Old crumbling stone foundation

[lovethesticks]

Dear Pat and Egon ( [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] sorry, couldn't resist [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ). Hi all - The foundation (stone and concrete) under my garage wall is crumbling and becoming very unstable. The outer wall is not plumb straight - it is plumb out of whack . I thought I could put floor jacks on the inside of the wall to brace things up while I tried to come up with a repair solution, but the only jacks I have found are only 8 feet high. This spring, a chunk of foundation (in the corner) fell out. Would it be reasonable to put a floor jack in that corner as a temporary support, and put another at the front of that wall? Although the garage is attached to the house, it has its own foundation all the way around except for the front, which has a door. My brothers planned to put the floorjacks on the inside of the wall, dig out the old foundation and wall, and rebuild it all. But I only have one brother now, and he isn't too keen to take this on. Does anyone have a suggestions? Or is more information needed? Or is this probably impossible for a do-it-yourself project? My son and his friends are willing to provide muscle and sweat, but I sure need a plan first. The house (full basement) was built about 1910, with the backroom (crawlspace) and garage (groundlevel) added at some later point. All hooked together, and ready to fall like dominos! Any suggestions would be welcome.

[egon]

A picture sure would be nice.
Are the house and garage an integral unit? What type of floor in the garage? What type of building regulations do you have?

I'm almost thinking that an assement by a qualified local person may be in order before any plans are made.

Here, I have seen an old house jacked up and a new basement poured under it. This is actually contractor type work due to the amount of work and equipment needed.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

I don't have any direct experience with your problem, but will say that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night! [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

There's a program on TV called MegaMovers about major moves of large buildings and such. In a recent episode they were going to move a lighthouse and discovered that the foundation was just loose stone rubble. No mortor at all. They solved the problem by shooting Gunnite onto both sides of the foundation. Gunnite is a sprayable concrete.

The gunnite kept everything from falling apart so they could drill their holes through the foundation for the lifting beams.

This may be an answer for your foundation problems.

[lovethesticks]

Have been doing some searching - gunnite sounds like a possibility. Mostly, I keep reading "don't do this, it is a job for pros" over and over. If I could afford pros, probably wouldn't live in an old farm house! May end up having to remove garage completely - oh well. Thanks for the input so far. Chris

[egon]

Perhaps try and give us another descrption.

Egon