“This photo was sent to me by one of our in-house engineers.”
“We are doing a seismic retrofit on this apartment building. This is, quite literally, what we discovered. There was nothing supporting the unit above. No connections or even anything touching the ground besides the stucco facade. Thank goodness we had shoring put in place
This is one of those houses you don’t want to be under for a very long time… all of the cripple walls and post and piers were tilting and the house was a solid wind gust away from collapsing.
This is an old brick foundation we inspected. Not only is half the foundation basically undermined, but there are patches of bricks missing in some areas and almost all of them can be pulled out with ease.
This masonry wall supported the back half of the home, as well as a deck in the back. Tons of moisture and hillside erosion caused the wall to lose its grip on the hillside and rest of the structure. This type of failure tends to happen in the rainy season in Los Angeles.
“Had to throw the whole house away.”
“This is an unstable hillside area with a home built on top.”
“The loose soil in this area could give way at any moment, but luckily heavy root systems are holding back quite a bit of the hillside area, preventing a slide.”
“This is the result of a creeping hillside and shallow pile placement.”
“As the hillside slowly moves down or ‘creeps,’ the concrete piles, retaining walls, and their footings begin to go down with it. This is why proper bearing material should be reached for all supporting systems on a hillside. Some places only require 5 feet down, others require 45+ feet down. It is imperative to get the proper depth.”
A few of the piles supporting this hillside deck are beginning to lean over.”
“Stones and dust holding up a post under a home. They did it right in the 1920s… Not.”
Have you ever hired an architect? Do you think it’s a risky job, or do you believe that technology is the greatest ally when fixing construction mistakes?
This is not rebar. These are old Helical Piers from the 70s
This is an undermined pier that is ready to fall over with one good shake!
During an inspection, one of our assessors found this beauty. A wall created entirely out of concrete filled washing machines. Of course they were backwards. Had they been front facing, I believe it would have been a bit more obvious they were washing machines.
“Frankenstein’s basement” – Aptly put by one of our assessors
This is why you get a foundation inspection
So from here we see there is a slope starting from the right and going 15 feet to left. After peeling back the carpet, we discovered a massive slab crack. To the right of the crack we see another crack that’s been patched. The left side of the house was completely sinking a total of 18 inches from the point of the crack. One of the worst slab conditions we’ve seen so far in LA.
Yeah…that’s not legal
During an inspection in Los Angeles, we came across this brittle, failing foundation made of brick. The mortar simply fell right off of the brick in a dust waterfall. An earthquake would more than likely demolish this home