New Cocktail; The sink hole with a twist of tree root
Holly carp it’s been a long time since my last post. Lots has changed both with Nashvegas and my inspection biz. Running stronger than ever and back to solo as Aaron has moved on. One thing that hasn’t changed is … Continue reading →
Holly carp it’s been a long time since my last post. Lots has changed both with Nashvegas and my inspection biz. Running stronger than ever and back to solo as Aaron has moved on. One thing that hasn’t changed is that every day is new when you are out inspecting properties.
Nasty staircase crack.
This door would not close; imagine that.
I was able to slip a piece of 1/2″ drywall in between the bottom floor sill and the sub-floor.
Last week I inspected one side of a distressed duplex. It was a mid 80’s build with the usual bad actors…..but also had a lot of floor slope toward the duplex common wall on the main level at a bathroom. Associated wall cracking and door interference was also observed including a nasty horizontal crack at the staircase up.
At the 2nd level, the staircase dumps you out at the hall in front of the 2nd level bathroom…..again notable slope transferred from the 1st level. The floor slope was so significant the bottom wall plate 2×4 member was not in contact with the sub-floor with a 1/2″ gap present.
I always inspect the crawl space last to make sure all the plumbing fixtures have been operated for leak identification and to minimize bringing the crawl funk into the home. I suspected the origin of the floor slope was yet to be discovered in the crawl space.
Yup…Big hole.
Tree root supporting foundation.
Nice size foundation cracks.
Our savior!
Woooooooooooow!
The crawl space entrance was across from the duplex common foundation wall. Not too bad of a crawl; about 2.5 feet head clearance; plastic vapor barrier present; no friends! Not a whole lot of mystery as to the cause of the floor slope in the home once I had traversed to the common wall. An approx. 4′ deep 8′ wide hole was present in the soil below the bathroom. This appeared to be a sink hole either from past extended leakage from the bathroom or from natural causes. The bathrooms for both units were back to back and the hole extended past beneath the common foundation wall. Two large foundation cracks at the common foundation wall and at the rear foundation wall confirmed distress. Gee I thought……if it wasn’t for that 6″ diameter tree root under the common foundation wall footing; the center of the building may have collapsed! That’s right. The moisture from the sink hole likely attracted a root from a huge sycamore tree located about 5′ from the foundation at the rear. No bearing soil below the footing…
.just the root. How’s that for Tree-mendous support structure!
Seeing Knowing WTFing Inspector Bill Carlson
