"...So you are saying we should keep what is already there and repair it the way the engineer said? And not redo it?..."

If it was my house, I'd not make any decision until I see the written report from the structural engineer. If I had doubts about the recommendations in the engineer's written report, I'd hire my own structural engineer to come out, visit the site and write a report.

In my own mind, I think the best solution is to remove the failed (and out of plumb) wall, provide new rebar connections from the existing side walls and install a new, properly reinforced and grouted wall. Some interior fill will have to be removed and replaced. All of this should be at the builder's expense.

I see no advantage to trying to shift from a slab on grade to a crawl space design, but I do see a number of disadvantages, including opening you up to a large change order sum.

That said, wait for the first written report and evaluate it's recommendations.

I would't worry much about the grout; it doesn't have to meet the standards for "reinforced masonry" but I hope the block is 10". The fact that the wall broke away at both ends suggests its well reinforced.

Here is what I assume a section would look like. Tell me if its wrong.

The vertical reinforcement within the blocks is not the issue. The wall sheared away on the return to the side walls. I would not trust the floor framing to hold the foundation together. Totally disagree with JDS on this.

Why not use poured concrete? Heck, even JDS hinted that would be better and could be cheaper.

I dare you to take your photos, then the patches, and show these to any prospective future buyers.

strategery, you have misinterpreted the forces involved

The long wall sheared away at the side walls because of insufficient temporary bracing. After the floor framing has been installed, the only thing that will matter is the vertical reinforcing in the long wall. This is how most foundations are built and this one only needs thicker block and more reinforcing because of the imbalanced fill. The force resisted at the top of the wall is at the end of an 8 ft lever arm and is therefore quite small and easily resisted by floor joists and sub flooring.

Try turning the long wall on its side and diagraming the loads as if it were a beam.

Obviously poured concrete would be easier to reinforce but it would still rely on vertical reinforcing to prevent cracking from the imbalanced fill. It would not be cheaper.

The patch will only show on the inside of the corners as a wide joint. Why would anyone show photos to prospective buyers?

To solve problems it is necessary to first carefully define the problem. So far, I haven't seen much of that here.

The reason that I am feeling more confident about the vertical reinforcing in the long wall is that if it weren't adequate, the long wall would have cracked at the level of the imbalanced fill instead of at the side walls.

I am an architect with engineering training and 50 years of experience but I am not a licensed engineer so this information is only for the use of the OP to make it easier to discuss the issues with a qualified structural engineer.

Good luck Kylie, if you need more information click my name and send me a private message.

OP has 17 courses (of x"?) above grade with dirt and a slab on one side and air on the other.

That's vastly different than dirt on the outside pushing against a wall that is then pushing against support side walls (rather than pulling from them as above) and trusses/joists.

Even aside from that, how was this builder planning to tie the slab in for support across the top? I don't see any rebar or anchors sticking up. Are the tops of the blocks all unfilled but have rebar from below sticking in to them to tie in to the rebar in the slab that will provide support across the top?

The only way I can think to to have done this with block would have been to drill a lot of rebar in to the side walls (before core fills) to then tie in to the unsupported (now failed) wall but off hand I can't think of how to have tied them in to the failed wall properly.

If you want to fix this get an engineer and get structural repair detail hire a reputable mason contractor and have him fix everything.

That being said, if this was my house and is this a new foundation I would take everything down, start with a sound footing and do the block work with dura-wall every other course. Most Engineers I know would suggest the same thing being this a new foundation.

You may like this contractor but you should have someone with more construction knowledge inspect the project weekly if not more often. I mean it.

Learn from my mistake. I wish I had the inspector I have now to come by weekly to check my build. Granted I don't have the problem you are having but I had other issues that the inspector who came only 3x during our build, missed.

The wall almost certainly has horizontal joint reinforcing in addition to vertical rebars. The contract documents should clearly show that and, if not, it should have been caught by the building inspector. The code is very specific about reinforcement for imbalanced loading.

When discussing the structural wall with the engineer it is important to call the masonry units "blocks" or "concrete masonry units" instead of "bricks". Bricks would be added to the face of the wall and are not structural. They will, however, hide any repair (carbon fiber, metal, etc.) and allow the face of the long wall to be plumbed.

Whether the upper floor structure is wood joists, trusses or a concrete slab is irrelevant for the matter. All would provide more than enough lateral bracing to stabilize the top of the foundation wall. Wall anchors can be added at any time. Where are these ideas coming from?

This is a static structural system so there is no pushing or pulling, just forces in equilibrium. If you change something it will seek equilibrium again. When the upper floor is installed the temporary bracing can be removed and the system will remain in equilibrium. This is what is taught in the first week of a structural design course; it's very simple but not obvious.

