Expert: Bruce E. Johnson - 4/6/2009

Question
Me and my wife are extremely interested in purchasing a home here in
Tampa, FL.  The house that we want is a wood framed home and has a crawl
space underneath.  We really love the property but our concern is that it is not
a solid foundation.  We wanted to know if it is possible to have somebody
come and make it a foundation.  If it is, who is it that does that kind of work,
and I'm curious as to how it is possible.  Also in one of the rooms inside the
house, there is a considerable slope under the new wood floors.  Is this an
easy fix, or are we headed into trouble.  Thanks for the help.

Answer
Hi John, yes you can do a poured foundation after the fact.  It would be much easier to do a poured footing and then build your foundation wall with concrete masonry, i.e. cinder blocks. This way you don't have a bunch of form work to try and get out from under the house etc. As far as how it is done?  basically you need to temporary shore up the outside wall and do the foundation in sections.  Your floor joists run a certain direction and the walls that bear the ends of the joists will need more support than the walls that run parallel to the foundation.  Most of the companies I deal with are more commercially oriented but you can get this kind of work done by masonry contractors or concrete contractors.  And yes if there is a slope in the floor, you need to figure out why.  It might be a simple settling of a pier..or it could be a sign of larger problems such as sinkholes.  I hope this information helps feel free to write again regarding this or other matters, sincerely bruce e johnson..bejohnsonconsulting.com