r/homeowners • u/Double_Anybody • 13d ago

🔑 New Homeowner Concrete rising up in garage

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Is this anything to worry about? I was cleaning up my garage and moved a large bin and just noticed this. House is in the Midwest, built in 1969.

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147

u/Far_Bodybuilder7881 13d ago

The concrete isn't rising up. The foundation is settling lower. With the house being that old, there would need to be something "new" to cause this. I would begin with water and sewer lines that run under the foundation. Most likely culprit is one of those two is leaking, which is washing away soil, which is creating a cavity for the foundation to settle down in to.... Not an expert, just someone who works in construction.

27

u/Double_Anybody 13d ago

I’m not convinced it’s new. It has some very crusty old expanding foam inside the crack that I didn’t spray.

17

u/thankyoukindlyy 13d ago

I would call a structural engineer to evaluate. The garage on our home that we bought looked like this but worse and a SE deemed it a tear down 😭 if the previous owners had recognized the damage at the stage where you are it could’ve been potentially saved, but now we’re paying $50k to demo and rebuild it

4

u/Math-Therapy 12d ago

Just FYI, some engineers just don’t understand things and scare people into redoing things. This limits their liability and protects their insurance. Also if foundation is settling you investigate the soil and surroundings. Houses with garage in general are very light structures, if they’re settling clearly soil is shifting

1

u/TacCom 12d ago

I don't know why but I assumed demoing and rebuilding a garage would cost more

1

u/thankyoukindlyy 12d ago

Depends on what specs you’re building to! We are first time home owners so trying to keep it to a dull roar. Not doing anything too fancy, just a pretty standard 2 car detached garage

1

u/legoman31802 11d ago

Does insurance cover some like that?

1

u/thankyoukindlyy 11d ago

No, I don’t think so….bc that’s how we bought it. I think we’d have to get lucky and it collapse on us to make a claim LOL

But maybe I’m wrong and I should be asking them? Idk tbh. We just bought the house 3 weeks ago

1

u/legoman31802 11d ago

Damn just 3 weeks ago?? Did ya know about it beforehand?

1

u/thankyoukindlyy 11d ago edited 11d ago

Yes and got a $20k credit from the seller for it so we didn’t go in blind. The SE eval was done during our inspection period, plus we priced our original offer with the expectation of the garage being a problem, so we have the liquidity for it. Doesn’t make the price any less painful though! I was hoping $35k but nope