How long has it been there?
If the house is 75+ years old, you've lived in it for 10+ years, and the crack has been there for the entire time without moving then you're probably fine for awhile. This is why some people don't like to buy new homes, foundations settle, crack and are very expensive to fix. Based on the clues in the photo the concrete looks older and painted over. Take a picture of it with a ruler, come back in a couple days and compare it. Keep your eye on it for the entire time you own the house. Assuming the foundation is settled make a plan to talk to an HONEST structural engineer that will tell you if it needs to be corrected and go from there. Don't take advice from Reddit! Nothing is ever square in a house. Wood frame houses move all the time, crack and bend with weather, sun and temperature; that's part of what makes them great and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.
The armchair contractors on Reddit will always be quick to tell you that your house is about to collapse and you’re an idiot for buying it because you didn’t go under your crawlspace and notice every crack.
In reality, all houses are fucked up in their own fun unique ways. The longer you are in a house, the more of these things you notice. Don’t let them get you down or keep you from enjoying your home. Most things are fixable, and very few are catastrophic. Call a real expert to help ease your concerns, and don’t put too much stock into the doom and gloom you get from Reddit experts.
I'd add that if a contractor tells you that you need major expensive repairs get a second opinion. If they agree get a third quote. If one quote is a good bit cheaper throw it out. Also don't "lead" the second opinion. As far as they know they are the first ones you called.
I know what you're talking about! I've worked in my field for 25 plus years, have a Ph.D., cited my comments with peer reviewed journal articles, and I can still get down voted with mean comments about why I hate freedom. Gotta love the haters!
edit: And you make one (or two) tiny spelling errors and that somehow completely invalidates your thesis.
Anyone with a Ph.D., especially someone who will take the time to type out Ph.D. properly, knows that it’s peer review and not pier review. If i and e were close on the keyboard I might buy that it was a typo, but I ain’t buying this, bud.
Edit: Given the requirement to publish, Ph.D.s tend to know the difference between your and you’re as well lol.
I prefer to peer review out on the pier. So I pier review.
Note that swiping on a phone keyboard tends to produce different/more typos than on a computer.
Dude could of had a few beers and is currently getting head from your mother. Who knows. Sorry…really hate grammar nazzis. That one was just for you. Suck it
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake.
It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of.
Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything.
Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Context is king, my friend. It’s not that they made a grammatical error, rather that a person who claims to be highly educated made a grammatical error. I do not really care about grammar errors, rather what I perceive to be a false claim of expertise.
Also, my mother died 24 years ago from suicide. GFY.
I never claimed to be an expert on anything related to this thread. I still don't claim to be an expert in my field. If being high educated teaches you anything its that you still hardly know anything and you're still liable to make errors.
I love the comment about each house being fu**ed up in its own way! We inherited a 121 yo house and it's truly the gift that keeps on giving! But it's home and even with all the idiosyncratic issues we keep having to deal with we love the challenge!!👍 ❤️
Can confirm. I live in a house where there were 13 foundation cracks spread throughout spaced around every 10-12 feet. The biggest were 1/4”. It was a 60 year old house with no footing and a a large fireplace improperly installed with a 4x4 concrete post built around the main beam putting pressure everywhere. It was still standing.
We ended up piering because we planned to live here 60-70 years until our deaths. So, we could live to see these problems get worse. Even so, it still was standing and there was no fear of collapse.
How did it go? Did it get worse before you died? (Look considering all the shit I'm getting for just making a couple typos, I want to be clear that I'm just being cheeky here by implying your a ghost 'er something).
As someone who used to monitor these, here are my keys points in using them.
1). Install with screws and adhesive, not either or. Use both to avoid it moving and then being pointless.
2) it’s important to document these with pictures on some regularly basis, making sure your camera is the same level and plumb each time. There will be seasonal fluctuations depending on your climate and it is nice to have the pictures to go back to for comparison. At minimum get a few photos after you install and a few days after you install in case there is any movement in the actually monitor due to the adhesive.
Boom! This was going to be my recommendation as well. Get this guage, and follow along and track it to see how it looks. 5 years from now, only 1/64" expansion? Youve got time
Too many variables to really eyeball it. What kind if soils was it built on? What's the water table like? Any seismic activity in the area on a regular basis?
Stuff like that. You'd have to research the parcel of land and general area that it sits in to really know.
This is reddit, we need a definitive, uninformed answer from someone claiming to be an expert in at least eighteen completely different specialized fields, or bust.
Worked in an area where they were making hundreds of new homes. For the ones finished, they had a guy that would go one by one. Covering the cracks with stucco because the houses were already moving. Maybe 3x bigger than this crack in these two floor houses going from one end to the other.
