Block Pier Construction - InspectionNews

Greg Jenkins · #1 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 08:58 AM

Very often, I enter a crawl space only to see where someone has installed supporting piers in various locations to support a sagging floor structure or a poorly supported main house beam. In my area, most crawl spaces have very little head room so you know is must be very difficult to work in. Typically when I see these add on block piers (cmu's) they are dry laid and generally resting on the soil (no footer). In addition, they are usually not anchored to the floor strucutre. Typically it is a block pier with wood or metal shims. Likewise, I will often see additional beams installed to support several sagging floor joists. Again, beams, piers, and joists are not anchored together. My question is: Should one expect to see footers beneath piers, and beams and joists anchored together. Again, a lot of the spaces are very difficult to get into much less excavate an area to place a footer beneath a new pier. I am just curious as to what other people are seeing and how far to go when suggesting repairs. I am posting a few pictures as an example.

John Arnold · #2 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 09:55 AM

Greg - There's no way that I, a generalist home inspector, am going to sign off on anything that looks remotely like your photos, regardless of how hard it may be to work in there, so I advise the buyer that there's non-professional and improper structural supports and a competent contractor or engineer needs to be called in.

Jerry McCarthy · #3 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 10:21 AM

John is correct, report what you see then defer the condition to a qualified source. Your job has been done.

Rick Bunzel · #4 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 06:43 PM

Greg,

Yours looked pretty good compared to last weeks. My redneck engineers couldn't even afford a whole cinderblock!

Richard Rushing · #5 (**permalink**) 07-30-2007, 08:03 PM

No only that, they turned them the wrong way...

RR

Thom Walker · #6 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 06:42 AM

This was one of my favorites.

Jerry Peck · #7 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 02:03 PM

Thom,

It's easier to view photo if you just upload the photo and not make it into a pdf file.

Thom Walker · #8 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 04:59 PM

You're retired. How easy does it have to get? Double click. Ouch! The pain!

The photo is no longer in jpeg. It's part of a WORD doc. pdf was the logical choice.

Jerry Peck · #9 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Walker

You're retired. How easy does it have to get? Double click. Ouch! The pain!

Enough of a pain to not always look at those in pdf format.

Quote:

The photo is no longer in jpeg. It's part of a WORD doc. pdf was the logical choice.

To me, the logical choice is to click on the photo and copy it to its own file. *I* would *never* not keep my photos separate from the report. I keep my photos in their own folders by client name, and insert *copies* into the reports.

I'm retired, but I'm not a slave to opening multiple files just to see a photo. Usually I just don't bother with them.

Your choice.

Jack Feldmann · #10 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 06:18 PM

As much as I hate to admit it - I agree with Jerry on this one.

I single clicked the pdf file, my computer then had to open Adobe Reader to open the file, after viewing the photo, I had to close out of Reader, close another window and get back to InspectionNews. More than a couple steps.

Maybe I'm just lazy.

To the question at hand. While I see many dry stacked blocks, I always call them out as an issue. Every engineer's design for repairs has called out for a footer uder the added piers or posts.
JF

Rick Hurst · #11 (**permalink**) 07-31-2007, 06:56 PM

Thom,

Why not just save your HI inspection photos in a file so you'll have them for future reference or when posting on the board here.

We save all of our photos in a file labeled with the property address along with the HI report. Save all your photos, not just the ones you put on the report.

Nolan Kienitz · #12 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 09:05 PM

And now from a home built in ~1929.

Bruce Breedlove · #13 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 09:32 PM

"They sure don't build houses like they used to."

"No, sir. They won't let us."

Rick Hurst · #14 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 10:04 PM

Nolan,

Let me guess, the east side of McKinney.

Nolan Kienitz · #15 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 10:32 PM

Rick,

Nope. On Live Oak just East of North Central and not far from Swiss Avenue homes.

Rick Hurst · #16 (**permalink**) 08-01-2007, 10:36 PM

Oh yes, the Historic area.

As the realtors say, Homes with Southern Charm.