Monday, September 7, 2009

LEVELING THE FOUNDATION - PART 1

Ok, I took 30 some odd pictures of the process of leveling my foundation so I guess I'd better get busy posting them and explaining the process to those of you who are not familiar with it. Believe me, I certainly learned a lot over the two days it took to get my house back on the level.

First I have to explain that the soil in the Houston area moves around a lot. If we were on rock, we would have earthquakes. We also have soil that swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it's hot and dry. The last is what happened to my house. Oh, and almost everyone here has a slab foundation. A few years ago, piers were placed around the front 3/4 of my house as the foundation was beginning to tilt forward. Because of the extreme dry and hot weather we've had this summer, the soil under the middle of the house began to shrink and the middle of my house began to sink. There was as much as a 4" difference in elevation between the highest and lowest part of my house. Yeah! The caused cracks in the sheetrock. doors that wouldn't close all the way or wouldn't stay closed. The worst part was the gap between the bottom of the wall and the floor in some places and the same gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling in others.

Today I'm posting some pictures of some of the problem areas.

Bedroom closet door - you could see the light from the closet through the crack which was on both sides of the wall! And that was as closed as the door would get.

Door from dining room into kitchen - on the other side there was a gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling.

Wall between kitchen and garage - notice gap at top of wall and cracks around door.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the beginning of the process. Please let me know if you have any questions.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like you are still having a rough time of it. Get some rest, curl up on the couch with the cats an enjoy a good movie. Happy for you that the leveling is done and over at least on the company's part. Hang in there you will have it fixed up in no time at all.

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  2. Wow! I have seen some bad ones but that was really bad. That is why hubby was insistant that we get a pier and beam house. We were really lucky that our house is actually a good three feet up so he can get under there to fix any problems. The settling problem is bad here but not as bad as it is around Houston.

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  3. Had no idea that it can get that bad...Yikes! Love this TX soil & weather! LOL! Will be anxious to see how they "fix" it.

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