Basement repair question

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This is an unfinished basement, thank God.

Here's the problem:

The concrete floor under the hot water heater is settling. Since we've only been in the house for a year and because the basement was freshly painted and sealed when we moved in it's hard to say how fast -- but fast enough to break open the seal between the wall and the floor in one year.

Part of the problem is that this side of the house sees an excess of water, as the roof of the shed-style dormer is not guttered and overhangs the "main" roof gutter by a couple of inches. This problem will be rectified, but that still leaves us with a gap -- presently about 2 to 3 mm deep and about 4 inches wide -- between floor and wall behind the hot water heater.

This gap lets in a trickle of water during heavy rains and thaws. I suspect our very cold winters over the past couple of years have led to some freezing of water at the level of the basement floor, which may have accelerated the problem.

The question:

What are my options to rectify the problem? Because of the location of the crack, I'm assuming that the weight of the hot water heater is part of the problem. Simply moving the hot water heater might be an option -- perhaps away from the wall so that the weight is more evenly distributed. And certainly putting proper gutters on the dormer.

But I've still got to find a way to fill and seal the existing crack. Are there any good long-term solutions available for this? Are they suitable to an intelligent but inexperienced DIYer, or should I bring someone in to take a look?

And if I'm bringing someone in -- who would that person be? I'm leary of a hammer-looking-for-a-anil situation, where I bring in a basement sealing guy and he says, "You just need to seal it," or a foundation guy and he says, "You need to repair the foundation." (Or whatever. I'm frankly out of my depth on this, having grown up in California, where basements are almost unheard of.

A friend suggested having an inspector take a look at it, since they'd have no stake the outcome. Good idea or waste of money?

What do you experienced homeowners think?

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@patiodog,

4" wide into the room, or 4" wide along the length of the wall? (doh, on my part)

Thinking about the rest of your questions, but in the meantime I'm a crazywoman about having the soil grade away from the house for surface drainage (given, of course, the dormer matter is fixed) even if you have to develop a swale for the water to go to.

Ha, I had a basement in California, a huge one, back in "north north". When I bought the house I noticed a crack down one wall (the basement went about 4.5 feet into the ground) and actually hired a structural engineer in town to look at it. He reassured me that the house was terrifically sturdy even with the crack and I went ahead and bought it.

If I'd have stayed there, I would have implemented a gravel wrapped pvc perforated drainpipe to channel the rain water to a lower part of the yard (it was held in by another low wall about ten feet from the house), because I'm sure there was some water pressure on the wall on that one side of the house in winter. But it had done ok for 90 years and I was getting other stuff done that involved hurling money in the air.

Will be interested in how you work this out.

Anyway, the structural engineer's price was reasonable, something like $125.00, well worth it to me.

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@patiodog,

Quote:

I'm assuming that the weight of the hot water heater is part of the problem.

i would hardly think so . we lived for 45 years in our house and there is no "dent" under the water heater - or the oil tank - which is even heavier .
truly , your house rests - at least to some extent - on the basement floor .
the "centre posts" supporting our house rest right on the floor - which is part of the foundation (in canada) .
i wouldn't go the cheap route for such an important structural part of the house . if the basement floor is sagging , sealing the crack would hardly make a difference .
a company dealing with structural basement floor repair would be my choice .

sounds unusual that a floor would settle after some years living in the housee - it's an older house , is it ?
is there a possibilty that the house was built without a basement and that the floor was added later ?
there might be no proper "tie in" between the foundation walls and the floor .
that could be a severe structural problem .

another possibility might be an underground stream washing away the soil under parts of the basement - sure hope not !

the first step has to be to find out what is causing the problem . just sealing the crack likely is like throwing money down the drain.
sorry for not being at least a little cheerful .
take care .
hbg

(i'm not a handyman at all - painting and wallpptering is about all i can do )

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@ossobuco,

Adding, I used a structural engineer one other time, when I did plans for a remod on our house in Venice. I'd done drafting and some designing re house remods in my work, under supervision, but didn't trust myself entirely re structural stuff.. That was also money well spent.

It may be overkill for your situation, just a wee gap.... dunno.

