Need Help: Civil Engineers/Structural Engineers

[Seahawk]

After reading the below, I just violated one of Churchill's peeves: “This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.”

My wife and I are looking at a property in Aiken, SC as a potential winter retirement place.

Long story short, the property is next door to my Sister's place (was the family home after we moved to SC from Cali) in an amazing part of town. For those of you unfamiliar with Aiken, it is simply a wonderful place. But I digress.

The house was owned by the same folks for over fifty years, and is built on a slope. Great couple, a Doctor and his wonderful wife: She passed away 15 years ago and he followed two years ago.

The estate manager, a Texas-based lawyer (the family is, as they say, "from means") wants to honor the wishes of the Dr. and find a person that respects the nature of the neighborhood, which is beautiful.

That is where I come in, Mr. Respectful - at least the Mrs. is.

So, we went down Friday to take a look. We expected the usual issues with old houses owned by older folks. What we didn't expect was the amount of foundation cracks, unstable retaining walls, etc., etc. The site is a mess.

So, are there any Civil Engineering folks/Structural folks that are willing to PM me?

I have spent the better part of today (we looked at the house again on Saturday all morning, taking hundreds of pictures) web searching everything I could find on water run-off, site stability, etc. and just need some help understanding the practicalities and next steps.

I think, based on what we saw and recorded, or at least assume, the house is a scraper, but I'd like to share some pictures with a helpful person before I engage a local CE/SE to come and take a look: I want, in other words, to know what to ask and how much it should cost in advance.

seahawkermr@aol.com

I know, aol. My nephew roasted me over dinner Friday night.

Thanks in advance.

[carambola]

Is moving the house and re-doing the sitework an option? It would give you the opportunity to build new stables.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by carambola

Is moving the house and re-doing the sitework an option? It would give you the opportunity to build new stables.

The whole site needs to be looked at...as I see it, is the problem is unconstrained, there is that much storm water damage around the property, jut about an acre.

I need data to figure out if the lot can be salvaged economically.

[look 171]

How bad is the foundation? Is the house sagging or of leaning due to crumbling of the foundation? I have no experience building in cold climate, but building and foundation are pretty the same. They are just bigger and deeper. How old is the house, two story? What kind of soil? show us some pictures. A certain part of the house can be jacked up and have the bad part of the foundation replaced without much headaches but some interior plaster work and siding on the outside.

Old foundations will have cracks. Small cracks are no big deal.

How bad is the retaining walls? What is it holding up and how close is it to the house? General rule for pricing is about 75-90 bucks per linear foot of 6' wall, depending on access. This is socal pricing, so in SC that pricing may be a tad lower?

[porsche4life]

No advice, but good luck Paul, sounds like a good place, except the issues!

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

....What we didn't expect was the amount of foundation cracks, unstable retaining walls, etc., etc. .....

Could this be from the Aug. 2011 earthquake north of Richmond? I heard it here at my house for about a minute...thought I had a a/c compressor going nuts or something as I tried to locate the source of the noise. Two of my other houses now have minor damage (large patio & driveway cracks). My parents' 50 year old ranch style brick (custom built, over engineered) with a basement that's dug out of "hard as cement" sandrock now has some damage too. No cracks in the basement walls, but minor cracks in several outside brick walls. A long brick retaining wall for a driveway into the basement is now cracked pretty good and has a decent lean....dad tells me that's "my" problem to deal with . There were no cracks, etc. beforehand in any of those houses, but "something" had to give. Didn't even know the fault line existed beforehand, and I'm sure it continues right on down through the Aiken area and points further south. Just throwing this out for your consideration...good luck!

[Seahawk]

Split level ranch. First floor is grade level, basement on the lower level. Decks on the main level, slabs for the lower level patios. The house is in South Carolina.

Crack runs the length of the basement:



Lower patio:



Breech in the retaining walls:



Much, much more. I don't care about the house, I want to know if I can get the site stable to build again, pole or stilt house.

Originally Posted by look 171

How bad is the foundation? Is the house sagging or of leaning due to crumbling of the foundation? I have no experience building in cold climate, but building and foundation are pretty the same. They are just bigger and deeper. How old is the house, two story? What kind of soil? show us some pictures. A certain part of the house can be jacked up and have the bad part of the foundation replaced without much headaches but some interior plaster work and siding on the outside.

Old foundations will have cracks. Small cracks are no big deal.

How bad is the retaining walls? What is it holding up and how close is it to the house? General rule for pricing is about 75-90 bucks per linear foot of 6' wall, depending on access. This is socal pricing, so in SC that pricing may be a tad lower?

[Seahawk]

Looking up. Very steep grade



Back of the house.

[KFC911]

Paul, I'd bet folding money that's damage from the quake. One good thing about the damage I referenced above, it now "is what it is" and hasn't gotten any worse in three years....good luck!

[island911]

Yep. I was just going to add; Stability is a relative term. How much stability do you want to buy?

[GWN7]

The basement floor picture (with flashlight), does the crack extend to the walls at either end? Or is the basement a finished room? Or is that a lower level floor? Check around any basement windows for signs of cracking. Basement floors are usually poured separately from the foundation and can be fixed quite easy with a crack of that nature.

The picture of the overhang appears to need some more support than the ornamental iron work shown on the underside. The sag in the facia board would make me want to check the whole overhang with a laser level.

