Foundation Woes
 

Our house has two cracks in the foundation -- one on either side of
the garage. One of the cracks is vertical around a centimeter wide,
and is causing the brickwork above to crack. The other crack is on a
diagnal, but much smaller. We had a guy come in and look at it, and
he thinks it's ad-freezing (sp?). He said we would likely have to
escavate the perimiter of the garage, which includes digging up part
of the driveway, walkway, etc. This would cost lots of $14-20K.

Our neighbour says that we should just epoxy the the bricks back
together, and not worry about it to much, because the cracks in the
foundation are not near to our basement, so there's no real
consiquence to doing this.

I've also done the math, and the cost of redoing the brickwork is a
lot less than the interest that we would have to pay on a loan of
$14K in one year. If I redid the brickwork every second for the next
five years, and THEN redid the foundation, I would actually be saving
money.

I was wondering how critical it is to fix this issue right away --
will it get much more expensive as time progresses, or can I turn a
blind eye to it fora while?


John

The risks are water intrusion into the building fabric and
dislocattions of the structure.
If it were mine, I'd get a forensic engineer or architect to give a
report.
Yes, you would have to spend money, but you would better know the risks
and trade offs.
TB

I am having a hard time picturing your location of the problem. Do you
know how the original foundation was done? Is it deep enough, thick
enough? If it is and you just have some settling, I would just patch
it. If the foundation is too shallow and/or too thin, this will be an
ongoing issue. You can fix it yourself if you are so inclined (I am
assuming a 3 foot deep foundation around the garage). There are some
good books on repairing foundations (ie Fine Homebuilding).

What were the qualifications of the "guy" who came in and gave you an
opinion? This is something that can be difficult to diagnose even with
seeing it, let alone remotely. I'd get an engineer to take a look at
it. Alternatively, a builder with lots of experience would be useful
too. Definitely something you should find the root cause of and not
ignore. Once you know what's causing it, what the remedy is, what
happens if it;s left untreated, etc, then you can decide.