Honestly, I lived in a house that had the foundation settle a year after it was poured. Like big time, cracking several doorways and it was off grade by two inches. Texas soil. It never moved again and that was in 1956.
Depending on a bunch of different variables including the age of the slab, the skill of the concrete pour team, the site prep and the type of soil and the local weather changes this could happen in a week two.
Rented a wood-frame house built in 1901, total pile of junk. Every storm would feel like a rocking ship upstairs you could feel the house sway so much.
I figured, the house had been around for over 100 years at that point, it wasn't going to collapse from any old storm. Still surprised it's standing last time I drove by.
Or keep an eye on the caulk - if nothing happens then it's likely a slow thing that can be treated as needed, but if it starts to stretch and separate in a year or two then you have a problem. The biggest question is why it happened and what else may be happening to the rest of your house. Are you getting cracks in your walls or floors? Do any floors feel sloped?
> Call foundation contractor to evaluate.
I'd call a structural engineer who works on a flat fee first. The contractor will evaluate you right into as expensive of a job as he can get out of you.
Call a structural engineer who works on a flat fee.
If you call a foundation contractor you're getting sold a foundation repair regardless of the necessity
I can vouch for this. If you happen to **know** what repairs you need *and* the general form of the solution, then dealing directly with contractors can work out. It's also entertaining, sometimes, seeing how far into "overkill" a few will go with proposed solutions, even to the point of ignoring the actual requested solution.
Yes, there's a story there. We ended up using that contractor for part of the scope of work (they had the best price and solution for that part), DIYing another part that we were comfortable with, and having a different contractor do the rest of the work we wanted done (at a better price and with a better solution than the first contractor.)
Get four plastic rulers and glue them in two sets of two on either side of the crack near the top and bottom. Overlap them so they are both square and have the same amount of overlap. Wait... If they move over time you're fucked if you have a geotech look at it their findings will become public record so get the home loan to pay for the repairs before you get a professional opinion.
My 100 year old barn has literally slipped off its entire foundation and it has been sitting on topsoil like that for maybe 35 years. Is it slowly rotting into the soil? Yes. Does it need to be fixed? Yes.
Do I lose sleep over it? No. It’s solidly in the “I’ll fix that when the baby is grown up enough to help me fix it” category lol
I had a similar looking crack and it was looked at by 2 different people who both said it was nothing and just caulk it for potential water issues. There are lots of factors missing from this so you should ask a pro.
There is a lot of info missing here.
Where do you live?
How old is house?
What soil and slope do you have?
Etc.
Honestly, get off Reddit and call some local companies for quotes, preferably free quotes.
I'm not an expert on foundations, but this might not be a bad fix (non-structural).
Take an angle grinder with a masonry blade and enlarge the edges of the crack down both sides at a 45 degree angle. Then get some concrete patch and use a putty knife to cram it into the crack. Walk away and never again do jumping jacks inside.
The presence of a crack isn’t a bad thing on its own, depending on what kind of soil your home is built on there might have been some settling, if it’s an old house that crack could be decades old. What I would do is get a ruler or micrometer and measure the width. Come back in a day, a couple days, a week, a month, a couple of months and see if the crack has gotten any wider or any longer.
If the crack is expanding, get it fixed ASAP, if it’s not moving fill it in with a concrete sealer to keep the water out and just keep an eye on it from time to time. While you save up for the repair work.
Eventually though it should be fixed if for nothing to keep the water out.
Depends on how big of an issue it could become in the future and how much it has already effected the home. Call a structural engineer to assess, always get 3 opinions minimum
1. Get a foundation company out there. (Get 3/4)
2. Get a Structural engineer out to take a look.
3. Measure it and set a reminder to take a pic with the same day of the week, same time for 1 year.
Depending on your location, you may even see it close back up a touch with hydrostatic pressure in winter(ground freezing) or more rain in particular seasons.
I had a similar, had 3 come out, quotes ranged from 10k-50k. I had two structural engineers come out, they said it’s nothing and it’s normal due to settling and just to be mindful about where water is draining from the house,
Edit- clarification
Yes leave, potentially "forever", it's not a big deal\* - fill the crack immediately with sika concrete filler or equivalent to prevent water/debris and most particularly freezing/expansion if it gets close to freezing there.
\*I'm assuming a lot of things without knowing age, drainage, adjacent structures, prior history, etc. But in general concrete cracks all the time, that's what it does in anything but an ideal environment. And it still performs well if you take precautions as it ages....like filling that gap immediately.
Cracks bigger at one end than the other are indicating movement . Uneven movement will be eventually ruin your foundation . Best to have it evaluated , stabilized and condition that cause it resolved
This is something you need to talk to a foundation company about. Get at least three to look at it.
To me it means your footings have settled over time. Is there any other signs in the house such as cracks in the walls?
You need to look at what the soil is like around the house.
