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Best way to deal with expansive soil and foundation settling?

From: msenecal@logicon.com
Category: Foundations and Basements
Remote Name: 128.49.190.102
Date: 08 Aug 2001
Time: 10:37 AM

Comments

My wife and I purchased a house built on a raised foundation (with the crawl space underneath). It has a small addition built onto it, about 10 foot square. The foundation for this addition is (of course) not part of the original foundation, but is bolted to the first one.

I noticed that (over time) the addition seems to settle ever so slightly. This is evidenced by the doorframe being ever-so-slightly out of square, cracks opening up in the walls (not large, but definitely there)

After heavy rain (not too common here in San Diego) the cracks close up, the doorframe goes back to normal, and everything is fine for a long while.

The only thing I can think of is that we have expansive soil -- water makes it expand, lack of water makes it contract.

An inspector looked at the foundation and said that it's sound: no cracks, damage, or anything. The addition is probably the only part settling.

My question: What's the best way to combat this? I've got automatic sprinklers, but I'm not sure watering my lawn every other day for 10 minutes is going to put enough water into the soil to make a difference.

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