# Foundation is making me weep



## Prospector (Jul 25, 2014)

The exterior garage wall on our home is doing some funky stuff. We have step cracking in brick at the front and back, and a small amount of shifting of the walls. Talking millimeters here. 

Obviously water issues are playing games with us. Today we have a contractor in and he looked at it and quoted $25,000 to excavate the footings, epoxy the cracks together, put on a slip-membrane to prevent future frost heaving, and then backfill with engineered fill and repour the garage floor. His quote does not include repairing the driveway approach to the garage after his work is complete, nor does it include repairing the fence he would have to remove, or repointing/repairing any brick damaged in the work. I am adding $5000 to his work for the additionals to come up with a $30,000 total price tag on the work. About 10% of our home value. 

This seems... high. And onerous. 

Anyone in the greater GTA have experiences they can share, and a report on contractors and prices?


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Not in the GTA but would suggest any work you do include re-grading (sloping) of the soil by that wall. There should be no water issues if water has to run away from the foundation (i.e. has no way to getting against the foundation to begin with). Just about any building I have seen over the decades with foundation issues can be traced to poor/erroneous sloping of the grade around the building.


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## dave2012 (Feb 17, 2012)

Well as I type, we just had the side of our garage excavated today (along with the garage floor) due to problems with the garage floor cracking and sinking. We had a vertical crack towards the back of the garage turn horizontal all the way to the front corner of the garage. A water issue for sure. Thankfully it was only down about 2 ft below ground level. They dug down, sealed the wall with the black stuff (membrane), re-inforced the corner and will be repouring the garage floor tomorrow. The material was good under the garage floor so not too much to do there but top up, repack and then repour a new pad. Total cost after tax is about $12K I think. I should note that includes some additional foundation repairs (epoxy fill) on the house foundation worth about $3K. They didn't epoxy the side of the garage as they added the water barrier to it, and rebar was used to attach the corner to the new front foundation which had to be repaired.

We had no issues with the brick on the garage which was amazing considering the whole corner sat on a very long crack. Our issue was with the house next door. The previous owner let all his rain water run to the corner of our garage for years (as far as we know - we are 3rd owner). Their house was about 4 inches higher than ours which doesn't help.

Sounds like you may have a bit more serious problem having to go down to the footings.

I should mention that when we started, we were smart to get 5 different quotes. They ranged from $5K to $60K+. Homestar was useless as it seems almost all reviews are overly positive. We ended up hiring a geo technical engineer for $300 to come by, look things over and make some suggestions, then chose the company we felt was solving our problem without over engineer it... heck its a garage! We are very happy with the work so far. Next we will need to hire someone to repave the driveway and redo the interlock along with regrading the side of the garage wall to ensure water can't sit there.... uugh.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

The cracking sounds like it may come from settling. Most subdivisions today have had huge amounts of earth moved around and the fill garages and driveways are build on has not been packed sufficiently and after a number of years, driveways and garage floors and sometimes footings settle.
You could look at a concrete jacking service. They drill small holes and inject concrete to raise or support footings, floor, driveways.
This may or not be your issue. If it is, jacking is quick and much cheaper.


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## Prospector (Jul 25, 2014)

AltaRed said:


> Not in the GTA but would suggest any work you do include re-grading (sloping) of the soil by that wall. There should be no water issues if water has to run away from the foundation (i.e. has no way to getting against the foundation to begin with). Just about any building I have seen over the decades with foundation issues can be traced to poor/erroneous sloping of the grade around the building.


Good idea, but not applicable. There is a swale next to the garage which is very efficiently moving water downgrade. The only water issue I can see is a downspout that is tied into the foundation drains. I can remedy that myself for a much lower price than the contractor wants.


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## Prospector (Jul 25, 2014)

dave2012 said:


> Well as I type, we just had the side of our garage excavated today (along with the garage floor) due to problems with the garage floor cracking and sinking. We had a vertical crack towards the back of the garage turn horizontal all the way to the front corner of the garage. A water issue for sure. Thankfully it was only down about 2 ft below ground level. They dug down, sealed the wall with the black stuff (membrane), re-inforced the corner and will be repouring the garage floor tomorrow. The material was good under the garage floor so not too much to do there but top up, repack and then repour a new pad. Total cost after tax is about $12K I think. I should note that includes some additional foundation repairs (epoxy fill) on the house foundation worth about $3K. They didn't epoxy the side of the garage as they added the water barrier to it, and rebar was used to attach the corner to the new front foundation which had to be repaired.
> 
> We had no issues with the brick on the garage which was amazing considering the whole corner sat on a very long crack. Our issue was with the house next door. The previous owner let all his rain water run to the corner of our garage for years (as far as we know - we are 3rd owner). Their house was about 4 inches higher than ours which doesn't help.
> 
> ...


We may have similar stories actually. The contractor who came by seems to want to do a $25,000 job for $5,000 problem. Which is why I'm asking for others' experiences. Hiring a geotech may not be a bad idea. According to the guy we had in, we have frost heave issues, and not a footing issue. No mention of piers or settling, just upheave due to frost. I agree about homestarts/Angie's List, etc. Anyone can buy a positive rating too easily.


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## Prospector (Jul 25, 2014)

twa2w said:


> The cracking sounds like it may come from settling. Most subdivisions today have had huge amounts of earth moved around and the fill garages and driveways are build on has not been packed sufficiently and after a number of years, driveways and garage floors and sometimes footings settle.
> You could look at a concrete jacking service. They drill small holes and inject concrete to raise or support footings, floor, driveways.
> This may or not be your issue. If it is, jacking is quick and much cheaper.


I'm familiar with concrete jacking. I was not aware that the tech could be used to lift a house and shore up a footing. I thought it was limited to levelling slabs. I may need to explore this as an option.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Most concrete jacking is for slabs but some compnies equipment will do much more.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Here is ad copy from one company that does mudjacking, concrete jacking etc using grout and foam
We lift and stabilize; driveways, patios, stairs, sidewalks, garage floors, uneven concrete, warehouse floors, basement floors, building structures, bridge aprons, highways and other large commercial projects as well as concrete with in floor heating.


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## realasset (Jul 1, 2016)

Ohh! please dont weep


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Get more than one quote, if you have friends who have had good work done, consider their contractors. Do the easvestroph work asap and see if it helps. It may well be settling and I think delaying the work wouldn't make too much difference.


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## Prospector (Jul 25, 2014)

Berubeland said:


> Get more than one quote, if you have friends who have had good work done, consider their contractors. Do the easvestroph work asap and see if it helps. It may well be settling and I think delaying the work wouldn't make too much difference.


Thanks for the reply. Trenching the eaves trough is an easy win. As for your recommendation to seek second and third opinions... that's why I started the thread. Hoping others with similar experience can recommend contractors worth reaching out to. As already pointed out, Homestars/Angie's list, et al are basically paid advertising in one form or another and aren't worth the pixels they're printed on.


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