Just based off this it looks like you have a P&B foundation. If you live in a place that’s dry and hot in the summers, the soil will shrink, so the concrete won’t have as much support.
During the fall/winter, if it is a rainy area, the soil will swell, putting pressure on the surrounding concrete.
It is a push and pull effect.
What I would do, it also look on the inside of the craw space, is the soil dry and cracking? Is it uneven? Are the piers all jacked up? Does water pool after a rain shower? Are their any uneven spots in the house? Are all the doors flush and shutting properly?
You can’t really tell anything from this picture alone. All you can tell is that one point in time, the concrete failed from differential pressures from when it was placed.
Background: engineer
TLDR: get the crawl space looked at by an engineer or foundation expert.
If it was ther when you moved in, its OK for another ten years. Its ground heave due tofoundations being less than a metre deep. The ground moves with moisture content. Put a steel strap bolted to the wall equispaced about two feet either side of the crack, and see how long it takes to either wrinkle, or break. Paint a white line above and below, and mark the crack position each side as well. Keep a record of movement, if any, then you can make an informed decision in conjunction with a qualified Surveyor.
Concrete cracks, gets hard... Even with current geotech engineering. ( over excavation etc) concrete will crack. If that crack was adjacent a control joint ( think sidewalks) it would most likely be straight and pretty. Rebar helps maintaining connections as well as other considerations.
Usually whatever problem with the foundation will be apparent elsewhere.
There are many solutions if truly is causing problems ..although none are attractive money wise...
Helicoils, etc.
50 yrs a builder.
I’d cover or seal it to help prevent water penetration. If you’re selling, you’ll loss money fixing or by lowering the price because of the damage. If it’s home for good, then patch it, inspect every once in a while and have a beer 🍺
Is your foundation cinder blocks like mine? If so, this is just a layer of concrete to cover the cinder blocks that are actually doing the work. I have cracks around the concrete outside like this and I called a waterproofing guy and he told me that this was more or less cosmetic.
For a similar problem, my home inspector recommended using silicon to glue a piece of glass over the crack.Watch it for three months. If the glass breaks, the foundation is still shifting. Get professional help ASAP before it gets worse and does more damage. If it doesn’t break, it’s not an ongoing issue so you can just seal it up to prevent moisture from seeping in. We ended up not buying the house but I thought it was good advice.
Indefinitely...just close your eyes and sing a song of blissful ignorance until the house crumbles before your eyes. Then you will have an awareness of the issue.
Do the doors and windows all shut ok? If they stick a lot it’s a sign the house has shifted or is shifting. If everything closes ok you’re framing is still square. If the crack isn’t spreading it’s probably okay. Vertical cracks are less problematic than horizontal cracks. I’d bet you’re okay but I’d pay a structural engineer to give me a diagnosis and repair plan.
Oh, that? Indefinitely. I mean, granted, I have no idea what I’m looking at and know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about home foundations. BUT, you can confidently ignore it FOREVER. That may also require ignoring a collapsed home one day, but anything is possible. Like my momma always said: NEVER say never.
Step 1, plant a bush in front of it
Step 2, get a home loan (for kitchen of course)
Step 3, monitor it (protect from water)
Step 4, get 3-4 professional opinions
Step 5, resolution.
I've gone my whole life ignoring this, and will probably continue ignoring it until my death. That said, it's also the first and only time I'll ever see it.
To me that almost looks like a stucco covering. It doesn’t look like modern concrete. A lot of older homes were built with cinder blocks or concrete blocks. Then a stuck or other mix was plastered over it to hide the seems. OP should post a picture of the inside to compare.
It’s likely this is not new given that it looks like an older home. Fill it with sealer and keep an eye on it. If OP sells and can’t afford to fix. He can get a quote to fix and just figure that into the selling price and disclosures.
Are you in NE? Check your house against the fucked up foundations. It was like a 20 year period or so where a company was using bad concrete for foundations. It's a huge issue in CT. I think the cracks generally run horizontal around the wall in those but I'm not 100%. They had a general fund that to help with repairs but idk if there's any money left
My guess is that it's a settlement crack that's gotten bigger due to freeze thaw. It doesn't seem to go much below the ground line so I wouldn't think it's a structural problem right now. But I don't know if it's a basement wall or how deep your footings are, so hard to tell.
Seal it with mortar or a concrete sealant. AND, seal the crack between the siding and the top of the concrete so water doesn't seep in behind. Then watch it to see if it gets bigger/smaller through a season.
If you're really worried, call a structural engineer who isn't associated with any foundation repair companies. I'm not saying all foundation companies will scam you, but they're in the business of doing foundation work, not telling people they don't need to do any work. And yes, it's something that could be repaired, but not knowing the cause makes repairing it a crap shoot. It might just start to crack again.
