Wet weather foundation question (Bedford, Howe: house, closing, live)

[catluvr]

I just got a horrible sinking feeling...(hopefully my house is not experiencing the same thing).

I walked into my kitchen tonight and I found a hairline crack in the middle of my ceiling (length wise in the very center of the house connecting the two support walls, and also a small (very small) hairline crack (not all the way through the wall) in the center of my house by my pantry (center of wall...but, could I be lucky and this be sheet rock crack?). I also noticed the bedroom door in the center of the house is not closing right...like seriously sticking. The problem with the cracks is they have very quickly appeared.

1) Shall I start to worry? This didn't happen until all this rain came. We have a very nice sprinkler system so we haven't had any problems so far (until this crappy rain).

2) What can I do to stop the potential damage this rain is doing (since I can't make it stop raining)!

3) Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[loves2read]

moisture in the air can make doors stick--many of them are not sealed along the bottom edges--raw wood suseptible to humidity and rest of door would swell a little

cracks in wall--???
most of the time foundations show their are starting to fail by having cracks in corners where there are joins in framing--
sheetrock seams can fail--maybe it is sheet rock tape coming loose

wait until after the rain subsides and see if they disappear

[dgz]

If it's an older house, you will see occasional cracks where the tape is coming loose at the seam. This type of crack will usually appear as a nearly perfect straight line. With the door sticking and the sudden occurrence of it, it sounds like there might have been some minor movement caused by all the rain. At my previous house, this happened throughout the year. Sometimes in the year, the doors would stick and other times they would open very easily. Cracks would also appear occasionally near 2 of the front windows and then the cracks would close again. As loves2read suggested, I'd wait until it was dry again and then see how the cracks and doors were doing.

[nsumner]

Holw old is the house? Is it on a slab or pier & beam? I sounds like you're just experiencing some settling.

However, you need to walk the outside perimeter of your house and see if there are any cracks that have showed up. Look aroud the window frames and the caulking, if there is any separation, same with the garage door. If your house is on a slope, you may have lost some of the dirt that covered the slab so you may be need to add some dirt.

Naima

[loves2read]

our Bedford house is over 20 yrs old and we had cracks in ceilings in kitchen and garage from drywall tape coming loose--I was very concerned since we anticipate putting it on market soon that there were foundation issues--but the painters found no similar cracks around door facings or in the corners of walls in any other rooms
it was just bad prep from the last time the house was painted--
they eventually had to take down ALL the ceiling acoustic in the garage because even though they prepped it--that could not prevent it from coming loose because of the prior paint job...

how long have you lived in this house--while there was lot of rain in October--there have been intense periods of rain in past couple of years which would have replicated the same type of humidity/ground moisture
did your house do the same things then

[catluvr]

The house was built in 99. As far as I can tell, no windows have cracks around them (except 2 windows in the bedroom have 2 really small 1/4" lines above both windows that haven't moved in 2 years. I looked around the perimeter of the house and it seems OK for now.

Our foundation is slab, but it is the type with tension on it (can't remember the name); which I've heard is pretty good. The line is a fine, straight line. We had rented a house that had a fishbone type fracture going up the wall then switched directions all of a sudden so I know that is a serious foundation crack. I was just curious if they start with a really fine crack, or if there can be more than one type of foundation crack.

We just had our sprinkler professionally fixed and adjusted and the company said everything looked OK from what he could tell, but that was in July before the rain. Everything is so wet and doesn't seem to dry out so I was concerned with shifting clay and soil.

Thanks for the advice. I am paranoid about foundations especially since I don't have the money to fix it (who does). Would it ever be worthwhile to look into installing pier and beam just in case (not that I have the money, but maybe worth saving for? Is it a good selling point? Seems this foundation thing is always looming in my mind.

[nsumner]

The foundation you seem to have is post tension. Yes that is very good. Everything you describe seems to fit with normal settling, change of moisture in the ground.

I don't think you need to be paranoid about the integrity of the foundation. You don't need to look into installing piers, that's only if the house has had a lot of shift and falls within the foundation repair scope. It's not something you do as a prevention.

Naima

[loves2read]

but you should check the outside drainage for any areas where there might be water retention that would soften that part of the yard/ground more than others
do you have gutters
do the gutters have extensions to direct the water away from foundation pooling as much as possible

we just had new gutters put on our old house after 20+ yrs--they added a new downspout that poured water right at the edge of the garage/deck corner--did not have one there before--it was creating a real mess in that area--
we had our yard guy tie that drain into an underground drain we had installed years ago that channels water from gutter farther down garage side to creek outside our fence--
not a french drain because this one is solid PVC--

[little elmer]

Realize that the ground will swell with heavy rains, and shrink during dry periods - the key is to try to maintain a consistent moisture level to prevent the up and down effect. As has been mentioned, if you don't have sufficient drainage, you'll have problems of your own making even if the weather is cooperating.

Personally, I wouldn't bother patching the cracks until the weather dries a bit - the home will shift again as it settles back down. Again, my opinion.