Hi, Eric Scheele with KC Property Guys and KC Pier. Today we are out in Olathe, Kansas with the KC Pier crew who are doing an extensive foundation repair project on a house that was purchased by KC Property Guys. The backstory to this particular house is originally KC Pier was called out to this house by the homeowners who were wanting the foundation assessed from a structural consultation perspective to ultimately get the house ready for market. After looking at the extent of the damage, they ultimately were referred back to me from the KC Property Guys’ perspective. I came out and talked to them, and we came to a cash buy. At this point now, we have the KC Pier guys out here doing the work to remedy the foundation so ultimately the KC Property Guys’ crews come out here and do the rehab.
Foundation Repair in Olathe, KS
This is an extensive house in Olathe needing foundation repair. In fact, we’re going to show you guys from a homeowner’s perspective and even from a realtor’s perspective for those realtors out there, that when you ignore and let foundation issues continue to grow and continue to not be resolved, the damage can be extensive. We have 32 piers going in this house, basically all the way around the house. We have an exterior wall push back and waterproofing. We have an interior waterproofing, and we have beams with wall shield and a sump pump. We have all types of foundation issues going on in this house.
We’re going to kind of show you guys from perspective of what to see in terms of signs that you would see that indicate that there’s a foundation issue or settling going on outside of the obvious things like water. And then we’re also going to take a look at, eventually, the phases of construction once the KC Property Guys are here. So come on in, we’ll show you, and you can jump on board for the ride.
Signs of Foundation Issues
We are inside the house in Olathe receiving foundation repair work. This is a four bedroom, three bath house. It’s a two story. It’s located in an area in Olathe that’s really known for its foundation issues. And this one is no exception, but we wanted to walk you through some of those signs and indications that you may have a foundation issue. Now, keep in mind the indications that you’re going to see in this particular house have been ignored for years, so they’re over-exaggerated, but this also gives you guys an idea of what happens when at times you ignore resolving those issues, and you allow them to continue to basically destroy the home. And so it can literally save you thousands by acting early at times, and this one was no exception to that.
But here’s some of those signs. When you start to see cracks and heaves coming out of door frames and windows, this is an indication that probably there’s some settling going on. You can see them here. You can see a horizontal going from door jamb to door jamb. There’s an exaggerated heave crack where the bottom of this house has dropped, and it’s basically pulling the house with it. For you realtors out there, when you see a crack and take a look at the direction it’s going, it tends to point in the direction that the issue is happening. You’ve got heaves here, a horizontal crack here. Now take a look at this. This door jam has dropped over three quarters of an inch from six inches apart from each other.
I always like this one. Your doors won’t close evenly. I can close this door on my fingers obviously, and not even get hurt. It’s that severe of a drop. Here’s one you won’t see very often. We see this maybe once every five, six years, but we got over an inch crack. Now, we’ll come back to this one because this is actually nice to see because ultimately, we’re going to see how much we can resolve this crack. So when we ultimately dig under this house and lift it with piers … We’ve got 32 piers coming around this house … This crack’s going to close. This house is going to shift and rise back up, and so it’ll be interesting to come back and see how much this is actually closed up. Now the KC Property Guys will actually come through here and replace that Sheetrock, but it will be interesting to look at it from a KC Pier perspective of the recovery that we can get from here.
This house has just signs of foundation issues everywhere. So when you start to see cracks in doorways and windows and the doors don’t shut evenly … I mean, you can see this one again. When you got those types of gaps, and you can see Sheetrock starting to pull apart from doorframes. That’s an indication that you probably have a foundation issue, and you’ll want to get a consultant out there to take a look at it.
Olathe Basement Waterproofing
Let’s start to take a look at some of the resolutions. We’re going to join Brian Dufour and the crew downstairs, and we’ll take a look at all the different resolutions that we have going on in this house. And they may be indications of some of the resolutions that we potentially could use on your house if you ultimately have an issue.
So what have we got going, Brian?
Brian: Well, today, what we’re doing right now, we’re excavating the back wall of the house. That wall is in about five and a half inches, so unfortunately, there’s no other options other than to dig it out and push the wall back flush. This wall also has piers on it. That’s why the trench is a little wider than normal. We’re going to pivot the piers from the trench under, but before we do that, we have to pull the wall back because you have to lift the house to get the wall straight. So I want to make sure that we got that to where it needs to be so I don’t over lift the house.
Now we’re in the basement of the house we were just at. You see the massive cracks on the walls. This wall was also coming in, but it’s not as dramatic as the one on the back of the house. This one, you’re kind of getting settlement and movement. That’s why that crack looks so big. What we’re doing here, these holes are piering holes. We are three foot under the footing, and then we’re about a foot and a half that goes completely underneath, so that way, when we push the pier, we’re pushing off the foundation wall and the footing. So that way, when we go to lift, everything is concentrically loaded and goes straight up. And as you can see, we’re coming over here. What we’re doing now is we’re using the hydraulic machine, and we’re pushing the piers to load-bearing strata. In the area we are right now is right around 14 feet. We are going from 3000 psi to about 12,000 within a matter of three to four inches.
What we did was we pushed the wall back. The wall, we got completely flush, which is perfect. We got it back about four and a half inches. As you can see the cracks, the cracks are almost closed up all the way. The only thing we have to do now is we have to set the I-beam braces and secure them to the joists, so that way the wall don’t move any further. Once we get that done, we’ll go outside. We’ll membrane outside, waterproof it, and then we’ll backfill with 85% gravel so the wall will never move again.
Contact KC Pier
John: Hello, my name is John Lindquist. I am the marketing manager here at KC Pier. What you just saw in this last video was a brand new project for KC Pier, one that’s going to be having a lot of developments over the next few months. And if you want to see those changes happen, those transformations, keep posted on our blogs on our website, or follow us on social media. If, in the meantime, you believe that you are having issues with settling in your Olathe home and are in need of foundation repair, or if you have water in your basement due to cracks in your foundation, do not hesitate to call us or contact us on our website.