On Jun 17, 9:50*am, "Bill Skype" wrote:
"RicodJour" wrote in message

...
On Jun 17, 2:49 am, fftt wrote:





WAY zoomed out photos are needed, to provide context. Imagine the
guys in this newsgroup have never seen your house....closeups are good
but not with context. The photos you take & post have to substitute
for being "on-site".

While most of your photos give good close-up information.....there
appears to not be "zoomed out" and various stages of "zoomed in" of
the same foundation location

Compose and post the photos necessary to understand this "elephant"
that we've never seen in person.......we need your photos to tell the
whole story.

Get rake / broom & remove the extraneous / unimportant debris from the
ground in the photos.

"I don't know that any amount and quality of pictures will help with
this diagnosis. *Eyeballs on the situation - paid knowledgeable
eyeballs - is the only way to figure out for sure what is going on."

"That being said, let's talk theoretical situations for a bit. *The
soil has subsided substantially. *A fair bit of soil had to go
somewhere, so there are probably two major scenarios that would cause
such a situation."

The first would be improper subgrade preparations. *Either there was
organic matter that rotted and compressed, or the soil was disturbed
during excavation and not properly compacted before the slab was
poured. *If the gap is no longer increasing in size, mud jacking would
probably take care of the problem.

The other scenario would be flowing water washing away the soil. *That
could come from improper drainage around the house, an underground
stream, or a leak in a water/sewer pipe under the slab. *If there is a
bathroom near the gap that would increase the odds that it were a pipe
leaking. *To fix this sort of problem you have to determine where the
water is coming from and where the soil is going. *Mud jacking may of
may not take care of the problem.

It is not a good situation and the OP's comment that the foundation
has been in need of repair for quite some time scares me. *Hire a pro
and fix it."

Thanks, I have been told before that the cause was soil erosion from under
the foundation combined with poor drainage. *Please see my response to Bob
for some additonal photos I added.

Bill

Bill, I saw them. The stuff I'm seeing you can take care of fairly
easily and mostly by yourself.

You have gutter problems as evidenced by the peeling paint on the
right side of the door. The gutter is obviously blocked with leaves
and overflowing. You need to clean that gutter and install some
screens to keep the bulk of the leaves out of it. While you are up
there check to see the condition of the fascia - it is probably that
you have some rotten wood fascia boards.

You are right that the concrete walk is sloping in the wrong
direction. It is difficult to raise the existing concrete walk and
add dirt underneath it - it's much easier to either get some help to
move it out of the way so you can fix the grade or to bust up the
concrete back to a logical break point and replace it with some
pavers. If the budget is really tight, you could use the broken
concrete pieces and set them as individual "stones" - kind of like a
mosaic.

Putting a concrete topping on top of the existing walk concrete and
filling in the gap under the house with concrete could also work. The
first thing you want to do is to fill in that gap under the house
slab. Pounding dirt and gravel into the hole with a lump hammer would
help if you have access, but the walk slab might be in your way.

You also should investigate digging a trench and installing some
drainage pipe - it looks like the grade level drops off to the right
of the house, so you'd have the far end of the drainage pipe running
to daylight. The pipe would pick up the discharge from the end of the
downspout and you could have a surface drain right next to the low
point of the concrete slab by the door. That will help give the water
an easy out instead of pooling next to the door.

While I'm spending your time and money, you should also take care of
the stuff growing by the house. The plant growing by the hose has to
go, and you should cut back the stuff along the foundation on the
right side of the house (and anywhere else you have stuff growing
right up against the house). You may have other problems over there
that the plants are hiding. The plants also keep the area from drying
out and make it attractive to carpenter ants and termites. You should
be able to see the edge of the concrete house slab all the way around
the house.

R