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Don't Destroy the House; Hire a Structural Engineer
Don't Destroy the House; Hire a Structural Engineer
 
The other day I looked at a house which had numerous cracks in the exterior walls of the first floor and cracks all around the foundation walls.
 
A rough rule of thumb with cracks is that if they are less than the thickness of a quarter, then they might not be a major problem.  In this house, they could have been talking about the diameter of a quarter and it still would have been considered a problem.
 
A house might see vertical or horizontal cracks.  A vertical crack may be related to settlement, whereas a horizontal crack may be more related to a collapsing wall, sometimes because of outside pressure against the wall.  In this house, there were both types of cracks, with the horizontal crack going around the entire foundation.
 
At this point, I had three thoughts: let's get the hell out of here before it comes crashing down on us; I do not recommend buying this house; and curiosity, what is causing these cracks.
 
I figured that we had enough time to satisfy our curiosity and try to determine what was happening.
 
Apparently, the original house was a one story house with a basement and with a low ... more

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