I was called to a residence to look at reasons for water pouring into the basement. Got that solved, but in that process, we discovered that the foundation was like nothing I'd seen before. The original home was built in the 1960s and the room I was looking at was added somewhere in the 70s, we think. From the outside in, there's a CMU wall that goes about 5' below grade, then stops on a small concrete footing; then about 1' wide of dirt topped with gravel, just to the top of the small footing; then there's an interior CMU wall about 3' tall that makes the total room height about 8'. This condition exists on all three exterior sides of the addition - both on the high retaining side and the low walkout basement side. The exterior and interior walls were definitely built by different masons; the exterior is a bit haphazardly mortared with no joint tooling and the interior is gorgeous. The floor level of the addition matches the level in the original.

See attached sketch.

So why on earth was this built like this? Has anyone seen this before?

cheers!

I have seen things like this when a crawlspace is dug out to create a basement, normally without consulting an engineer.

I agree - obvious non-permittted crawlspace expansion.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

there has to be a "gibbs rule" (see NCIS) to cover this ...
maybe "if it looks crazy, then it probably is"
or "just 'cause it hasn't fallen down, doesn't mean it's a fit structure"

But even with a walkout side? The crawlspace would have already been nearly a basement anyway. That's what gave me pause.

slta....sometimes there's just no accounting for the thought processes of owners and contractors...put them together and this is what you get!

I guess so. Cheers, folks.

Well, sometimes there is things that prevent you from digging a full basement everywhere....Like bedrock near the surface..happens a lot in KY according one of my friends/.

Most likely the crawlspace, as the guys say. was going to do it myself in our last home. I have heard of someone wanting a bigger house after one was started "on spec" by the builder.

Michael.
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

grounding the foundation onto bedrock is (of course) a good idea. but what you've got now is a house like a man/person/humanoid with one foot on a dock and the other on a boat, and the boat's drifting ...

Looked at one of these "expansions" a few years ago where the chimney foundation was undermined and the portion of the chimney structure in the crawlspace eventually collapsed in a heap, nearling killing the owner and "contractor". The brick portion above stayed intact, creating another problem.

Crap like this is nothing to mess with. It should be reported to the local jurisdiction and brought up to code at the very least - if for no other reason than public safety. Frankly, if a contractor was involved, he should lose his license. It's called "practicing engineering" without a license. I guess the contractor thought his lice3nse was good enough.

OK. I'll step down now. whew!

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

That detail(they are called dug-out basements), is fairly common in older homes with shallow basements or crawl spaces. Here is the story of one guy who decided to lower his basement floor a couple of feet. The house was about 100 years old.

BA