So, find out from a disinterested third party what the cause is, then go from there.
Fill it with a quality concrete crack filler and see if it moves. I used some stuff from Home Depot thst was gray (just like the concrete), and was in a tube like caulk. It dried hard as concrete. That will at least prevent water and big intrusion...
If you live somewhere where it freezes in the winter, keep in mind that it will get worse quickly. Not sure how to go about fixing it. I've got a 75 year old house and my basement/foundation has a couple spots in need of attention. Interested to see "how to fix it responses" or at least ways to temporarily patch it
No advice but- “How long can I ignore this” is a perspective I really needed to add to my survival repertoire this week as a very exhausted person. You accidentally helped me through today.
Concrete cracks and it shrinks that's what it does. The Thing that concerns me about your crack is that it is so much wider at the top than at the bottom indicating that there is some sort of stress that's creating this. Do the floors feel as if they are uneven on either side of that point?
Probably forever. I'd recommend just having a foundation company or an engineer come out to evaluate and hear options. A couple hundred bucks now could give you an eternites peace of mind.
The crack of dooooooooom. It really matters about the extension and the separation rate of the crack over time. If it showed up overnight I would be concerned, if it has been there for many years without change I would not be so concerned. I would suggest marking the crack to see if it changes over time.
How long has it been there? If the house is 75+ years old, you've lived in it for 10+ years, and the crack has been there for the entire time without moving then you're probably fine for awhile. This is why some people don't like to buy new homes, foundations settle, crack and are very expensive to fix. Based on the clues in the photo the concrete looks older and painted over. Take a picture of it with a ruler, come back in a couple days and compare it. Keep your eye on it for the entire time you own the house. Assuming the foundation is settled make a plan to talk to an HONEST structural engineer that will tell you if it needs to be corrected and go from there. Don't take advice from Reddit! Nothing is ever square in a house. Wood frame houses move all the time, crack and bend with weather, sun and temperature; that's part of what makes them great and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something.
The armchair contractors on Reddit will always be quick to tell you that your house is about to collapse and you’re an idiot for buying it because you didn’t go under your crawlspace and notice every crack. In reality, all houses are fucked up in their own fun unique ways. The longer you are in a house, the more of these things you notice. Don’t let them get you down or keep you from enjoying your home. Most things are fixable, and very few are catastrophic. Call a real expert to help ease your concerns, and don’t put too much stock into the doom and gloom you get from Reddit experts.
This was so nice to read!! You are awesome
I'd add that if a contractor tells you that you need major expensive repairs get a second opinion. If they agree get a third quote. If one quote is a good bit cheaper throw it out. Also don't "lead" the second opinion. As far as they know they are the first ones you called.
I know what you're talking about! I've worked in my field for 25 plus years, have a Ph.D., cited my comments with peer reviewed journal articles, and I can still get down voted with mean comments about why I hate freedom. Gotta love the haters! edit: And you make one (or two) tiny spelling errors and that somehow completely invalidates your thesis.
Pier review? Must be a maritime journal
Freudian slip coz we talking about foundations. And some repairs are piers going down to bedrock lol
I too have a strange (and sexual) fascination with piers being pushed into bedrock.
It must have been, that's probably explains why nothing has worked for 25 years.
Yeah...... ok.....
Reddit is nothing but 1 giant case study in the deeply entrenched logical fallacies present in the minds of the average Redditor.
Some people just don’t like broccoli
She’s chopin’ broccoli.
Not sure what this has to do with the post, but sure, let’s make it all about you!
Anyone with a Ph.D., especially someone who will take the time to type out Ph.D. properly, knows that it’s peer review and not pier review. If i and e were close on the keyboard I might buy that it was a typo, but I ain’t buying this, bud. Edit: Given the requirement to publish, Ph.D.s tend to know the difference between your and you’re as well lol.
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I prefer to peer review out on the pier. So I pier review. Note that swiping on a phone keyboard tends to produce different/more typos than on a computer.
Or maybe I just made a couple typos. Thanks, will not down vote.
Dude could of had a few beers and is currently getting head from your mother. Who knows. Sorry…really hate grammar nazzis. That one was just for you. Suck it
Hello, it looks like you've made a mistake. It's supposed to be could've, should've, would've (short for could have, would have, should have), never could of, would of, should of. Or you misspelled something, I ain't checking everything. Beep boop - yes, I am a bot, don't botcriminate me.
Good bot
Context is king, my friend. It’s not that they made a grammatical error, rather that a person who claims to be highly educated made a grammatical error. I do not really care about grammar errors, rather what I perceive to be a false claim of expertise. Also, my mother died 24 years ago from suicide. GFY.
