Jennifer Murphy wrote:
On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:35:35 -0400, "EXT"
wrote:
Normally one would only have to do this once or so and you would be
good for a number of years.

Yep, the last time was at least 5-6 years ago.

Possibly the house is still settling and the foundation
needs looking at to determine if there should be something done to
stabilize it.

Probably, but that's more than I care to worry about. I won't live
long enough for that to be worth it. The kids can worry about that.

Just a thought.... You may want to do a little checking for termite damage
and/or evidence of specific compression of some wooden support structures.
You can sometimes tell where the compression or settling is taking place by
checking which doorway openings are getting out of square. Sometimes
doorway openings that run in one direction get out of square while those
that run perpendicular to that are not out of square. And, sometimes, the
settling is not in the actual foundation but instead is near the center of
the house in the area of a main support beam.

One of the reasons for checking this is, of course, to prevent further
termite damage if that is what is happening now. And another is that it may
be possible to add some supporting posts/jacks in the basement when a beam
is located -- and maybe even jack things back up a little to help straighten
out the doorways and prevent further problems.

In other words, the doorways getting out of square may be indicative of a
problem that you can fix while preventing further deterioration, and not
just "the house is still settling".

But, back to your original question -- I like the electric planer idea since
you have a lot of planing to do.