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Building a brand new house and the basement walls were poured 4 weeks ago. Today I noticed that there are two cracks running from top to bottom left on a basement wall (the basement height is 10 feet) . Pictures below. Should I be worried? is this normal ? any pointers before I talk to the builder? appreciate your responses. The earth is already backfilled when I noticed the cracks.
Demand that the builder bring out a licensed structural engineer NOW to assess, and that the builder follow all recommendations. Or better, hire your own engineer.
Have you had rain? Any water come through?
Personally, I really do not like what I see.
It seems that either the backfill cracked the wall, or that the footer could have moved already, but i would yield to the engineer's opinion..
Demand that the builder bring out a licensed structural engineer NOW to assess, and that the builder follow all recommendations. Or better, hire your own engineer.
Have you had rain? Any water come through?
Personally, I really do not like what I see.
It seems that either the backfill cracked the wall, or that the footer could have moved already, but i would yield to the engineer's opinion..
I agree. It looks like the crack has displacement already. You need a structural engineer.
You need to get it looked at. However, you also need to understand that cracking is part of the normal curing process of concrete. That's why when people stain their concrete floors, they love seeing the cracks as it adds more character.
The two things usually warranted on concrete foundations are:
1. It will crack
2. It is unlikely anyone will steal it, or that it will burn down
If this was 10 years in, no problem, that is a minor crack. But if that has happened before the rest of the house is even sitting on top of it, I'd be taking it up with the builder.
This one needs analysis by a sturctural engineer. Cracking is not unusual by any means but as best I can tell by the picture there appears to be some displacement (both sides of the crack not in the same plane).
Location: Mokelumne Hill, CA & El Pescadero, BCS MX.
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In my youth, I built a lot of freeway overpasses and parking structures.
It looks to me as if the reinforcing steel is/was not enough. There is no way that concrete should have cracked that much in such a short period of time IMHO. Definitely I would have a structural engineer look at it and at least cut a core sample to verify it was built to specifications.
Whoa! You've got a problem here. In the OP, you said there were 2 cracks, but in the video I counted at least 4 and maybe 5 or 6. Don't let them do any more work - especially any more earthwork around the walls - until you've had a structural engineer come out. I'll tell you right now what he's going to tell you - it was the backfill against the standing walls. You can see it plain as day in the videos, from the way the cracks displace - especially at 15, 30, 86, and 90 seconds of that second video, the one showing the top of the wall. That's clearly a wall that's bowing inward from the earth packed against it.
How long after the walls were poured did they backfill and compact against the walls? That fill looks like it's been there for more than a minute or two. If they were only poured a month ago, and they've done all that earthwork since then, there's a good chance the concrete hadn't cured sufficiently when they compacted all that fill against it. I would try to remember that now, while it's still fresh in your memory, and document it - if you wind up suing someone, the amount of time they allowed the concrete to set up before applying lateral stress to it may be critical to your case.
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