aye aye aye
So, we got a better look at the foundation around the part of the house where the driveway is/was.
Apparently there were piers along the side of the house. Every foundation person that looked at this were sure this wasn't the case.
So, what someone did is pour a driveway slab up to the bottom of the beam(s) that sit on the piers in that area. Then, they framed the now crumbling wall on that slab. The problem is the piers have since sort of sunk so they aren't really holding anything up. The slab they poured (after the fact) seems to be.
Some of this explanation will make more sense with pics. It's interesting to see what the ended up doing.
First, some pics of the other parts of the house.
Now, here's the side where they poured the slab around the existing piers.
They had another problem to deal with. The part of the house above the slab is so close to the slab they couldn't get to anything. Soooo, they lifted the entire house up (permanently). Take a look at the 4" drain pipe.
But, there are still problems. The span there is about 11ft. There is a wall about 10 ft. back that supports part of the roof. That whole area is sagging now that they lifted everything else up.
So, they are going to put a beam in the middle of that span that will have shims sitting on the concrete. It's sort of a hokey solution but there's not much else they can do.
The owner then talked to me about all of the rest of the piers. They are just piers sitting in the dirt. There isn't any base at all. So, the house will probably always have some sort of issues. He wanted to replace every pier but I pretty much nixed that idea. That would at least double the original estimate and I just don't think it is worth it. We pretty much have to replace the ones along the side next to the slab (4 I think) and his guy said there was one more wobbly one which I agreed to replace. The rest are staying.
He also suggested that the concrete slab is likely to shift as well. Oh well.
No matter what, this is gonna cost more than the original estimate. I can't hate on this guy because he thought what every other guy thought. Still painful.
Here's a pic of the owner and another pic of the crew.