Cinder-block walls crumbling / leaning

[Matt Vogt]

Hello all, 

How have you repaired foundation issues with cinder-block walls that are crumbling. I wish I took photos, but I didn't have the opportunity.

I looked at a property today that has a cinder-block wall construction. The floors are sloping, and upon crawling in the crawl space I noticed that one side of the wall was crumbling underneath. I would assume water issues over time caused this, so drainage would need to be done at some point. How do you go about repairing this? It's an 900 square foot house on a decent sized lot. It has a 1,000 square foot garage on the property as well. It's in a run-down part of Denver, but the entire market is going crazy and the price is right at around $150K. 

I haven't done foundation work, but figured it's worth the gamble on this property. 

The garage also has cinder block walls that are leaning/separating from each other... how do fix this type of issue? 

Thanks for the help

[Bill S.]

@Matt Vogt without seeing it. No one can provide reliable guidance. The adage is all it takes is money. Probably the safe route would be to assume you have to jack the house up and build a new foundation under it and then set it back down on the foundation. The thing to consider is that you may have to do a special foundation (piers with a void under the beams between the peirs) if the soils are expansive. Simple foundation is X then piers are about 5X from my experience. 

Personally I would have a structural engineer that specializes in residential construction view the property. I would pay them for an hour of their time to come look at the situation and give me a verbal report. Nothing in writing is needed unless you get to the point of needing a permit. It should cost you a few hundred dollars or less. I'm not a big fan of asking contractors for solutions on these types of situations because contractors tend to view problems through the lens of their experience. If you get a good one (one that knows failed foundations of the type and situation your encountered) you get good advise, if you get a bad one (has never done the work needed) then your advise is not so good. 

In my experience, homes with structural issues sold via the MLS are not adequately discounted to properly fix the issues. Buyer beware.