Located in Pleasant Grove Utah, a family of five were living in a home with cracks all over. The home owner gave us a tour of the inside first, where he took us to both levels of the home, to show us various cracks in almost every room. The cracks spanned from a few inches in the main floor bathroom all the way to a massive three foot long crack in the master bedroom. The cracks were obvious signs of shifting masses, the tricky part was figuring out what was causing these shifts. No problems with the foundation were found which eliminated potential causes to this structural problem.
The key to solving this riddle was the massive crack in the master bedroom along with the windows on the basement level separating an inch from the walls. This evidence shows a buckling in the framing due to the quality of work that was done when the home was built in 2006. Whoever framed this house must have cared more about finishing quickly than the quality of the home. This was also reflected in the garage where a massive 10 foot long crack showed signs of improper building practices. The beam used to bear the load above the garage door was too small and needed to be reinforced.
The home owners thought they were going to have to spend thousands of dollars on structural piers, but we explained that structural piers would be completely unnecessary. We told the home owners that an entire wall’s framing would have to be redone and reinforcements to their garage door would need to be made in order for the cracks to stop spreading. Though the problem looked dramatic with so many large cracks, the solution turned out to be fairly simple and won’t dip too deep into the wallet of the home owners.
