I’ve lived with it for the past four years in the 1957 ranch house I live in. It’s about 1250 sq feet.
The first thing I did, the day after I bought the house, was to pile a lot of dirt around the foundation to achieve positive drainage and get the rainwater away from the home.
Even so, the foundation has moved and shifted due to rainfall, weather changes, etc.
The house has never had roof gutters.
Foundation movement has resulted in the following:
*cracks in walls and ceilings in every room in the house.
*these cracks re-appear even after they have been repaired and the room repainted.
*Interior doors that stick. Two won’t even close.
*the floor structure moves. I think it raises and lowers. Nothing severe maybe 1/4 to 1/2
The floor movement probably would not be a problem with carpet or vinyl tile.
But with hardwood floors in the large room of the house (combination living room and dining room) the oak plants, 1 1/2 inches wide, seem to move and the polyurethane finish doesn’t stick to these pieces.
Another problem is in a differnt room, the kitchen. I have laminate oak flooring (floating floor) This is the inexpensive click together planks.
It’s been okay except when floor joists raise or lower. This results in spongy feeling places or places where you bounce a little bit when you step on the floor.
The moral of this story is that it’s not enough to simply pile dirt around the foundation of a house.
It needs gutters and downspouts capable of getting the rainwater 10 Ft ? or more away from the foundation.
I should have installed the roof gutters four years ago.
Maybe my mistakes will help others.
^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Replies
you got some swelling clay under the house
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Haga su trabajo de fricken
I have the opposite issue... I have dried the soil around the foundation with drainage modifications. Because one corner is on bedrock, the opposing corner is now sinking with the shrinking clay.
I don't think houses really stop moving. The trick is to find equilibrium.
Gutter it and expect the movement to continue for a few years until things find their "most normal" state.
Troy Sprout
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should also have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington
I'm going to put a new floor in my kitchen and then try to sell this place.Total of about 150 sq feet of flooring.If the floor joists are racking, buckling, raising, and lowering wouldn't the recommended flooring material be vinyl tile, linoleum, or carpet?(ceramic tile would not be appropriate as it would crack and another laminate floor wouldn't work because it would bounce)^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
cork floors are nice.Haga su trabajo de fricken
Interesting - I've only seen a few homes with cork floors and I thought the floors were really nice.This site shows cork flooring for $1.29 per foot which is about my price range.http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=1588&parentCategoryId=2&categoryId=10&&nonFlooring=1^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Don't some houses (like in TX or somewhere down that way) actually have a sprinkler system around the perimeter of the foundation to keep the soil (clay) at the right moisture content to avoid those kind of problems? I don't know - just posing the question...
Edited 9/3/2007 9:31 am ET by Matt
Yes, there are systems to maintain moisture level, but...
a few piers may be easier to manage over the long term.Troy Sprout
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should also have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington
I sold a house and was required to have a structural engineer inspect the house and write a report.There were some minor cracks in the basement wall and this was why I was required to have an engineer's report.Anyway, when he inspected the house I followed him around and we talked about houses, basement wall bracing, 2 X 4 bracing, angle iron bracing, steel beams as wall bracing, basement center wall, common concrete cracking patterns, floor cracking, clay soil, etc.He said when we don't have any rain and it gets hot and the soil dries out, we should take a water hose and let the water run for 30 min or so against the foundation. The purpose is to maintain the moisture level between rains.I had forgotten about this and have never done this and can't say how well this works.^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Hard to say what causes the movement -- can be inferior foundation, expansive clay, erosion, a subterranian spring, et al. Even in relatively good conditions an extensive drought can cause subsidence and foundation cracking. Could be you're on a hillside and the whole thing is slowly sliding downhill.
The bouncy floor could be due to center footings that have shifted and are no longer supporting the floor properly.
It is true, though, that when you have cracks that open and close seasonally then the problem is due, at least in part, to expansive clay or freezing foundation. Though a sufficently rigid foundation would prevent this, few are that rigid.
You've provided a lot of good infoAre you saying if you own an older home, say 50 years +, you should expect movement in the floors, walls, floor joists etc as this is common and to be expected?^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Not uncommon, especially in homes where the foundation was less than outstanding to begin with. My parents owned an old farmhouse -- creek stone foundation just sitting on top of the soil -- where cracks would open and close seasonally. Just about all homes do it to a slight extent, but some are worse than others.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
What about roof gutters?Seems like it ought to do the trick.^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
They do **a** trick. May or may not be the one you need.(In general should help, but rarely will be even half the problem.)
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
One of the first things I did when I bought this house four years ago was putting in the snap together laminate floor in the kitchen.Before laying the new floor, I checked for level with a straight edge and observed a dip in the floor.The dip in the floor was where all the traffic occurs. People walk in that same spot across the floor day after day.Can a dip in the floor occur simply as the result of people walking across the floor in the same place?The floor joists are 2 X 10 every 16 inches. These are pretty heavy boards yet I assume they are sagging because of being in the high traffic area.Agree?^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
Generally foot traffic won't cause a major sag, except perhaps over a period of 50-100 years. However, a heavy load left in a specific location for several months (stacked drywall is often the offender) WILL cause a permanent sag.The usual solution is to "sister" the offending joists, though what's practical depends on the situation.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Over the weekend I removed the laminate floor. Then I installed a layer of luan.I stapled the luan to the floor and patched all seams.Then I primered the luan with Zinser 1-2-3After the primer dried, it looked like a had a nice new floor.In fact it looked so good it looked like a finished floor.The luan laid flat and you couldn't see the any seams. The paint covered the 1/4 crown stapes which were installed with a nail gun.Would it be possible to paint the luan and then use that as a floor?Again it was perfectly flat and looked great.What about painting on a garage floor type of finish? You know, the kind with several colors and speckles of paint to make it look retro - like the floors back in the 1960's.^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces
The only problem is that the luan is fairly soft, and the "wear layer" is fairly thin. But with the proper paint it should provide reasonable service -- 5 to 10 years under normal use, and if you're willing to tolerate a few dings.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
They make self leveling compounds specifically for filling in low spots on floors...
http://www.bostik.com.au/distribution_page_stuff/Building_Products/building_levelling_compounds.htm
Thanks for the info about the self leveling material. I have seen it used on one of the remodeling programs and it looked pretty slick.I've never tried it.One of the problems I've got is the possibility the floor will continue to move and what's a low spot today will be a high spot in a month or two.With that in mind I'm trying to pick some type of floor to put in, possibly today, which would work well under these conditions.I don't want to install ceramic tile floor or another laminate floor.I don't want anything slick in which someone could slip and fall.I would like to install cork floor but I will end up paying more money for it and I'm not sure the average person would even know what it is when they walked in the room and saw it.I'm probably going to put it on the market in the next few weeks and I'll go with some kind of vinyl tile floor.Thanks again for the info^^^^^^
a Smith & Wesson beats four Aces