OK. First and foremost, I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be a DIY job, but I'm still posting here because I want to get a better understanding of the situation, and to get a good feel about how freaked out I should be right now (foundation things scare me).
I own a house that was built in 1968. There has been a huge hump in my basement floor since the day I bought it. I have always assumed that this was because slabs just weren't as nice back then.
Today I started the process of gutting the basement, and once it was all empty, I got curious about the hump. As of right now, all there is are cheap tiles that you stick on, so I thought I would remove one or two on top of the hump to see what it looked like. Turns out there is crack down the middle of the hump. I am not that surprised about the crack because cement obviously doesn't like to flex.
That being said, obviously, at some point something pushed the floor up. I read that water can do that, but there has never been any water in the basement since I've been here. I guess it's possible that the city had some water main breakage at some point over the years, but that would somehow surprise me.
What I do know, is that there used to be a giant blue pine tree on my front lawn, which has since been cut down. This is where my questions start:
-Is it possible that the root of a tree would go UNDER a house without damaging the actual wall of the foundation and push the floor up?
-When I bought the house, the foundation was cracked at a window on a different wall, on the opposing side of the house - could this be related?
-How freaked out should I be right now? Is the part where I drop the whole project and bring my keys to the bank?
-Anything else I should be made aware of?
Considering the size of the hump, it seems it would be easier to fix by cutting/chipping it out and pouring new concrete over it instead of using a self leveller. If it's just a matter of a few bags of cement and a little elbow grease, then I am good to go and should take care of this while my basement is empty.
If it's a 40K job, I am in trouble.
I'm really going to appreciate your responses on this, guy. I am trying to flip this house all by myself and (I'm sure you guys know this already), it's been an insane amount of stress for me. I'm never doing this by myself again.
I own a house that was built in 1968. There has been a huge hump in my basement floor since the day I bought it. I have always assumed that this was because slabs just weren't as nice back then.
Today I started the process of gutting the basement, and once it was all empty, I got curious about the hump. As of right now, all there is are cheap tiles that you stick on, so I thought I would remove one or two on top of the hump to see what it looked like. Turns out there is crack down the middle of the hump. I am not that surprised about the crack because cement obviously doesn't like to flex.
That being said, obviously, at some point something pushed the floor up. I read that water can do that, but there has never been any water in the basement since I've been here. I guess it's possible that the city had some water main breakage at some point over the years, but that would somehow surprise me.
What I do know, is that there used to be a giant blue pine tree on my front lawn, which has since been cut down. This is where my questions start:
-Is it possible that the root of a tree would go UNDER a house without damaging the actual wall of the foundation and push the floor up?
-When I bought the house, the foundation was cracked at a window on a different wall, on the opposing side of the house - could this be related?
-How freaked out should I be right now? Is the part where I drop the whole project and bring my keys to the bank?
-Anything else I should be made aware of?
Considering the size of the hump, it seems it would be easier to fix by cutting/chipping it out and pouring new concrete over it instead of using a self leveller. If it's just a matter of a few bags of cement and a little elbow grease, then I am good to go and should take care of this while my basement is empty.
If it's a 40K job, I am in trouble.
I'm really going to appreciate your responses on this, guy. I am trying to flip this house all by myself and (I'm sure you guys know this already), it's been an insane amount of stress for me. I'm never doing this by myself again.
Giant hump with crack on concrete basement floor
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