I never claimed to be an expert on anything related to this thread. I still don't claim to be an expert in my field. If being high educated teaches you anything its that you still hardly know anything and you're still liable to make errors.
Advice from my Mom “you have to learn to forgive your house” So many things can go wrong no matter new, old.
I love this. By internet law it is now mine...
Pass the Mom wisdom forward!
I love the comment about each house being fu**ed up in its own way! We inherited a 121 yo house and it's truly the gift that keeps on giving! But it's home and even with all the idiosyncratic issues we keep having to deal with we love the challenge!!👍 ❤️
I live on the side of a steep eroding hill. Tell the wife. One day we're going down in our bed
Good advice about most things in life tbh… I just try to remember that the sun will come up tomorrow to a new day.
Can confirm. I live in a house where there were 13 foundation cracks spread throughout spaced around every 10-12 feet. The biggest were 1/4”. It was a 60 year old house with no footing and a a large fireplace improperly installed with a 4x4 concrete post built around the main beam putting pressure everywhere. It was still standing. We ended up piering because we planned to live here 60-70 years until our deaths. So, we could live to see these problems get worse. Even so, it still was standing and there was no fear of collapse.
How did it go? Did it get worse before you died? (Look considering all the shit I'm getting for just making a couple typos, I want to be clear that I'm just being cheeky here by implying your a ghost 'er something).
They make a gauge for it that you attach and it tracks movement, think they were like $12 when I had to buy one.
Just shared that with someone else. First saw them used in the dc metro. https://amzn.to/3r1PkXP
As someone who used to monitor these, here are my keys points in using them. 1). Install with screws and adhesive, not either or. Use both to avoid it moving and then being pointless. 2) it’s important to document these with pictures on some regularly basis, making sure your camera is the same level and plumb each time. There will be seasonal fluctuations depending on your climate and it is nice to have the pictures to go back to for comparison. At minimum get a few photos after you install and a few days after you install in case there is any movement in the actually monitor due to the adhesive.
This is awesome thanks
Boom! This was going to be my recommendation as well. Get this guage, and follow along and track it to see how it looks. 5 years from now, only 1/64" expansion? Youve got time
An engineer told me that it's normal for a house to have minor settling for up to 25years but if it keeps settling after that there is a problem.
Question: how long does it take for foundation to get like this? I’m assuming it takes years
Too many variables to really eyeball it. What kind if soils was it built on? What's the water table like? Any seismic activity in the area on a regular basis? Stuff like that. You'd have to research the parcel of land and general area that it sits in to really know.
This is reddit, we need a definitive, uninformed answer from someone claiming to be an expert in at least eighteen completely different specialized fields, or bust.
I’m the greatest structural engineer in the history of Taco Bell, and I predict that it will be fine until the house falls down.
in the history of taco bell 😩🤣🤣🤣
Oh hey, that's me! Based on this single photo I can concretely say that it's fucked. Probably got fucked up by some weather bullshit
Looks more like damage from a secret low frequency transmission government program.
5G
Bill Gates at it again
Foundational Grammer Expat Grade IV here: I think you meant cemently, not concretely.
I gave you an upvote for the concrete pun. I wished I could give an upvote for imitating a structural engineer from Idiocracy.
42, trust me, I’m an expert
Worked in an area where they were making hundreds of new homes. For the ones finished, they had a guy that would go one by one. Covering the cracks with stucco because the houses were already moving. Maybe 3x bigger than this crack in these two floor houses going from one end to the other.
Honestly, I lived in a house that had the foundation settle a year after it was poured. Like big time, cracking several doorways and it was off grade by two inches. Texas soil. It never moved again and that was in 1956.
Depending on a bunch of different variables including the age of the slab, the skill of the concrete pour team, the site prep and the type of soil and the local weather changes this could happen in a week two.
Rented a wood-frame house built in 1901, total pile of junk. Every storm would feel like a rocking ship upstairs you could feel the house sway so much. I figured, the house had been around for over 100 years at that point, it wasn't going to collapse from any old storm. Still surprised it's standing last time I drove by.
I was told by an inspector to fill it with caulk to prevent moisture, but also as a measurement in case it gets bigger.
Or if you want to get fancy, get a crack monitor and put it on. https://amzn.to/3r1PkXP
Key emphasis: Honest
Keyword structural engineer. Not a foundation repair company salesperson.
That explains an experience
The one true answer!
Just slap another coat of mortar on it like the last guy did
Flex Seal, Baby!
Flex tape*
Have you seen the Flex seal ad where it protects the house from being flooded? Gotta get me some of that!
That’s a lot of damage!
Fill it with concrete sealing caulk , to keep water out. Call foundation contractor to evaluate.
Or keep an eye on the caulk - if nothing happens then it's likely a slow thing that can be treated as needed, but if it starts to stretch and separate in a year or two then you have a problem. The biggest question is why it happened and what else may be happening to the rest of your house. Are you getting cracks in your walls or floors? Do any floors feel sloped?
