Sometimes when you’re inspecting a house, on the second floor you’ll find severe wall cracking in the plaster - in multiple areas. And then later on, when you work your way to the cellar and multiple crawl spaces, you’ll see why.
This old farmhouse had bad wall cracking in the second floor, where there had been an addition added at some point in the past. When I did get down to the cellar and crawl spaces I saw the reasons why. These clients knew, and had already hired a structural engineer for that inspection the following day.
Scroll Through These Pictures Below That Highlight the Issues
The floor structure was supported improperly in several areas of the cellar and crawl spaces. There was standing water in the cellar, causing the unfastened 4x4 vertical supports to start to rot. The post jacks in the crawl space were not fastened to the DIY installed 4x4 beams. These beams spanned a distance that appeared to be too far, and were sagging. The jacks did not appear to be proper, as they looked like car bottle jacks. There were missing sections of joist.
Also, one of the post jacks is on a 4x8x16 masonry block that’s getting ready to slide off into a massive hole observed in this crawl space. If that occurs, the entire rear portion of the home will potentially collapse.
The clients knew of these issues, but wanted them documented nonetheless. I can’t blame them. And I can’t blame them for hiring a structural engineer to come in behind me, to do their thing too!