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October 3rd, 2008
 | 10:05 am - Dominoes
Aw, jeezus. When Rob the Plumber was working in the basement, he noticed that the floor drain didn't. We allowed as how it had never been quite right, despite many attempts to snake it out etc. Well, snaking wasn't going to be an option -- Rob showed us that it was plugged with something that went Thunk.
Sooo, as a separate operation to the bathroom redo, we arranged for Rob to dig out the floor drain and Make It Right.
So now there are jackhammered bits of concrete and small mounds of dirt in the basement, and Rob showed us his discovery: the cast-iron pipe leading from the kitchen drain joins up right there -- rotting, crumbling, cast-iron pipe.
Every time we send water down from the kitchen sink, some of it is soaking into that patch of dirt. Washing dirt into the pipe, and degrading the concrete floor from below for good measure.
Rob's going to be jackhammering up another six feet of floor today, replacing that stretch of pipe, and getting the only sink in the house (!) operational again before he goes home.
Since we can pretty much bet that the pipe from that point to its exit point at the far wall is of similar vintage, he'll be back another day to dig that up.
I'm tempted to have him drill a test hole in a far corner, to see whether the concrete is a pathethic half-inch thick everywhere or just in the vicinity of the bad pipe.
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I'm tempted to have him drill a test hole in a far corner, to see whether the concrete is a pathethic half-inch thick everywhere or just in the vicinity of the bad pipe.
I'd give into temptation and find out, just in case it does need fixing, in which case better to do it now than later.
I'm thinking that was NOT in your budget, huh.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/30925655/7390462) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) n6tqs |
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| Date: | October 3rd, 2008 07:16 pm (UTC) |
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One of my friends had a house a contractor had built for himself in phases. Apparently, sometimes things were done right, sometimes not.
She bought new curtains for her sewing room, and ended up with a new foundation on significant parts of the house, since the curtains lead to new carpet, which meant finding the floor underneath needed replacing...
OTOH, when I had my drains replaced, the work destroyed the enormous ants nest in that part of the yard, and cut off their access to water, so the ant problem that the previous owners and ourselves had disappeared.
Ah yes. The joys of remodeling and discovering your Deep Dark Secrets...
You may have what we have in our Seattle house. The basement floor was never actually poured as they do it now, most likely it was "floated" over the tamped down dirt possibly after the foundation was poured using the left over cement. It ranges in depth from about 1 inch to less than 1/2 inch. That may be what you have.
If you do decide to put in a new floor, if your basement ceiling height is less than normal room height, about 8 feet, think about having it dug out. For the future value of your home, it will increase it greatly, and for you it will provide additional living space.
What ever you do, good luck.
| | From: | kateyule |
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| Date: | October 4th, 2008 07:36 am (UTC) |
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| | Tell me more | (Link) |
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What is "floating" a cement/concrete floor and how does it differ from "pouring as they do it now"?
Foundations and cement slabs (including just a basement floor) are poured into forms that are made from plywood and bolted together.
How it was usually done in the past:
I am told that in my house they put up the forms for the foundation, which is also the walls for our basement. The cement walls are about seven feet tall and about five inches thick. The walls were "formed up", but most likely do not have any rebar or very little. After the foundation walls were poured there was likely leftover cement, and that slurry was poured onto the dirt within the foundation balls and allowed to run and then was spread to cover the area. It follows the lay of the land. That's why the floor is so thin. The forms for the foundation contained the slurry of cement, but there were no separate forms used for the cement floor.
How it is done today:
Building codes in various areas have different requirements, but in general inside the forms rebar and possibly pipes for electrical, sewage, other drains, and water are placed. The floor is usually three to four inches thick, and is reinforced with rebar (the amount of rebar required and whether it is bars and/or mesh is part of the building code). The cement is poured into these forms. That's a big job, and they literally use a gigantic mixer to gyrate it to move out air bubbles. When the cement is poured, but before it has set up, on the top of the foundation steel brackets are put in place where the foundation plate will rest.
This is more than you wanted to know, I suspect, but my experiences over the past several years have made me interested in what keeps a house standing. We struggle with this one all the time. Also, few months ago I took a couple of home inspection classes.
The year before last, we had a feeding slab and three bin composting system done at the ranch. The USDA gave us a grant for this, thankfully, because it was really expensive. I have over a hundred shots of the whole process. It is about 50 feet by 60 feet, has something like 60 cubic yards of cement and two ton of rebar. The ground had to be graded, barrier cloth covered, graveled with two or three sizes of gravel. Then the forms were built and seven cement trucks (9 to 10 cubic yards per truck at about $100 per cu. yd.) delivered and five men pushed it around. They test cement with 'slump tests,' and it passed. All the loads were hot loads, made with hot water, and they set up very fast -- too fast. My cement contractor was really pissed about that.
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