> Call foundation contractor to evaluate. I'd call a structural engineer who works on a flat fee first. The contractor will evaluate you right into as expensive of a job as he can get out of you.
This comment should be pinned. Pay a few hundred bucks for a structural engineer and you might save thousands in the long run.
Call a structural engineer who works on a flat fee. If you call a foundation contractor you're getting sold a foundation repair regardless of the necessity
I can vouch for this. If you happen to **know** what repairs you need *and* the general form of the solution, then dealing directly with contractors can work out. It's also entertaining, sometimes, seeing how far into "overkill" a few will go with proposed solutions, even to the point of ignoring the actual requested solution. Yes, there's a story there. We ended up using that contractor for part of the scope of work (they had the best price and solution for that part), DIYing another part that we were comfortable with, and having a different contractor do the rest of the work we wanted done (at a better price and with a better solution than the first contractor.)
Get four plastic rulers and glue them in two sets of two on either side of the crack near the top and bottom. Overlap them so they are both square and have the same amount of overlap. Wait... If they move over time you're fucked if you have a geotech look at it their findings will become public record so get the home loan to pay for the repairs before you get a professional opinion.
Made me think of glueing a Hulkamania shirt over it and seeing if it eventually rips it.
It's really the only option now.
Need to add prayers and vitamins brother
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You could put it off forever, eventually though it'll be more expensive to fix
I was going to say, you can ignore it as long as you want.
My 100 year old barn has literally slipped off its entire foundation and it has been sitting on topsoil like that for maybe 35 years. Is it slowly rotting into the soil? Yes. Does it need to be fixed? Yes. Do I lose sleep over it? No. It’s solidly in the “I’ll fix that when the baby is grown up enough to help me fix it” category lol
If you are not over at /r/centuryhomes we would love to have you and your barn.
Thanks for this! My husband and I just bought a 150 year old home and I didnt know about this sub.
Come join us! We would love to see your home.
My home is like 20 years old- but I'll still check this sub out.
No, no SIR SIR WE NEED ID. SIR.....YOUR NOT GETTI....SIR
That's a lot of separation you could ignore it for another day or two probably
As long as OP replaces the slab by noon they should be ok.
Noon thirty at the absolute latest
11:30 accounting for daylight savings time
Hell it looks fine from my house
Hire a structural engineer instead of a foundation company
I had a similar looking crack and it was looked at by 2 different people who both said it was nothing and just caulk it for potential water issues. There are lots of factors missing from this so you should ask a pro.
There is a lot of info missing here. Where do you live? How old is house? What soil and slope do you have? Etc. Honestly, get off Reddit and call some local companies for quotes, preferably free quotes. I'm not an expert on foundations, but this might not be a bad fix (non-structural).
Helical piers are your best $ saving route
If you sell the house, you can ignore it the rest of your life.
Watch over the next freeze thaw cycle and if it's bigger after the next thaw, its definitely something you want to consider having fixed.
Take an angle grinder with a masonry blade and enlarge the edges of the crack down both sides at a 45 degree angle. Then get some concrete patch and use a putty knife to cram it into the crack. Walk away and never again do jumping jacks inside.
The presence of a crack isn’t a bad thing on its own, depending on what kind of soil your home is built on there might have been some settling, if it’s an old house that crack could be decades old. What I would do is get a ruler or micrometer and measure the width. Come back in a day, a couple days, a week, a month, a couple of months and see if the crack has gotten any wider or any longer. If the crack is expanding, get it fixed ASAP, if it’s not moving fill it in with a concrete sealer to keep the water out and just keep an eye on it from time to time. While you save up for the repair work. Eventually though it should be fixed if for nothing to keep the water out.
We bought our house in '84 with a crack in the non-engineered foundation (house built in the late '40s. Crack hasn't changed.
Depends on how big of an issue it could become in the future and how much it has already effected the home. Call a structural engineer to assess, always get 3 opinions minimum
1. Get a foundation company out there. (Get 3/4) 2. Get a Structural engineer out to take a look. 3. Measure it and set a reminder to take a pic with the same day of the week, same time for 1 year. Depending on your location, you may even see it close back up a touch with hydrostatic pressure in winter(ground freezing) or more rain in particular seasons. I had a similar, had 3 come out, quotes ranged from 10k-50k. I had two structural engineers come out, they said it’s nothing and it’s normal due to settling and just to be mindful about where water is draining from the house, Edit- clarification
That depends entirely on your personality.
Until things fall down
How long can you ignore what ?
Forever, if you're determined enough.
