30 Engineering ‘Nightmares’ And ‘Miracles’ Discovered During Structural Inspections By This Company

This is one of the craziest things that we've seen during our inspections. This owner had undermined almost the entirety of his home by digging underneath the slab and excavating around the piles. There had been a minor mudslide and they decided it would be a good idea to create more space underneath... The grade of soil used to be up to the concrete slab above. Believe it or not, the property had not yet been red-tagged.

Somebody was preparing for the zombie apocalypse or something!

Here is one of our Senior Structural Assessors, Kyle, inspecting a failed retaining wall. You can see the tie-backs used to hold the retaining wall upright didn't work out too well.

Pottery can be a very useful tool.

If you don't know what termite damage looks like, here is a great example. If you notice this around your house, I would call a termite guy right away.

This was a crazy bridge structure we saw across from a home we inspected. Many of the supporting posts are bending as the soil erodes and the structure above begins to move.

Please watch your step!

Do not jump on this deck if you enjoy living. Don’t even walk for that matter.

The column was barely hanging together with just a small portion of the top and bottom staying connected.

This is a cripple wall that is bowing outward, causing movement in the units above. This is dangerous and could end in a collapse if not handled properly.

This was a home we inspected with two sets of rotted stairs and plenty of interior cracking.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your piers down!

This was a gnarly river rock foundation that was falling apart. Some say this is a rock-solid foundation, but those people must be stoned.

Here we have some damage dealt to a garden wall by a local FedEx driver.

At least it exposed the wall as being fragile and hollow. We'll be proposing a new wall here that will be properly done with concrete and steel reinforcement. It does hold back a sizable slope, after all.

This deck system has some bad rot and we are almost ready to start the repairs! There are some beautiful views of DTLA from this home as well. Luckily it had just rained so most of the smog was cleared.

The termites stood no chance.

This pier missed the mark and is now floating. To be fair, the expansive soil caused a ton of movement and the pier began to sink a long time ago.

I think this is the original.

The concrete porch area has some major cracking and is slowing pulling away from the house.

This failing retaining wall was bowing quite a bit and it didn't help that it was connected to a section of the basement wall. This needs some attention asap!

I guess the contractor who installed these didn't know left from right, or up from down.

Anyone want to join in on this crawl? Didn't think so.

Here's a rubble wall that is supposedly holding up that corner of the home. Well, that corner is now sinking since the wall holds very little structural value.

Some good ol' termite damage.

Much of this has to be replaced.

Some nasty termite damage on an old girder.

Here we have an eroded concrete pier that will more than likely be gone within a year or two.

A mousetrap was placed here just in case any of those pesky buggers managed to slip through the cracks!

This stilted deck has multiple rotting members holding up and you can see the warping and rotation where some of the lumber connects.

"Jack-lift the house" they said. "It will be cool" they said.

Just posted up, chilling by the beach.

This was a slab crack that spanned all the way from the garage to the kitchen floor. It had lifted and cracked many tiles in the kitchen as well. So much so that the assessor was able to stick his pen in between the two sides of the concrete.

Finally, somebody with good Jenga skills.

There was a doubled joist acting as a beam in the center of the sub-floor. It was pretty rotted and was separating from the other joists.

These elevated grade beams are breaking apart and you can see how badly rusted the beam saddles are.

Some major support joists just a tad bit off of their original place.

Breaking apart a brittle foundation with just a pair of hands is a bad indication that your foundation needs some work!

Here's some pretty significant rot damage to the main beam that is holding up a second story.

Much of the original metal connection hardware was rusted and bolted into what is now rotted wood supports.

They also poured the concrete with different mixes and at different times. What a mess.

All sorts of wedges, shims and jacks were used to help support the framing, but that did very little to help the situation.

Snake vs. lizard matchup. You can probably guess who won this battle.

This was another contractor's attempt at a sister foundation. It's completely missing proper footings and much of the forming was left in place. Just another reason not to go with the cheapest option.

We shared the original photos of this leaning building a while back, but now we are doing extensive repairs! I'll be doing a full story post on this project tomorrow! Over many decades, pervasive termite damage took place and the entire apartment structure began to lean as the wood was eaten up.

Here's another concrete slab patio that has pretty significant cracking all over.

Wood compression. The opposite of the one above this.

I think we will just add layers until it's eventually higher than the Eiffel Tower.

Here's some of the cracking inside the home. This place was sitting on a bed of expansive soil. The foundation itself was in fairly good condition, but the home has moved so much that the interior began to pull apart.

Poor little guy got stuck.

This was a home that sat at the top of a steep slope. The concrete patio in the back started to sink due to the movement in the soil below. The creep of the soil eventually caused stress cracking to appear and the fencing to lean as well. A good amount of work is needed here.

The "pier pressure" is too much.

Here’s some interesting jacks holding up an old concrete float that is supporting the subfloor of this home.

This set of stairs is sinking to one side and beginning to pull away from the home.

Here's a concrete pier that is riddled with cracks. This is usually caused by a bad concrete mix, compression and lack of steel reinforcement.

A soil shelf underneath a home. This will continue to erode over time and potentially cause some settlement issues.

A runaway pier. It will never escape.

Here's a leaky pipe that has caused some instability and rot damage in the surrounding subfloor.

Here's one last shot of the crawlspace access where you can see the framing has rotated outwards significantly. The concrete there is basically dust.

Allow me to pen this slab crack into my structural notes.

A new member of our assessor team, Carlos, doing an inspection of some rotted framing.

This is normally what spall damage looks like before the concrete has broken off.

We are tearing up the concrete and perimeter drainage on this property to install proper waterproofing. Tons of rotted out framing was discovered after ripping open a few areas.