I stopped by to discuss progress and repairs with owners of this home yesterday. They bought it approximately 2 years ago. Sellers provided their own "engineers" report stating this small crack should be fixed, but was nothing to worry about. Well, buyers of course did their own home inspection, and that home inspector basically said the same thing. Hopefully they won't use that engineer or home inspector again.
The clues should have been obvious. Rotted support posts for the roof above the porch. Crack was larger at top than is was near the ground. Brick had also shifted out approximately 1/4" on the right side of the crack.
Just about anyone with common sense could have determined that the footer had cracked and that the right corner had settled. Now many times, small cracks in masonry mean nothing, and are not a concern. But it pays to determine the cause of the crack before coming to any conclusions on severity. So the rot should make you look up and pay closer attention to the gutters. If someone would have put a level on the bottom of the gutter, they could have determined that the gutter was so far out of level, that instead of the water running to the down spout, it was running out towards the right corner of this porch and overflowing. That obviously causes the dirt to become saturated around the footer. Then throw in a little vibration from that earthquake we had a couple years ago, and SNAP! Down goes the footer.
Notice the 2" gap between the bottom of the concrete porch and top of the cinder block.That's how much the footer and the brick and block wall settled on that corner. Remember that the posts supporting the roof above the porch were sitting on top of the brick wall. So left alone, the roof could eventually settle 2" as well, and pull on the shingles causing a leak in the roof.
On the bright side, these things can be repaired. Support the roof first. Then dig a new footer down and under the existing footer, drill rebar pegs into existing footer, drill rebar into house, pour new footer. This repair will take approximately 500 brick, 1.5 yards of concrete, 5-6 bags of mortar, and 1.3 tons of sand. That should complete the masonry portion, and depending on who you hire, that should cost around $3-$4000.00. ( and that doesn't include the demo- homeowner is doing that). Then, the rotten posts and rails need to be replaced. Then your gutter system needs to be redesigned. Then check the roof to make sure there is no damage to the shingles.
So don't panic when you see a crack, but do investigate and determine what could have caused that crack. It could save you lots of headaches, and save you several thousand dollars in repairs. In this case, the owners are going to have to spend well over $5000.00 in repairs before we could put this back on the market to sell.
Jeff Pearl / Lic in VA
Remax Distinctive - Reston VA
703-727-4876
Homes / Land / Farms / Historic
www.jeffpearlhomes.com
Equal Housing Opportunity Provider
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