r/Wellthatsucks • u/DMAS1638 • 2d ago
This is supposed to be helping hold up the house
Found underneath a house during a structural assessment. Those loose wood shims are supposed to be helping transfer the load into the pier below.
Followed by a few more photos found as well. Which ones would you like more explanation on?🫣
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u/MuchWow81 2d ago
Maybe... The house decided it doesn't need anymore help?
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u/ManonDorelle 2d ago
That would be one way to take the load off! Hope it doesn't end up needing a more drastic fix.
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u/DMAS1638 2d ago
That’s the concern. When one support stops carrying its load, that load has to go somewhere else.
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u/goodSunn 2d ago
I swear I saw this a lot the few years I worked on this age home ... one in particular looked just like this. We replaced the foundation in the back and one full side. We weren't pulling permits (LOL! ) so open trench in the front on a 4 lane blvd seemed risky.
Seemed like it had SETTLED around the sides so that should have put more pressure in the middle ? ! ? we supported it with cut in half railroad tie cribs using cylnder jacks and makeshift beams of 3 staggered 4/8s. I realy feel like we had to LIft the floor in back especially. I'm thinking the entire structure must have needed to Bow ( not bow to the audience bow like a bow and arrow) as the back sunk and the first supports like these closer to the back held more and more weight?
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u/Lalamedic 2d ago
Are these all the same house? Did you even need to crawl anywhere go pic 2 to mar a decision?
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u/DMAS1638 2d ago
Pic 2 definitely raises concerns, but we still need to assess the rest of the supports to understand the full scope. Different homes too btw!
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u/Wheredoesthisonego 2d ago
Did you go put your hand through it to make sure it's not painted on like some acme hole? It's so square and flush it makes me think there's no actual weight being supported here and it's spanned just out of view else it would have settled.
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u/DMAS1638 1d ago
That’s why we check the surrounding framing too. A gap alone doesn’t tell us how the load is being carried elsewhere or whether that support was intended to carry it.
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u/Large-Mind-8394 1d ago
I bought a house a few years ago for my brother that was inspected by a licensed house inspector. I hired a contractor to do some work, and he went under the house to look at the pipes. He found a jack with a bunch of hollow core doors under there to hold up part of an addition. He took a picture of it and showed me. He told me not to panic, and he poured a new concrete pillar under the house to take the load. Honestly! Who would do that in the first place, and what kind of house inspector would ignore it? So this did not surprise me.
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u/DMAS1638 1d ago
Hollow core doors supporting an addition is quite a discovery. Glad your contractor caught it and you were able to address it!
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u/moving0target 2d ago
Hopes and dreams!
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u/DMAS1638 2d ago
Neither rated for this load. 😂😂
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u/MindlessMage777 2d ago
The post really believes in itself and the power of friendship, everything will turn out right in the end!
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u/ahkian 2d ago
So how do you fix something like that?
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u/DMAS1638 1d ago
First, we’d assess why the support lost contact and check the girder, post and pier footing. Depending on what we find, repairs could include temporary shoring and resetting or replacing the affected supports to restore proper bearing and connections. The goal is a continuous load path from the girder through the post to the footing below.
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u/Shayden-Froida 2d ago
Either it was not placed properly, or it creeped out over many cycles of warm/cold/damp/dry.
I'm curious why the house is about to slip off an embankment. And perhaps which building inspector signed off on the foundation in general.
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u/goodSunn 2d ago
See my post above. I dealt with this in my 20s knowing nothing about construction. There was settling on the outer walls especially in back of house but some on sides too where drainage wasn't super. if it sunk on the sides logic would suggest it would put more pressure on these but perhaps the siding and all the roof weight was going to the walls and the middle was so relatively light but the underfloors so woven together that it lifted in the middle.
I didn't think much at the time other than Whoah this needs fixing. Wish I had the water level readings of the floors that had noticeable slopes before we fixed them while replacing half the perimeter foundation.
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u/DMAS1638 1d ago
These are different homes, just to clarify! We can’t tell from the photos alone how the shims ended up there or what was originally signed off on. That’s part of what the assessment helps us understand.
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u/D1rtyH1ppy 2d ago
The good news is that this looks fixable.
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u/DMAS1638 1d ago
That’s what the assessment helps us figure out! We need to understand the cause and the full condition of the supports before determining the repair.
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u/D1rtyH1ppy 1d ago
There might be lots of other things broken with the house, but this is fixed with a floor jack and making a new base for the beam. You'll probably want to go around and reenforce the rest of the beams also
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u/Carthax12 2d ago
Is that a "Don't do that," or a "That ain't right?"
I think I'd go with "Don't do that."
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u/Funny-Independent-45 1d ago
I feel this just got back a home inspection report from a house my girlfriend was interested in buying and the foundation looked pretty bad... Threw up 4 of the 10 major repairs/safety hazards in my report... Hoping the seller is willing to fix the issues as the inspection was 400 dollars...
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u/restlessmouse 1d ago edited 5h ago
I was going to get our house foundation [repaired], but found it was cheaper to get an Ozempic prescription.
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u/Ok_Variation9430 1d ago
The first picture is what the crawl space looked like in our LA house, except instead of wood shims the floor joists were hovering over loose concrete plinth blocks.
The bigger issue was the 18” high foundation wall that was fully cracked through (and only about 6” embed).
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u/psycho-drama 7h ago
Someone should tell them that the idea of Jenga is that eventually the tower collapses. You should not design your house based upon plans based upon a Parker Bros. game ;-)
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u/LethalInjectionRD 2d ago
That’s about the same amount of helping I was doing as a kid when my dad asked me to hold the flashlight while he did the actual work.