@JDS, that is incorrect. The rebar within the blocks resists bowing and tilting over of the end wall. That wall is actually solid in the photos, lol. The problem is shear from the side walls, and vertical rebar does nothing for that. The flooring system in *tension* would hold the end wall attached. Ughh, that's not what flooring is for.

The solution is adequate support against the end wall from the outside, as @opaone said. Either that, or some sort of horizontal reinforcement within the side wall.

The last interior fill broke the camel's back.

You have misinterpreted the forces again. The vertical rebar in the long wall does nothing if the top of that wall is free to move. When the structure is completed, the foundation wall will span from the ground to the upper floor and will be laterally braced by both.

Walls span between floors and between a floor and a roof and distribute lateral forces from wind, earthquake, etc. to the floors which distribute the loads laterally to the foundations. That's why structural sheathing or diagonal bracing is required in exterior walls. Without that lateral bracing system a house might fail in a windstorm or earthquake. That's why a floor is required to be installed before backfilling foundation unless adequate temporary bracing is provided. Inadequate temporary bracing was the only mistake the contractor made. He took a chance and lost.

Your assumptions about the loads and the cause of the failure are false and your suggested solutions are specious.

It doesn't matter which side of the wall the fill is placed, if its more than 4 ft of imbalanced fill, the wall must be braced by the floor above or adequate temporary bracing.

2015 INTERNATION RESIDENTIAL CODE

CONCRETE FOUNDATION ASSOCIATION

The wall almost certainly has horizontal joint reinforcing in addition to vertical rebars.

Given the clean break from blocks through bedding I can't see it. If they'd put durawall or similar in there it should have pulled a lot of mortar out when it gave way. It wouldn't have sheared clean at the failure point.

The ends of a backfilled wall are pushing against side walls that are perpendicular to it and against floor joists or trusses along the top. That is very different than all of the force coming from the opposite direction - from the same side as the side support walls and the floor joists.

Stand 4' from a wall in your house, put your arms out, and lean forward with the palms of your hands against the wall. You can probably hold that position for a long time. That's similar to dirt fill pushing against a wall that is then pushing against side walls and trusses.

Now find a pull-up bar and hang on. A bit more stress? Can't hang on nearly as long as you could push against the other wall? This is a pulling force.

There are ways to deal successfully with pulling forces. In a poured wall it's a lot of properly done horizontal rebar bent around the corner and tied to vertical rebar in the supporting wall (e.g., the side walls).

If you're relying on trusses or joists to hold the wall 'in' rather than 'out' then they'll need to be designed very specifically for that. I don't think the chords can simply be joined together with gussets but will need something different. Even if the chords are single piece, how should they be joined to the wall to resist forces in the opposite direction then 'normal'?

BTW, in looking close up, the mortar looks like it might be too thin and uneven in places.

opaone, you may be right about the joint reinforcing in the side walls; I was only referring to the long wall. If the long wall was properly reinforced and braced at the top it wouldn't matter if the horizontal joint reinforcing turned the corner.

In any case, I don't think it could have held the corner together. It may be there and it just pulled loose. We still don't know much about this failure other than a couple of photos and no close ups.

I don't have any idea what you are talking about in your last post.

This the biggest investment and you not even out of the ground yet and already your foundation is good for nothing.

Footing and foundation are like the heart of the structure if that goes everything will go with it.

You pay money for this house, make them take that thing down find the issue what caused that and have them re-do everything, now is the time to do that, because even if they make the repairs on it and when you load the house with lumber, and everything else, and foundation will give again, you will have nothing but problems and the more band-aids they are adding to solve this it will not get any better.

Good luck

already your foundation is good for nothing.

You should be ashamed of such an irresponsible comment. You apparently come on this forum to scare people. You did it to rockybird for no logical reason.

@JDS - Again, you are trying to play the arbiter of what is appropriate, and in this case I simply do not agree with your explanation or analysis. Neither does @opaone.

Good luck and I wish you well. I also hope that the OP does not follow your guidance.

This foundation is toast. The builder is incompetent, as are all "experts" who approved this design. Don't take my word for it. Look at the photos.

I'm sure all that have commented and read are curious, exactly what will be done to repair?

This is a confusing thread to say the least, given the little data we have to go on.

For example, how much back fill was installed inside the block walls (where we cannot see...we can only see the exterior of the block walls).

If the fill was only a few feet, I don't understand the full height cracking and separation which we see from outside the block walls. It might make sense if the interior back fill was three-quarter height of the wall or full height. But we don't know that. The OP hasn't told us the height of the fill material.

Without knowing the height of the fill material, I'd hazard a guess that the block wall was hit by a tractor unloading the fill material...

But it really doesn't matter does it?