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Very few basements in Texas. How is the floor of the basement separate from the foundation?

I see two problems. The first, and more difficult IMO, is to stop the floor from settling any more. I have no clue how to accomplish this.

The next problem would be to seal the gap, which I would think could be done with some bricks and mortar, or concrete.

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@ossobuco,

Some of my best friends are contractors.. (heh), and some of them are terrifically smart. I'd still call a structural to look at it.

DD, I figure the sealing is easy.. but maybe a bandaid on another question - or not. It might just be water not drained that is doing this, but..

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@DrewDad,

Thanks for the responses.

Good to know I might get an engineering type to take a look on the cheap. My cousin is a civil engineer who's worked on phenomenally wet and unsturdy surfaces, but the airfare from California would hurt.

The house is 63 years old and is shockingly level throughout, so I very much doubt that there is a structural issue that is going to affect the house itself. The problem doesn't seem to be with the basement wall, but with the floor settling downward away from the wall.

It hadn't occurred to me that the basement floor might be younger than the house. This is a strong possibility, I think. A chimney and fireplace were removed sometime in the past 25 years (based on a conversation I had with a former resident). The dormer was added sometime after building and before the mid-70s. The base of the chimney -- appeared to function as some sort of old-school basement furnace or something is still in the basement. Why it wasn't removed as well I have no idea.

I do wonder about the water situation. The neighborhood apparently was flood prone until the 70s, when the city installed an underground drainage sluice along the side street. This is about 25 feet from the side of the house, though, and about 40 to 45 feet from the problem area.

I'm inclined to blame the improper drainage from the dormer first and foremost. I regraded away from the house and put in window well last summer -- maybe I'll just go with new gutters this year and see if this remedies the problem, and then just patch the crack if it does...

The real question to my mind is the rate of settling. If it's 2 mm every 60 years, I'm not too chuffed about the resale value in 10. If it's 2 mm a year, there's clearly a serious problem.

For what it's worth, most houses in Madison this age seem to have seeping spots in the basement. This is by the far the dryest basement I've lived with here, but, you know, I own this one...

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@ossobuco,

Well, but, what is the concrete doing slumping?

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@ossobuco,

Beats me.

I added a couple of lines at the end, there, while you were posting, osso.

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@patiodog,

I'm figuring it's probably not a big deal when you attack the water source, but I do wonder that the concrete would tilt (no rebar?).

On the wall, I didn't mean it was your wall that was a problem, but used that to say calling a structural engineer was doable, and my price quote might have been high, hard to remember. That was a small town and I called the main firm; the firm owner looked at it the next day. In a larger city, might take a few calls to get to someone past the new boy (usually).

Well, maybe it is sorta funky concrete and there has been a lot of water undermining it. Should that be supported somehow?

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@ossobuco,

I was looking at the floor again last night, and all this action is occurring not too far from the basement floor drain. I wonder if it's possible that there's a leak from the house outflow that could be causing some form of underground erosion.

Think I'll try to Google up some local engineering types today to see if something might fit the bill...

I can tell you that I'm not up for any excavation, though. Ugh.

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@patiodog,

Quote:

It hadn't occurred to me that the basement floor might be younger than the house. This is a strong possibility, I think.

try to find out if houses in your neighbourhood have basements - and were they part of the original construction .
many older houses in our city only had a "gravel" basement . even when our house was built , many houses only had a "half basement" with floor - the other half being a crawl-space with gravel .

do a bit of snooping around so that you can at least pose some basic questions of whoever does the inspection .
you might also want to check with the building inspection department for your city/county - they may have some good answers for you - both re. problem and how to fix it .

definetely make sure that all rainwater is running away at least six feet from the house . i added extensions to the downspouts so that the water is at least six feet away from the house . since we have a carport , most of the water doesn't hit ground until about 15 feet from the house - the farther away , the better - and make it slope away from the house .

we have a pavingstone frontpatio that is sagging a bit whare it touches the house and i've already contracted a handyman to bring up the paving bricks , put more sand underneath and reslope the patio - also have the wall re-parged at ground level .

best of luck .
hbg

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Basement repair question

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