Ever since my village installed a special valve on the sewer pipes in the street, our homes get wet, first in the crawl space and then the driveway and front lawn. I can-t sell the house and I-m stuck, so I just want to fix the floor, which is collapsing from the water damage. It has dropped as much as six inches across the middle of my living room and kitchen. What kind of floor can I use?
A. Your floor structure is damaged by the water that gets into your crawl space. Because I got your address and was able to look at the problem, I can tell readers that you have an unusual floor structure made of steel rod-reinforced concrete planks that span your entire 22-foot-wide first floor. I might have suggested lifting the house, but you have a bizarre attached-house situation, connected to your next-door neighbor, so that-s out of the question.
The steel rods rusted inside the concrete planks, and the concrete, having no flexibility, or tensile strength, cracked and dropped. So now you have sagging floors that need to be removed and replaced. There are a few methods to solve the problem, but on a budget, especially with a house that will be difficult to sell, you need to keep costs down. No matter which route you take, the solution must be long-lasting, without failure. Wood, steel or concrete structural systems will all fail in five to 15 years, depending on what waterproofing methods are employed.
One of the two best solutions is to fill the crawl space completely with sand or stone that will disperse water pressure evenly, and then cover it with a heavy polymer plastic liner before placing a steel-reinforced concrete slab over it. The slab would need to have a special silicon-and-fiberglass mesh in the mix. The second, less costly method is to use a fiberglass-reinforced I-beam structure for the floor supports with fiberglass floor decking and/or a marine plywood subfloor, separated by a thick polymer liner. Either way, the contractor has to be meticulous about making sure that everything is waterproofed and separated, that only stainless steel bolting for the floor members is used to attach all joists and beams, and that specially designed web-stiffeners are employed for each beam, since fiberglass beams can twist more easily than steel will.
This system has to be engineered. There is no room for error or guessing. The products are proprietary, meaning that their internal stresses are known only to the manufacturer, and if they-re not resolved completely, you-ll be left with a pile of fiberglass. I wonder how a community lets this flooding condition continue, as I know your neighbors are experiencing the same problem. I hope this solution can give you some piece of mind. Good luck!
