# Sinking retaining wall attached to house



## Dustin (Apr 20, 2011)

So I have a small retaining wall that is attached to the northeast corner of my split level home and it extends the north exterior wall into our carport. When we bought the home I could see some small step cracks in our brick siding. Two are associated with external house parts (retaining wall and porch) and only one in on the house, but the block foundation is in good shape. Most of it from drainage issues I do believe. I've remedied those issues to a large degree. They had a gutter pouring rain right outside this retaining wall for who knows how long. 

Over the last year or so, I really couldn't tell if it was sinking more, but finally thought I'd try to see if I could repair it. Dug a hole wide and deep enough to get a 3 ton car jack under the brick and concrete "footing". Well it was a lot of work and unsuccessful. It lifted the wall about 1/4". I think not digging out all of the soil along the wall was my demise, but I'm not sure. Anyways, that wall lifting and dropping back down after my swift and sharp ego gut punch failure of a plan allowed the wall to drop a bunch more in the next couple weeks. I'd say it went from a 1/4" gap, maybe a tad bigger, to now a 3/4" gap at the top. 

So I'm hoping to see if anyone can tell me if my plan to fix it will work. I have two 20T stubby bottle jacks on order (any excuse to buy a new tool right?). I'm going to excavate along the entire wall down and under the footer. Remove fallen mortar from within the crack (I am a little worried that mortar that's fallen inside the wall will hamper it lifting back up into place). Put some mortar repair caulk in along the crack. Jack wall up at about the end of the wall and midpoint. Construct some wooden boxes around the jacks to keep them away from concrete and create concrete forms under the footer and just up the side of the wall a few inches past the footer. Lay some stone. Pour concrete. Boom fixed! What do you think?


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## melli (May 7, 2016)

Your idea sounds reasonable...
I suppose the issue is lack of a proper footing, especially for soil you have? Even if crack doesn't close by jacking and footing reinforcement, at least the wall won't sink anymore. I'd just grout it and call it a day. 
The wall, being modest (not crazy heavy), shouldn't need a deep footing, but I'd be inclined to have it as wide as possible (with some rebar in it). 
In other words, your making it float, rather than trying to dig to China looking for firm earth.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Unless you have a way to compact the soil under your new footing it will settle again and you'll be right back to where you started.

WWW


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## Dustin (Apr 20, 2011)

Thanks for the replies gents. I like the idea of making it wider and extending it out! 

I don’t think it’s as much of a soil compaction issue as it was a water issue. The clay here is pretty compacted a couple feet down. They had a house gutter basically dropping massive amount of rainwater 15’ down from the roof right next to this thing. They also didn’t have drainage and the water was trapped as well.


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## melli (May 7, 2016)

Dustin said:


> Thanks for the replies gents. I like the idea of making it wider and extending it out!
> 
> I don’t think it’s as much of a soil compaction issue as it was a water issue. The clay here is pretty compacted a couple feet down. They had a house gutter basically dropping massive amount of rainwater 15’ down from the roof right next to this thing. They also didn’t have drainage and the water was trapped as well.


By the looks of it, they never really planned proper 'footings' for the pony wall. 
Almost looks like a case of we have some extra bricks, what can we do with them...
Also, it seems like some extra soil is piled up against house, against the brick. I wouldn't like that (don't see any damp proofing/membrane), especially in an area with frost heave issues. 
I guess there is no way to slope land away from house along there...and that tree would worry me (roots will find the cracks). 
I would consider removing the wall, and using rubble to repair corner of house. But if the pony wall is acting like a bulk water barrier, then maybe not...lol
20T jacks will lift the house...lol
Just getting a firm base for the jack to sit on, is key. I cannot see that pony wall weighing very much, relatively speaking.


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

Look up "helical piles", this is exactly what they are designed for.
Check out the website of a company called Acculevel and you'll see photos of how they do this.

Having said that ..... You're not dealing with very much wall and brick there. Might be about as easy to tear it down, replace footing and rebuild it.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Dustin said:


> I'm going to excavate along the entire wall down and under the footer.


What's going to hold it up while you're digging?

I think you should research "hydraulic cement", which is pumped in under high pressure to raise and stabilize foundations.


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## Dustin (Apr 20, 2011)

The wall does act as a water barrier. There is a slight slope going down towards the house and this wall keeps water our of the carport and effectively lower split level doors. We're in South Central VA so not much of a frost heave concern here.

I'll be using the jacks to hold the wall up while I dig. Dig down as far as I need, dig a spot for the jack, place jack, repeat for second jack and then dig out the rest. 

First I'm going to try to fix it myself the cheap way. At the worst I'll make future demo a little harder and gain some experience. If that doesn't work I'd probably choose tear out and rebuild before hydraulic cement or the helical piles. Could probably afford those things, but not with all the other fledgling farm priorities.


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## 1948CaseVAI (May 12, 2014)

There are professionals who do that work with good results. If you are determined to do it yourself you should remove the wall, build proper footers, then rebuild. 

For something like a small set of a couple of concrete steps you can get by with digging and jacking and pouring more cement, but for a wall like this you will likely only create additional cracks somewhere near mid-wall and it will sink again, particularly if on clay. By the way, clay doesn't sink much when wet - it sinkes when it shrinks due to dry. Around me folks have to water their foundation in the summer.

If you simply have to try then do not try to salvage the jacks - jack the wall and pour the cement right in and sacrifice the jacks. There is a bottle jack encased in concreate under the front steps at the house I use to live in and the steps are still holding (22 years).


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