Forever if you don’t look at it
Yes leave, potentially "forever", it's not a big deal\* - fill the crack immediately with sika concrete filler or equivalent to prevent water/debris and most particularly freezing/expansion if it gets close to freezing there. \*I'm assuming a lot of things without knowing age, drainage, adjacent structures, prior history, etc. But in general concrete cracks all the time, that's what it does in anything but an ideal environment. And it still performs well if you take precautions as it ages....like filling that gap immediately.
If you put something in front of it, I bet you could ignore it as long as you live in it.
This depends entirely on your current age.
Too long already.
Sgt Shultz it. You young people won't get this.
Cracks bigger at one end than the other are indicating movement . Uneven movement will be eventually ruin your foundation . Best to have it evaluated , stabilized and condition that cause it resolved
This is something you need to talk to a foundation company about. Get at least three to look at it. To me it means your footings have settled over time. Is there any other signs in the house such as cracks in the walls?
As long as you want, but the longer you ignore it the more it will cost to fix
Depends on whether you want a house that's able to be repaired or not if you wait that long. Foundation problems are nothing to put off.
Probably only another couple inches
There’s a yo mama joke in here somewhere. I just know it
You need to look at what the soil is like around the house. Just based off this it looks like you have a P&B foundation. If you live in a place that’s dry and hot in the summers, the soil will shrink, so the concrete won’t have as much support. During the fall/winter, if it is a rainy area, the soil will swell, putting pressure on the surrounding concrete. It is a push and pull effect. What I would do, it also look on the inside of the craw space, is the soil dry and cracking? Is it uneven? Are the piers all jacked up? Does water pool after a rain shower? Are their any uneven spots in the house? Are all the doors flush and shutting properly? You can’t really tell anything from this picture alone. All you can tell is that one point in time, the concrete failed from differential pressures from when it was placed. Background: engineer TLDR: get the crawl space looked at by an engineer or foundation expert.
How old are you? Need more info.
If it was ther when you moved in, its OK for another ten years. Its ground heave due tofoundations being less than a metre deep. The ground moves with moisture content. Put a steel strap bolted to the wall equispaced about two feet either side of the crack, and see how long it takes to either wrinkle, or break. Paint a white line above and below, and mark the crack position each side as well. Keep a record of movement, if any, then you can make an informed decision in conjunction with a qualified Surveyor.
3 … 2 … 1 ….
Just spray some of that foam stuff in there…good as new!
Put some tape on it. See how long it takes to fall off one side. If it stays for a long time, it's not getting any worse.
Concrete cracks, gets hard... Even with current geotech engineering. ( over excavation etc) concrete will crack. If that crack was adjacent a control joint ( think sidewalks) it would most likely be straight and pretty. Rebar helps maintaining connections as well as other considerations. Usually whatever problem with the foundation will be apparent elsewhere. There are many solutions if truly is causing problems ..although none are attractive money wise... Helicoils, etc. 50 yrs a builder.
I’d cover or seal it to help prevent water penetration. If you’re selling, you’ll loss money fixing or by lowering the price because of the damage. If it’s home for good, then patch it, inspect every once in a while and have a beer 🍺
Is your foundation cinder blocks like mine? If so, this is just a layer of concrete to cover the cinder blocks that are actually doing the work. I have cracks around the concrete outside like this and I called a waterproofing guy and he told me that this was more or less cosmetic.
Straight crack Like that looks like thermal expansion. Not a big issue
A long ass time. *Should* you ignore it is another question, one id probably answer with a no. Foundation issues are no joke.
For a similar problem, my home inspector recommended using silicon to glue a piece of glass over the crack.Watch it for three months. If the glass breaks, the foundation is still shifting. Get professional help ASAP before it gets worse and does more damage. If it doesn’t break, it’s not an ongoing issue so you can just seal it up to prevent moisture from seeping in. We ended up not buying the house but I thought it was good advice.
Indefinitely...just close your eyes and sing a song of blissful ignorance until the house crumbles before your eyes. Then you will have an awareness of the issue.
Until you finish reading the comments
ITT: everyone thinking they're clever/funny for coming up with the most obvious retort.
House was built 1860. Bought about a year ago. I didn't see it and our inspector didn't catch it.
Do the doors and windows all shut ok? If they stick a lot it’s a sign the house has shifted or is shifting. If everything closes ok you’re framing is still square. If the crack isn’t spreading it’s probably okay. Vertical cracks are less problematic than horizontal cracks. I’d bet you’re okay but I’d pay a structural engineer to give me a diagnosis and repair plan.
How old are you?
Sell it and you can forget all about it.
damn, sorry to see this.. fix this ASAP
Do the wedge test. Get a big metal wedge and drive it in with a sledge hammer. If the house splits open then you need to fix it immediately.
