Whenever there is a sound and true method of installing a product, why do people try to experiment. On a recent inspection I observed this foundation pier to be correctly installed. Although it looks like the HVAC vent is resting on the pier, that is for a later blog.
I went further under the crawl space and observed:
When I saw this situation I immediately knew it was improperly installed. The reason for this is when a concrete block is properly placed for bearing a load the holes in the block are facing so that they may be filled with concrete or re-bar to substantially increase their strength. All of the load on the block is distributed along the entire circumference, outer edge, as well as utilizing the inner supports of the block. When blocks for support are placed this way only three points of the block bear the load. You can see either that the block was not stacked correctly or the load is causing the pier to shift out of square and plumb. I turned around and saw this:
Just a minute. If a building code inspector from the County, which we don't have, saw this I'm sure it would have been corrected. These blocks only touch in two places for their support. Are we saving the cost of two to three concrete blocks? When the floor sags and is not level anymore, it will be too late. It can be fixed but why do an initial installation like this that causes others to repair it?