The only point which now matters is how best to respond to what is obviously a foundation/stem wall failure.

And the best strategy, obviously, is to get an independent structural engineer retained by the OP for a day's wages to come out, visit the site and prepare a written remedial report.

And, like GN Builders, I agree that this is the time (the only time) to make this foundation a proper one...

If it was my house, I'd wait for the structural engineer's report, but my inclination would be to take it all done and redo it in a proper manner.

I'm not sure the foundation is 'good for nothing'. We don't know how much other foundation there is nor what the quality and structural soundness of it is. From looking at the photos I'd guess not so good but we don't know that. I think we can all agree that what was done should never have been done and certainly indicates a lack of knowledge or lack of ethos to do things right on the part of the builder.

If the rest is done at least 'well enough' and particularly if there's a lot of other foundation then possibly removing the failed wall and stepping back the side walls so that they can be rebuilt stronger and with proper structural support might work. But an engineer not connected to the contractor should make the determination of what should be done and the proper engineering should be carried through to much or all of the rest of the structure.

Please post photos of the repair work after it's done.

If that the case, and they want to leave it the way it is, they should get Carbon fiber corner reinforcement straps and epoxy them in to stabilize that wall and prevent further movement and separation. That would be the best way to go in this situation.

To be sure, the issue with your foundation is related to differential backfill. I think it can be solved with supplemental reinforcing and is not an issue that would require demolition and starting over. I am, however, curious about the concrete block that will support the brick veneer. In our area, the block would need to be FHA (solid) block to support a brick veneer.

As a licensed professional engineer, I would like to respond to what I consider "fear mongering" about the recommendations of a licensed professional engineer retained by the builder. The value of a professional engineer's license is much greater than the business potential provided by a single builder or a single issue in dispute. Accordingly, the advice of a licensed professional engineer retained by the builder should not be radically different from one you contract with directly. If you think otherwise, then please consider retaining multiple architects and multiple desigers as those professions are not any more or less trustworthy than licensed professional engineers.

Kylie, the crack is not the immediate problem. Get the upper floor on before the temporary bracing moves again.

Accordingly, the advice of a licensed professional engineer retained by the builder should not be radically different from one you contract with directly.

The operative word above 'should'.

There is a very wide range of latitude in many areas of engineering. And within this latitude is everything from 'meets minimum spec and we hope it will work' to 'this will last and remain solid for two centuries at least'.

So, builder's engineer, who relies on income from this and other builders, may be focused on finding the least expensive option that meets minimum spec and offers him plausible deniability in case of failure. Owner's engineer might say 'that solution meets minimum spec but in reality is tenuous but doing x will have a much higher probability of remaining solid for x years'.

Very PE I have met takes their responsibility very seriously. And also does not want to be sued or liable for shilling for a builder. It's simply not worth it.

Honestly - this would freak me the hell out. I have a huge amount of retaining walls on my build - but that's a different situation. I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable with CMUs for this high a foundation / this much fill. But it's been done that way before and certainly can be - assuming it's braced and installed correctly.

I'd be more concerned about compacting the fill inside the foundation - as that will impact our future floor (assuming you are doing a slab) To do that right - you need compaction done in flights (layer). We did every 8" and had to test with an engineer at each layer - but again - that is for retaining walls and house sitting ON the fill, not the fill in the house.

We see this daily with road design. U.S. traffic engineers design roads to meet the most minimum safety requirements while engineers in Europe and elsewhere are looking to achieve actual safety. We hear it in their verbiage as well. When asked about design vs deaths, U.S. engineers will very consistently say 'it meets green book specs and if only every driver perfectly obeyed every law then we'd have fewer crashes' - plausible deniability. EU Engineers will say 'yes, deaths are much too high so we're exploring a design that will do x'. And they're saying this when they already have a fatality rate 1/5 of ours.

If U.S. engineers did their job as well as EU engineers then we'd have about 8,000 road deaths per year instead of the 40,000 that we have now.

I agree the advice of engineers should not be radically different. My point was that when there are multiple engineering options, the engineer's employer would naturally choose the one he/she prefers. If you can talk to the engineer privately you would be more likely to learn all of the options so sometimes it may be wise to employ your own engineer. That shouldn't reflect badly on engineers and it doesn't appear to be the case here.

I have also found that when dealing with structural repairs, another engineer may have more specialized experience especially with conditions that involve structural and civil engineering issues. For difficult designs I have used Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, a firm that specializes in investigation and rehabilitation; the only drawback was they vanished overnight when there was an earthquake in CA.

I also agree about the use of CMU. A wall of this height should have been concrete. Or it should have stopped at the basement slab then there could have been windows or a door in that big blank wall.

If the basement under-slab fill was high enough above grade to force the long wall out of plumb, then the slab was high enough for the foundation wall to stop at the slab. The real culprit here is the designer.

