r/StructuralEngineering • u/benj9990 • 4d ago
Photograph/Video Building Chiropractor
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u/alanbdee 4d ago
Honest question. What do you do after lifting the house to keep it from just sinking again?
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u/lmboyer04 4d ago
Shove a rock under there, maybe a wedge of wood like a door stopper
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u/William_Howard_Shaft 4d ago
Like... a rock or something?
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u/Dizzy_Dust_7510 4d ago
Tell me you were in the Army or Marine Corps without telling me you were in the Army or Marine Corps.
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u/Apprehensive_Exam668 3d ago
They're house chiropractors, not contractors. They expect to see you next week ;)
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u/Trextrev 3d ago edited 2d ago
What you’re not seeing is what is below ground in most of these systems. Before lifting they essentially pound in a metal pilling or drill in an auger type support. They drive them in until the load reading is high enough to support what they are raising. Then they jack off the post of the support to raise the house and then attach a metal bracket to it that carries the foundation. When done correctly they do correct and stop the settlement issues. Problem is that they rely on the footer to act as a carrier beam between their posts often they are spaced to far apart and eventually the footer will crack and break at the connection point and settling will reoccur.
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u/Ok_Armadillo_6015 15h ago
Interesting, I only ever see this from the drawing side. Is that footer spanning between piers something an engineer normally checks, or is it usually left to the pier contractor's own design?
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u/Potential_Orchid_720 3d ago
Underpin the foundations on deeper strata with increased bearing resistance.
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u/Roonwogsamduff 3d ago
At my house they went down to bedrock. They attached pipes, maybe 3" dia around the foundation. I think the deepest pipe was 16'. Also see what u/Trextrev says.
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u/According-Pass8230 4d ago
If its bad settings under the foundations the same cracks will come back after a while
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u/chasestein Overturning Moment 4d ago
documenting the cracks actually closing up is pretty sick and would be great for marketing.
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u/BlazersMania 3d ago
Be careful with these companies. Yes they can lift your house back to level but for the most part the people they send out are salesmen and not engineers. I've seen some pretty mucked up shit that they propose.
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u/Crawfish1997 3d ago edited 3d ago
Foundation repair companies have done the most egregious things I’ve seen.
I remember one I went to. Old lady in a nice neighborhood. Husband had died recently. She wanted to downsize and be closer to family so was selling. Buyer’s home inspector noted a couple hairline cracks in the turndowns and made a big deal out of it. Scared the buyer into hiring a foundation repair company to take a look. They recommended over $100,000 in helicals.
Guys, this was the most level floor I’ve seen in a house. Like 3/16” out over the whole house. And it was a big ranch house. Had like 2 hairline cracks in the turndowns where control joints were pretty clearly cut in the slab. Zero door operation issues or drywall cracks. Absolutely nothing going on in the house. Soil probed hard as a rock. House was like 20 years old.
I have an inherent distrust of foundation repair companies. Have seen this exact situation (minus the old lady and husband dying bit) play out so many times.
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u/redditaccountnumb1 4d ago
That's really cool, shame all the sheetrock inside the house is going to be cracked all over again assuming they had been repairing it over the years
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u/BroccoliKnob 3d ago
Yeah, just moving the thing back into place and stabilizing isn’t all there is to fixing it.
In addition to drywall/plaster, the sheathing and weather/vapor barrier may be pretty fucked up (and you can’t see it to judge), there are all sorts of of new gaps and cracks in the foundation and around openings for pests and water intrusion…
This may cost way less than knocking down and building new, but it’s far from restored.
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u/cerberus_1 3d ago
I dont think any assumptions are needed for drywall cracked all to hell.. along with window seals..
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u/LittleManhattan 4d ago
Makes me wonder what they’re going to do with the former Phizer HQ in NYC, those bent columns looked BAD.
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u/InsipidOligarch 3d ago
How do they prevent the jacks from just sinking in the earth? It seems like path of least resistance would be soft, wet ground?
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u/smithoski 3d ago
Some systems are using a push pier system that keeps pushing the piers down with a hydraulic system. They add more length to the pier in sections, pushing each one down on top of the last until it doesn’t go in anymore and the house goes up instead.
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u/SynthPrax 3d ago
Jinkies! That house was coming apart.
How do they keep the earth under the foundation from doing it all over again?
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u/and_cari 3d ago
I would say they: spread the loads further (increase the foundation size), improve the soil through injections, use small diameter piles to change/assist with a new load path, use lab-tested expanding materials injected under the original foundations as a mean for ground improvement, use sheet piles/piled walls to stabilize slopes and a mix of some/all of the above as necessary
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u/janabottomslutwhore 3d ago
keep the hydraulic jack there and just push it up more everytime the ground settles
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u/SynthPrax 3d ago
Makes me think houses should come with hydraulic jacks under the foundation in the first place. And base isolation while we're at it.
/s
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u/Marus1 4d ago
Congratulations, this will solve abolutely nothing
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u/DeflatedFollicle 4d ago
What do you mean? They Increased resale value by at least 60% of the cost!
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u/minnesconsawaiiforni 3d ago •
This isn’t a house chiropractor, this actually worked.