Structural Repairs update

 

The space between the first and second floor.

So, my last post I talked about the need for a structural engineer and we've had him over.

To say the information was not good is putting it mildly. When we had the repair done initially it was in the second month that we lived here. We had our structural engineer out the day after we bought the home. And he said yes your house needs new supports underneath. He gave us a plan; he told us the required building materials we needed and so we got a building permit (thank goodness.) He said we could do this work ourselves, but we didn't think so. It was early days into the renovation of this home, and we were just so overwhelmed by the extent of the neglect in this house. And how inaccurate our home inspection was (in Canada you are not allowed to sue your home inspector). Our neighbour recommended a firm to us that they had used to shore up their barn. We showed this company the plans from the structural engineer and the business owner said, "If you do this it will cost $50,000 following your structural engineer's instructions. But we could do something similar for $11,000."

We should have run for the hills. Instead, we paid $11,000 to have our house lifted. Instead of lifting the house a quarter of an inch every few weeks, they lifted the house almost 2 inches in one day cracking almost every single wall in the house. Worth living with and fixing if the house had remained stable.

But it has not remained stable. Not only that, but the beams they used for support were pressure treated wood not LVL which is a) not supposed to be used internally inside a house near our heating and cooling system and b) not strong enough to support the weight of this building. We knew something was wrong when cracks were starting to form in the walls that had already been repaired and floors that had not moved initially had become spongy.

So our structural engineer spent 5 hours yesterday measuring all of our walls, all of the supports, jumping on floors (that bouncing on the second floor is because of the sagging starting up again) and will have a second report ready for us next week. He also surveyed the hole in the foundation made to bring heat out to the extension that they covered up with Styrofoam boards and removed a joist support to do. (remember what I said about our crappy home inspection?)

It's fixable but going to cost us all over again. Next steps? Wait for the new structural engineer plans.

And yes- it is still snowing here.