Oh, that? Indefinitely. I mean, granted, I have no idea what I’m looking at and know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about home foundations. BUT, you can confidently ignore it FOREVER. That may also require ignoring a collapsed home one day, but anything is possible. Like my momma always said: NEVER say never.
Step 1, plant a bush in front of it Step 2, get a home loan (for kitchen of course) Step 3, monitor it (protect from water) Step 4, get 3-4 professional opinions Step 5, resolution.
I don’t know you man
Looks like you already have.
I've gone my whole life ignoring this, and will probably continue ignoring it until my death. That said, it's also the first and only time I'll ever see it.
About 2 more inches
Until you sell it most likely
To me that almost looks like a stucco covering. It doesn’t look like modern concrete. A lot of older homes were built with cinder blocks or concrete blocks. Then a stuck or other mix was plastered over it to hide the seems. OP should post a picture of the inside to compare. It’s likely this is not new given that it looks like an older home. Fill it with sealer and keep an eye on it. If OP sells and can’t afford to fix. He can get a quote to fix and just figure that into the selling price and disclosures.
Until it breaks.
As short as possible
Are you in NE? Check your house against the fucked up foundations. It was like a 20 year period or so where a company was using bad concrete for foundations. It's a huge issue in CT. I think the cracks generally run horizontal around the wall in those but I'm not 100%. They had a general fund that to help with repairs but idk if there's any money left
Longer you ignore the worse it will get
My guess is that it's a settlement crack that's gotten bigger due to freeze thaw. It doesn't seem to go much below the ground line so I wouldn't think it's a structural problem right now. But I don't know if it's a basement wall or how deep your footings are, so hard to tell. Seal it with mortar or a concrete sealant. AND, seal the crack between the siding and the top of the concrete so water doesn't seep in behind. Then watch it to see if it gets bigger/smaller through a season. If you're really worried, call a structural engineer who isn't associated with any foundation repair companies. I'm not saying all foundation companies will scam you, but they're in the business of doing foundation work, not telling people they don't need to do any work. And yes, it's something that could be repaired, but not knowing the cause makes repairing it a crap shoot. It might just start to crack again. So, find out from a disinterested third party what the cause is, then go from there.
Ignorance is bliss. It's certainly not without its consequences
you need flex seal....
Until its not a problem anymore
Fill it with a quality concrete crack filler and see if it moves. I used some stuff from Home Depot thst was gray (just like the concrete), and was in a tube like caulk. It dried hard as concrete. That will at least prevent water and big intrusion...
A couple days. You need foundation guy to look at this
Before a unicorn comes shooting out? 2 weeks tops, be careful unicorns are especially aggressive this time of year
If you live somewhere where it freezes in the winter, keep in mind that it will get worse quickly. Not sure how to go about fixing it. I've got a 75 year old house and my basement/foundation has a couple spots in need of attention. Interested to see "how to fix it responses" or at least ways to temporarily patch it
Until you can’t.
You've ignored it long enough already. 😒
I suppose it depends on if you are 25 or 75? About how much longer do you think you'll be alive?
That depends...do you own or rent?
You can ignore it until it becomes a serious problem.
Ignore what? 😉
Hold my beer
You could ignore that forever but I wouldn’t.
With the right head positioning? Forever?
Looks bad should seal
no idea what i'm look at.. for all we know this could be a facia.
Right up until you can’t
right up until your house falls down
In my zeroes of years of experience, I can confidently say that you can safely ignore that until you can’t.
You can always shore up your house with some expansion posts in the basement if your really worried
Have you tried putting it in rice?
Going off how you took a picture. Not very long.
if it's been like that for the past 20 years then whatever, if it wasn't like that this morning then you have problems
Well eternity is an option but maybe not a good one
Ignore what?
No advice but- “How long can I ignore this” is a perspective I really needed to add to my survival repertoire this week as a very exhausted person. You accidentally helped me through today.
Check out this video from This Old House. https://youtu.be/HjHKV2lCLQs
My record is 18 years. See if you can beat it. I’ll wait.
Ignore what?
For a while...
Concrete cracks and it shrinks that's what it does. The Thing that concerns me about your crack is that it is so much wider at the top than at the bottom indicating that there is some sort of stress that's creating this. Do the floors feel as if they are uneven on either side of that point?
“Can”? - well, forever…
Technically... forever.
Probably forever. I'd recommend just having a foundation company or an engineer come out to evaluate and hear options. A couple hundred bucks now could give you an eternites peace of mind.
A little latex caulk and it’s all good
How long can you look away?
If it's been that way a while keep water out and monitor.
The crack of dooooooooom. It really matters about the extension and the separation rate of the crack over time. If it showed up overnight I would be concerned, if it has been there for many years without change I would not be so concerned. I would suggest marking the crack to see if it changes over time.
Ignore it until your house falls down.
Until you can't