can purchase them at home depot) every 4'-6' oc. Excavate from exterior, remove wall, inspect footer, replace footer if necessary. Build new 12" or 8" block wall, make sure that the corners are good, you might need to replace two or three feet of corners on each side of the wall. Waterproof new wall with ironite, foundation coating, 6mill polyethylene, sq 40 drain tile, sq 40 storm, back fill with #57 washed gravel.

The problem with the wall looks like bad waterproofing, snake existing drain tile before connecting and also dye test. This job in the cleveland ohio area runs about $400-$500 lineal foot. I have did many jobs like this. Also check the exisiting floor before you place jacks upon it. You can also use ivany block like concretemasonry suggested, the cost is more, but it is a stonger wall.


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## concretemasonry (Dec 1, 2006)

You wall have get rid of the original wall and replacement since it is just worthless "garbage" that gets in the way of a decent repair. the same applies to the soil behind the wall and the drain tile system, if there is one. A second wall and some horizontal reinforcement is a waste of time.

It does take not much, if any additional pressure to crack the second or replacement wall. Once the original wall cracked and moved slightly it has failed and cannot transfer any additional load and is actually weaker.

When the second wall was built it just took the loads that caused the first wall to fail. A typical "knee-jerk" reaction and patch that is really not designed for the loads the new wall will see (which are about the same as the forces that failed the first wall). Sounds like an non-engineered "domino style" patch job motivated by trying to do it cheap and probably wrong.


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## CONCRETE MIKE (Jan 11, 2010)

concretemasonry said:


> You wall have get rid of the original wall and replacement since it is just worthless "garbage" that gets in the way of a decent repair. the same applies to the soil behind the wall and the drain tile system, if there is one. A second wall and some horizontal reinforcement is a waste of time.
> 
> It does take not much, if any additional pressure to crack the second or replacement wall. Once the original wall cracked and moved slightly it has failed and cannot transfer any additional load and is actually weaker.
> 
> When the second wall was built it just took the loads that caused the first wall to fail. A typical "knee-jerk" reaction and patch that is really not designed for the loads the new wall will see (which are about the same as the forces that failed the first wall). Sounds like an non-engineered "domino style" patch job motivated by trying to do it cheap and probably wrong.


 :thumbup:


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