Hi fellow homeowners, I’m new to this forum!
As you can see in the attached pictures, I have got these cracks between the foundation and the basement window wells. At some point when I had some leak in the windows the guy fixed the windows also tried to fill the crack (not sure what he used) but that didn’t last long.
First of all, I want to know if this posts a structural problem? (I would think it is just cosmetic?). And If I want to fix it / fill the cracks, what would be a good material for the job that would be long-lasting?
Replies
It appears that the concrete window wells are an add-on. Unless they extend down to the footings of your home, they will continue to crack. Most window wells are made from corrugated, galvanized steel which have been formed into a U shape. They are placed at the correct height, fastened to the wall with lag screws and then back filled. The window wells that I'm familiar with also have a drainage pipe that extends down and is connected to the weeping tiles around the foundation. If you scrape through the gravel you should find it (hopefully). The drainage pipe prevents the window well from filling during a bad storm (due to poor grading or overflow from eaves) and consequently leaking through the window into the basement. In getting pics for you I see that the Big Orange Store has them for sale.
@Suburbanguy thanks for your reply.
I mostly concern about if these cracks will lead to leak into the basement walls/windows. If it's cosmetic then I guess I'm fine with it (although would be nice if it's possible to fill it to make it looks nice). There is drainage in the middle of the well, maybe the pictures weren't showing them well. So I don't worry about the well filling up, again was mostly concerned if water can go into those cracks and create problems...
The cracks in your basement walls are definitely a concern. Maybe it's just cracked parging. Can't tell. You'll have to investigate.
As Suburbanguy said, the cracks in the wall surrounding the window are a concern. If the areaway walls were cast at the same time and with the foundation wall (i.e. monolithic), then I'd say there's a serious problem. In the second photo it also appears that there are sealed horizontal cracks about midway up from the window sill. If it's only in a parge coating they're not likely a structural concern. If the entire area (foundation & areaway walls) has a parge coating, it's not going to weather very well and will eventually separate from the underlying concrete. If it does NOT have a parge coating, then there really is a serious problem here. You don't say where this is so I have no idea if you're going to be dealing with freeze-thaw cycles in the winter. If so, then the parging (if that's what it is) will not last and will look awful after a few seasons. This needs to be carefully examined to determine how it was constructed.
BTW, I'm a structural engineer who does foundation examinations.
Hey, thanks for all the feedbacks @Suburbanguy and @CT_Yankee.
I'm in new york here so it does subject to freezing/thawing maybe that's part of why it looks so bad.
From what I can tell, the cracks are only in the parge/stucco material, underlying concrete (obviously mostly covered by parge so I can't see that much of them...) seems fine. Attaching a few more pictures here.
I agree with what @Suburbanguy said about the window wells, they do look like add on structures rather than part of the main foundation, and seems like they are coming off with clean lines from the main foundation when they settled.
The thing is the parge on the foundation of the rest of the house seems to be holding up fine, so it seems to me the parge was handling the freezing/thawing ok. This is only happening around these window wells, which lead me to think this is mostly caused by the wells settling away from the foundation and pulling/cracking the parge away with them in the process. I hope it doesn't affect the window seal (I haven't been seeing leaks for a few years now since a guy fixed some window leaks I used to see, so I guess it is fine). If I do want to fill/repair the cracks, what would be good materials to use?