I bought this house I'm in about 3 years ago and have recently gotten into fixing it up. There were "cover up" plywood walls up in the walking portion of the basement I had recently took down; Only to discover that the outside wall foundation has had a sub-wall build on top of the original.

The sub-wall is bowing inward pretty severely. I'm wanting to reinforce the foundation but have no idea how I should go about it. A friend told me to tear out the sub-wall and basically rebuild the foundation inside the old. I'm wandering if there is anything else I can do and/or how to go about doing it. I will be doing the work myself so I need to keep it as cost efficient as possible.

Unless you have a good structural engineering background, I think this is a pass. You will have to shore the floor joists to remove the pressure, tear out the old wall(s), pour footings, a new foundation and then backfill. Are you ready to DIY this. Did you have an inspection done prior to buying this house? Might have helped in the long run.

come on ma0641 we don't know how persistent Trybal24 may be. Hi Trybal24, ma0641 is mostly correct in the sequence of operation, but I disagree with the need for a "good structural engineering background" if we had that we could afford to hire out the work, LOL OK I have done this on a couple of houses, no basements,so you will have a little advantage having one. You will need some beams 4x6 or bigger, and long enough, two or three 12 footers, well if you have 15 feet of compromised foundation,you would get two 12 foot 4x6, brace two or three joists past the damaged area, and a bunch of blocks, short 4x4s stacked like a log cabin works, and a jack. Here is were you get to start having fun, lay out beams parallel to damaged wall, 1 to 2 feet off, stack blocks, 3 stacks under a 12 footer,set beams on stacks, as close to touching floor joists as possible, bottle jacks have a short travel. Start jacking up house, add blocks,lower jack,go to next stack. You don't want to raise much just an inch or so to start hearing a strain between house and foundation, get sawsall with a long metal blade and cut foundation bolts. Make sure your temp. bracing is solid, remove whatever you want to replace, sub wall, if foundation integrity is compromised jack hammer and remove, disturb soil as little as possible build forms were needed, a couple lengths of #3 or#4 preferably re-bar and enough 1/2 inch J bolts, to replace the ones you cut, you will need to cut out sheet rock inside, find studs cut sheet rock down middle of stud so you have backing, straight cuts, only about 1 foot off floor. Hopefully your concrete is OK, you just build a new wall, use string lines and levels and match to existing on both sides, always crown your lumber, by the way if you pour some 16x16 or bigger footings your temp. bracing can be made permanent, lower house to grade.nail or bolt walls to pressure treated bottom plate. Repair sheet rock inside,tape,texture,paint and walah your done. You know what maybe ma0641 is right, never mind

Hi,

I went through this on a home we had in Kentucky. At the time, it cost 16K to complete the repairs. None of the costs were covered under our Home Owners Policy.

The damage was caused by water breaching the walls and eroding the support. Also, the basement was always cold. Just a symptom.

What had to be done was to gut the back wall (inside the house) for a distance of 20 foot from the back right corner.

The outside of that wall also had to be trenched to 2.5 feet below the foundation. This include the removal of a 20X20 concrete patio room.

Once both sides of the wall were cleared out, Jacks were brought in to lift the joists off the back wall, then wall anchors (3" steel stakes) were driven horizontally through the walls and into the earth behind the home.

Once these anchors were set, then the wall was pulled back to a straight position. The outside of the wall was then sealed. A French Drain was installed along the length of the failed wall and around the corner in an "L" shape.

The outside wall was then back-filled. On the inside, we had to install a French Drain from below the foundation and run the drain to the right corner where a submersible sump pump was installed. The discharge of the pump was connected to the sewage drain. Finally, we could re-frame the inside of the room. In our situation we had to use 2X6 wood because of the sewer drain running against the wall.

To be real honest, we never had a problem with the wall again and we lived in the home for 15 years.

This was in no way, shape or form a DIY job and you should not even consider it to be one. We used a company called "B Dry" out of Lexington, KY for the work and were very satisfied.

Thank you all for your answers; After reading the posts I do believe this is out of my league; I should have had a home inspection done before I bought the house but at the time I was 22 and just excited about owning my own home so I took the realtors word on it.

I will just have to hope it holds until I save enough money to have the work done... right. Thank you all again.