Residential lateral wall movement

[Peele1]

I have a family member who is selling their 60+ year old single-family house. The appraiser noted some cracks in the basement walls and recommended an engineering report. They live in a different state than me and I’m family (also, this is a little outside of my expertise to provide this level of report). One crack is in a crawl-space. The wall has a horizontal crack about ½” tall. Additionally, inward displacement at the front crawl space wall is 1.25” in 30” vertical. This crawl space has dirt and a sump pump. Above this crawl space is part of a bedroom and no 2nd floor.

What documented standards are there for new and old homes for cracks and displacement? What level is unacceptable, and why? When does it become a structural integrity issue or code violation?

Thanks

 

[kevo_55]

Peel1,

The IRC has all of the requirements for both new and existing homes. If the appraiser is recommending an engineer to take a look at this, then most likely it will be a big deal.

I don't know the allowable deflection for basement walls, but I know that a 1.25" deflection per 30" is way too much. As for the question of why, it's all about the P-delta effects.

This could be a drainage problem or could be something else. I would recommend that your family member get someone qualified to take a look at this.

 

[Peele1]

One issue is that one verbal estimate of repair was 1/3 the total sale price of the home. This is in an economically depressed area of the country.

Please forgive the question, what is the IRC?

According to: http://inspectapedia.com/structure/FoundationEvaluation.htm

Modest foundation damage, monitoring appropriate

• Horizontal bulge < 1.5", no signs of other significant damage
  
• Leaning wall < 1/3 of wall thickness, from wall base (In author's opinion 1/3 is way too much movement to tolerate; a conventional thickness masonry block wall that leans in one inch over an 8' ht. (or maybe 1.5" per some surveys) might be monitored depending on other site conditions, history, etc. Walls buckled in or leaning more than 1" (or 1.5" in some jurisdictions) should be professionally evaluated further and may require near-term or even immediate repair; Walls buckled in or leaning an inch or less should be monitored.
  
• If the cracks are old, with no sign of continuing/recurrent movement - the inspector is more likely to accept monitoring rather than requiring repair.
  

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Peele1]

An engineer did look at it and issued a report with some recommendations for the future, yet the report had several errors, no citations, and used words like "could" "future" "monitored" "typically", etc. To me it is lacking in specificity. It also didn't state that the structural integrity was a problem, no listed code violations.

Just because something is recommended to be fixed, doesn't mean that it must be fixed.

 

[kevo_55]

Peele1,

I don't even know how to respond. As a structural engineer I gave an opinon. Even admitting that this is over your head, you then do a google search and believe that you have something.

You can choose to do what you want in this matter.

Thanks.

 

[Peele1]

I appreciate your opinion, and I am looking for documented referenced standards.

 

[bradlelf]

IRC = International Residential Code ... part of the UCC - Uniform Construction Code.

Since the house is greater than 30+ years, I doubt the particular municipality that your family lives in retroactively enforces codes ... hence no code violations. The structure is most likely grandfathered. The IRC is typically only applicable to new home construction.

This is something they may be legally required to disclose prior to closing on the property.

 

[Peele1]

Thanks. I'm going to have my family member (home owner) contact the engineer and ask them questions. With the real estate market down, lenders, buyers, inspectors and such are very skittish about everything.

They are consulting with the real estate agent and the broker to determine the disclosure.

Go Bearcats! (My family are alumni of UC.)