ATYPICAL Foundation repair with no crawlspace clearance

Challenge

This Bartlett, TN residence showed many signs of foundation failure including cracks in the interior and exterior walls and sinking floors. Implementing a proper solution for this homeowner was more labor intensive than most projects. The house was built around 1905: before code required enough clearance for a person to crawl under. The house had a very low clearance of only 10-12 inches, making it impossible for the team to crawl under the house. Therefore, the inspection had to take place from the interior of the house. The client originally called Redeemers Group, because the house was sinking in the middle. It had been settling for many years. There were cracks in the sheet rock all through the home and un-level floors. Additionally, the home was built with two main support beams and over time they had failed.

Solution

System Design Specialist, Michael Lurie, determined that despite the low clearance in the crawl space, the SmartJack™ system was the best solution for this homeowners problem.

Therefore, the only option to fix the foundation properly for this homeowner was to access the foundation from the inside of the house. Based on the severity of the repairs needed, the team used post hole diggers to create 14 holes in the floor to create access at different points. The team had to manually carry 5 gallon buckets of dirt out of the house. Once they were able to dig far enough in to the earth, they filled the bottom of the holes with engineered fill, compacted it down for even weight displacement (allows us to maximize the bulb effect), and then used SmartJack™ to stabilize the house, bring the floors back to level, and close the cracks in the interior walls. Some of the SmartJack™ system design features include: a compacted crushed stone base, a precast concrete footing, a 3 ½ inch diameter steel column, and an adjustable threaded rod top set the height. All of the steel components are galvanized and zinc-plated for corrosion protection. Once the SmartJacks™ were in place, the soil was brought back in to fill the tops of the holes back in, concrete was poured the close up the interior holes in the foundation, and the flooring was replaced.