The second floor overhang looks like it has dropped down and pulled away from the facia board. Rot?

Did you set up a ladder and check the roof and the roof lines for dips and sags?

When you build a house you start at the bottom and work your way up. When you inspect a home you start at the top and work your way down.

[Bill Douglas]

Those are the problems you can see.

IN Wellington where just about everything is a hill there have been lots of problems like this that have got progressively worse. These once in a hundred year rainfalls that happen every couple of years now, soak the ground and anything on a slope seems to move by a little and I think this could be happening to this house.

[MRM]

Paul, I'm not a structural engineer but I play one when I've spent the night at a Holiday Inn. Actually I'm a member of Hilton Honors so I stay in Doubletrees, but it works the same way.

It's hard to tell how bad things are from the pictures, but you will want to contact a geotechnical engineer rather than a civil engineer. You need a geotechnical engineer to evaluate the soils and why the house is settling and how to remediate it. The structural engineer will determine how to fix the foundation and retaining walls.

All in all, I'm not sure the fix is going to be as bad as you fear. Clearly there is an issue with water managment - there is a lot of blacktop and not a lot of places for the water that collects on it to go, but I think a good structural engineer with experience in concrete will be able to put you straight again after you have the soils and water management sorted out with the geotechnical guy. The house looks like it's an old fashioned true masonry-walled brick house. The foundation is probably feet thick. As long as it was reinforced properly you can do magic pushing the pieces back together. It's a nice looking house. I'd save it if I could. Demo on a house like that would be a nighmare.

Look in the yellow pages for a local consulting engineering firm that has structural, civil and geotechnical capabilities. I could send you to one right now off the top of my head if you were in the upper midwest. But since you're not, I can check around if you'd like. I had a case in Charleston a few years ago. I can check around and see who we used then and ask around for a good referral if you need it.

[TimT]

Just from parsing the pictures, it looks like these cracks and displacements of the basement slab and retaining walls were sudden, rather than cracks that occur from natural settlement.

I would need to see the place in person to offer any more advice...the pictures you supplied show fairly fresh failures.....in the lower patio there is no evidence of anything growing......and with all the vines in your pictures...

The retaining wall? is that the same wall as pictured in lower patio?


There are remedie$$ for retaining walls that were ill designed, soil nails, tie backs, etc.. The remedies depend on soil conditions...

Do you know if any other properties in the area have settlement/displacement problems?

[look 171]

How far does that crack go in the basement? Is the footing cracked on both ends along with that crack on the floor? It looks to be awfully thin but it may just be the shadow from the photo. If its just the slab, then it should be fairly cheap to repair but you must dig deeper and find the cause of the problem so it does happen again. Are there splits on the walls along neither ends of that crack?

How long and tall is that retaining wall? That will cost a few bucks but you must get engineering done on it. Tim is correct, its really difficult to see from just a few pics without being there in person to look at other telltale signs. How about a few more non close up pics. Is that basement crack the only crack in the house? How about the footing or other parts of the foundation? If that's the only crack and there are no other cracks on the footing, then I say you maybe in luck.

[javadog]

Drilling a few test holes would be required to learn much about the underlying soils. I'd definitely do that if I bought the property.

The damage to the house may be related to the quakes, or it may be a function of a poorly deigned/built house. Probably less than 1 in 100 are done correctly and those perched on the side of a hill show the most problems. There's a way to build anything, anywhere. Most builders don't bother to properly engineer anything.

It's hard to tell you much from the upside-down camera phone photos you posted. My bet is that the house was poorly designed and built.

JR

[J P Stein]

I lived in a hillside house that my dad built for about 10 years.
The front of the house was built on recent fill where as the rear half (2/3 ?) was on the original hill top. Can you say slump? The whole front of the lot, including the retaining wall at the base of the hill, was on the march. The foundation (one large crack in a 4 foot tall part) of the house was not immune. I shudder to think what it looks like now (50 years later)......probably similar to your pictures. The ground looks to be slumping and is not likely to stop. ......the "why" is not really important.

The house I live in now is also on a hill side but not not nearly as steep. The builder carved down to solid ground to build a tri-level. We've been here for nearly 40 years and the foundation is still in one piece.

[Seahawk]

Sorry about the pics: They are all normal in my pictures file.

Thanks for all the replies.

The crack runs the entire length of the basement slab and has migrated to the left corner of the house (looking from the street). A large crack has formed and the window casement has begun to separate on the basement level.

The crack has also migrated to the right side of the house and the cinder block foundation shows cracks on the rear of the house.

Upstairs, there are cracks on the rear side of the longitudinal load bearing wall, the side facing down the hill.

The problem(s) as we see it is the slope from the breached retaining walls is 60 degree for twenty feet and then flattens out. Getting equipment in to fix thing may be problematic.

The property is what we are really interested in, the house is secondary. I just want to make sure I understand the costs associated with either fixing the house and property or scrapping and starting over. Frankly, scrapping appeals to us if we move forward.

Thanks for all the advice. I found some folks in SC qualified t take a look if the executor of the will allows me to.

Best to all!

[TheMentat]

Javadog and MRM are right on the money... Barring any "one time" quake damage, a geotech will give you a pretty good idea of what is needed with a few test pits. It may not be as bad as you think: deeper foundation for the new home, storm water management swales etc. can be relatively small additional costs.

[J P Stein]

You'll also need a pile driver......