House Foundation

[rway]

My friend had a house inspected and the foundation walls are cinder block. The inspection report says the walls have come in by up to .5 inch. There are some vertical cracks and horizontal cracks. A contractor told her the horizontal cracks are more concerning than the verttical. The house is in Wisonsin. Is this foundation something to be worried about, or is less than .5 inch movement to the inside of the house ok? Also, why would horizontal be more concerning?

 

[cva1993r]

Not sure about your area, but in Ontario Canada most concrete block walls for residential construction are not reinforced. The horizontal cracks may be considered of significance as this implies tension horizontally on the wall (meaning the wall is bending along a horizontal axis) possibly due to excess backfill, lack of properly draining backfill e.t.c....

1/2" displacent is something I would consider as significant. It is not clear if the displacement has stabilized. I.e. will the wall continue to move?

I'd retain a strucutral engineer to look at it...

CVA1993

 

[RussKowalik]

If the house is relatively new (say less than 40 years), this much displacement is a concern...unless there is evidence that the displacement hasn't proceeded in several years.

Has the wall remained straight but it tilted inward? If so, the house strucure may have started to buttress against further displacement. If the wall has bulged, the bulging will likely continue unless the force acting to bulge the wall has been reduced.

She should have it looked at by a structural engineer.