@home.on.the.ridge on Instagram dealt with similar issues in their foundation. She shows, photos, etc., and describes how they proceeded, which involved rebuilding the wall.

The height of the wall is not the issue, the construction is. I have built over 50 new homes in all types of soil conditions 13-14 courses with 6-7' feet of fill. Always use dura-wall, mid-span piers, etc and never had a foundation failure like this.

Something definitely is wrong there and as 293summer mentioned in the post rebuilding that wall is the best solution. Block is cheap ($2.50), labor to install it not that expensive about the same, take that wall apart is fairly easy at this stage, so if it cost you 1k in material and labor to rebuild that corner lets say 100 blocks if that, it's definitely worthed not to mention that the homeowner is not paying for this and having someone do the structural repair (cutting block, installing re-bar, grouting solid, etc) they will charge the same amount and the wall will still be out.

All this bickering with engineers and waste of time, my mason would already take that wall apart and reconstructed before this thread hit the 10th post and the foundation be structurally sound, level and the homeowner would have a piece of mind. Just saying.

The wall design was a bad one for a half dozen reasons so its pointless to argue over which one was the worst.

I would agree that its best to replace it as long as it didn't recreate the same down-slope bracing dilemma. I believe the best approach is to stop the new foundation wall at the basement slab; I can see no reason for a giant CMU wall.

"@home.on.the.ridge on Instagram dealt with similar issues in their foundation."

Good catch, 293! It looks like the exact same problem.

I have no real opinion on this, but thought this image was interesting... it looks like they took down the flawed wall and then may have embedded rebar into the grout to reinforce the corners:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUcl62cldWT/?taken-by=home.on.the.ridge

I thought the initial attempt at a redneck solution was funny:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT-fNW6l2FH/?taken-by=home.on.the.ridge

I don't think there is a basement slab. I got the impression that OP planned to pour a slab on top of this contraption and that would be the main level of the house.

I'm not sure that use of rebar (ridge home) is such a good idea as it can actually weaken the mortar joints. Durawall is thinner and lets the mortar do its job.

No basement? I guess I thought it was a basement because it was posted to "BASEMENTS" and no one corrected my basement comments or sketches.

So the entire height of the wall has fill behind it with no interior braces, ties or abutments? Wow, that's asking too much of a CMU wall and diagonal bracing no matter how well it was built.

How high did the fill get before the corners failed? If it was not complete I wouldn't be surprised if the corner repairs failed when the fill is complete and compacted.

No offense intended to engineers, but if the contractor's engineer originally designed this wall, I strongly recommend you find another engineer.

The Instagram wall was crazy but this one is much higher and much crazier.

I agree about the rebar in the corner; see my earlier corner reinforcement detail.

If the wall gets rebuilt, I would expect an internal buttress to be added

"That's asking a lot from a CMU wall and diagonal bracing no matter how well it was built."

Yep.

Oops, sorry we forgot the rebar. Srs?

And what about all the other corners? For a 4-corner box there are 8 returns. Not sure I would sleep comfortably in that house having seen photos of foundation walls getting blown out. Be sure to share these wonderful photos with future buyers.

Can you post plans or top view? Why on earth not fire the builder and pour a real indestructible foundation after having gone through this heart attack? You are fantastically fortunate this failed sooner rather than later.

I'm not used to it either, not that I start many threads.

I ignored the "slab foundation" description because the photo showed a concrete block perimeter foundation.

Its not necessary to know construction terminology if you post a lot of photos and a few drawings. Turning on "messages" is helpful for drawings.

No engineer will falsify a report or create an unworkable solution. But the element of unconscious bias that creates a prior restraint to thought processs enters into any transaction.

An engineer may see that issue and right away think of Solution A. And know that it is the best choice for the home‘s long term viability. But she also also knows that it is the builder who is paying for that choice, and the builder will want something more cost effective. So, Solution B for Budget and C for Costcutting are developed. Neither are as good as Solution A, but they get the builder out of the immediate jam, at a price he is willing to pay.

And the contractor presents B and C, to the customer, without ever even mentioning A. Because A never made it into the report at all, because the engineer knew that the cheapskate hack would not pay for it, and would rather just walk away from the project.

The customer might have wanted the best solution, not the cheapest solution. The customer might even have been willing to pay the cost difference between the expensive and the cheap solution. But the customer didn’t pay for an independent report to go to them with the recommended beat solution included, as well as any others.

Any design is only as good as the available budget for implementing the design. If an engineer consistently recommended the most costly approach, even though it was the best approach, she’d stop getting any calls from builders. Which might not be a bad thing for the engineer, as who in this industry likes dealing with cheap hacks?