Foundation Issues in the Willamette Valley, OR

[Johna M Winters]

Hello,

I own a home in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  It rains a lot here and we have clay soil.  There was some cracking in my foundation when I bought the place but I had the foundation inspected and the engineer basically said not do worry about it (see below) and put his seal on the report.  This crack has always kind of bothered me however.  I had to patch a crack in the wall and I've planed most of the doors in the house so they don't stick.  I had terra firma come out and they said the north side of my house had sunk 1/2".  Their solution was to install 8 piers on the north side of the house to the tune of $23,000.  I'm having ram jack come out to tell me what they think as well.  My goal for this place is to hold it and rent it out.  Since I'm not going to sell it immediately, I'm not going to knee jerk spend $23k on something that's not a problem according to a structural engineer.

My question is, do I fix it now, wait until I want to sell, or just not worry about it.  I read that if you know of foundation problems you are required to disclose them to buyers.  

If there's anyone whit experience with this in my area, I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks

Conclusions and recommendations: 

1. .The comforting aspect of this horizontal crack is that this crack does not endanger the stability of the structure any more than the fact that there is a cold joint between the native soil (or rock layer placed under the footing) and the first concrete layer placed in the forms.

2. The repeated cycles of wetting and drying may at this point have consolidated the soils to a point that further settlement is very minor. I recommend that the cracks be cleaned out and then filled with a suitable concrete crack filler compound. This will provide some evidence by next year if there is still movement or that the soil has become virtually stable.

3. My recommendation with respect to the roof drains have already been noted above (drain to street had cracked but mitigated this by attached gutter extensions)

4. There is no concern that the observed cracks form a structural problem to the rest of the structure. 

5. If the problem continues and this aesthetic deficiency continues to be a matter of concern, then there are ways of resolving it , but the methods to implement it are of a considerable level of expense.

[Gordon Forbes]

I've had the same issue with almost every rental down here in Roseburg (the dreaded black clay). Nice that you got an engineer's report before the sales pitch from the foundation repair guys. Asking those companies for an opinion is like asking an insurance salesman "do I need more insurance?" The answer is always YES!

Not that they are bad companies. They have amazing techniques to solve foundation problems; from those long screw augers to pumping high pressure concrete into the ground. It's just hard to know if/when your problem is really a problem. I had a pencil thin crack in a foundation corner when I bought one of my rentals. Later the tenant called to say the window was stuck and the door wouldn't open. I asked him to go look at that crack and tell me if it had grown. He said "I can stick my whole head in that crack now"! The house was on its way to go visit the neighbors -lol. So Terra Firma wanted $12,000. I thought "I've built foundations, I can do this for less" and I did.... but re pouring a foundation under 1/3 of an existing house still cost me $10,000 in labor and material so it wasn't worth the hassle to do it ourselves for not much savings. I had another house with issues. A company that sells "we replace your foundarion" said the entire foundation had failed and was crumbling, a company that sells "we add braces to your existing foundation" said "your foundation is fine, it just needs our braces in a few places". Uh huh, and the life insurance salesman says you need more life insurance and the health insurance agent says you need a more expensive health plan (plus dental).

Lucky for you that you have a report for someone who wasn't selling you anything (other than selling their educated opinion). My recommendation is to do nothing and watch that crack! If/when you sell you disclose the crack and provide the engineering report that says "the crack is no big deal". Othed then inflation causing all prices to slowly go up, it wont be any more expensive to fix it later if/when it really needs it (as in the crack gets bigger, you get more cracks etc) than to fix it now. 

Did you say it has only sunk 1/2 inch? I wish all my houses were level to within 1/2 inch!

Sleep easy and invest the $23k. Even if you do eventually need to spend it you'll have your $23k plus a decade or two of compounding profits to pay for it. If you spend it now it will become a "sunk cost" that won't earn interest, won't earn a return and won't provide higher rents. 

My 8 cents