Strengthening the foundation of an old wooden house

A wooden house is beautiful, warm and environmentally friendly. But, unfortunately, it is short-lived. The reasons for the destruction are different. Let's dwell on how to strengthen the foundation of an old wooden house with your own hands. The reasons for the violation of the foundation are different: the shift of soil layers, the work of heavy equipment near the house, the wrong initial device. Whatever the reasons, one thing is clear - the foundation must be restored.

Starting to strengthen the foundation of an old wooden house with your own hands, first of all, you need to correctly determine the cause of its deformation.

There can be several factors for the appearance of destruction:

• Soil properties can change due to load changes. Such changes are caused by erosion of the soil, a high level of groundwater. If new buildings appear near the house, then this can also lead to certain changes. Buildings, as it were, squeeze out the soil and thereby violate its density. The consequence of all this is the subsidence of the house or its distortion.
• Poor quality foundation. When laying the foundation, the work may have been of poor quality, mistakes were made in calculating the depth of soil freezing or in choosing the brand of concrete.

Determining the cause of structural deformation is only the initial stage. The next step is to determine the degree of destruction. They are divided into four types:

• Minimal damage is visible defects. These include slightly exfoliated plaster. This damage is repaired very quickly.
• Medium damage. These include various types of cracks. To eliminate defects, their nature should be investigated. Horizontal cracks are not particularly dangerous. Defects of a vertical or zigzag nature deserve more serious consideration.

Cracks are usually caused by subsidence of the foundation. Therefore, it is important to determine whether this process is progressing or is temporary.

Technologies for strengthening the foundation of an old wooden house

Depending on the degree of destruction of the foundation of the old house, certain works are carried out to strengthen it. The simplest and easiest to do with your own hands is the repair of cracks that usually occur with a slight subsidence of the house. To do this, you need to slightly expand the crack and clean it of dirt. Then primed well and sealed with sand-cement mortar. Also, partial repairs of the support of the house can be performed if the building has gone into the ground.

To do this, the building rises. To perform this procedure, first of all, we reduce the load on the base. It is necessary to remove all furniture from the house, disassemble the floor and remove the stove if it does not have its own foundation. If the house is small and light, then you can lift it with the help of a vag. To do this, a wooden beam with a cross section of 80 × 80 mm is substituted under the corner of the building. Then they use the wag as a lever, focusing on the log, raise the house.

Heavier houses are lifted using a jack, which is placed in certain places. After the building is raised to the desired height, the old foundation of the house should be built up with brick or concrete. With more serious deformations of the foundation, one side of the foundation is usually reinforced or, if necessary, completely around the perimeter. Consider several types of strengthening the supporting structure.

Foundation repair by reinforcing the corners

Sometimes, to strengthen the supporting structure of a wooden house, they are limited to strengthening the corners.

In order to properly perform this work, you must first expose the corners of the base. To do this, a hole is dug near each corner of the house, the diameter of which is about a meter. The depth of the pit should be half a meter lower than the depth of the old foundation. Strengthening is carried out using a reinforcing grid. The cell sizes are 20×20 cm.

On the old base, the reinforcement is cleaned of concrete in some places, to which a reinforcing grid is attached. In this case, the connection should be made by welding. After the grating is installed, layer-by-layer concrete pouring begins and it is left to harden. In order to increase the degree of reinforcement, it is possible to strengthen not only the corners. In some places along the perimeter of the dwelling, ditches up to half a meter wide are prepared every one and a half or two meters.

The depth of the ditches is equal to the depth of the old support. Then reinforcing bars are attached to the steel bars of the old foundation and again poured with concrete. Thus, reinforcement occurs both in the corners and around the entire perimeter. This is easy to do with your own hands and significantly increases the bearing capacity of the foundation.

Concrete must be poured gradually in layers. This can be achieved by filling the recesses one by one.

Strengthening the base with an armored belt

A frequently used and reliable way to do the strengthening of the foundation with your own hands is a device around the old base of a monolithic reinforcing belt. Watch the video on how to strengthen the base with an armored belt.

For its construction, a certain algorithm is used:

• Prepare a trench around the house. It should be such that there is free access to the base and the possibility of unhindered work. Its width can be 50–60 cm. The depth should be at least 0.6 meters below the old support.
• For better adhesion of the old base and the reinforcing belt, the walls of the foundation are thoroughly cleaned of foreign objects. It should be cleaned qualitatively, it is best to use a metal brush. Next, carry out deep priming.
• A sand and gravel cushion is poured at the bottom of the trench, which is well spilled and compacted. It should be fairly well sealed.
• Formwork is mounted from boards or plywood.
• We prepare holes in the old base with a diameter greater than the cross section of the reinforcing bars by one millimeter. It is best to use reinforcement with a diametrical section of 12 mm or 14 mm. We install steel rods, driving them into the prepared holes. The distance between them should be 25–30 cm. It is better to arrange the rods in several rows.
• A new reinforcing belt or reinforcing mesh is attached to the clogged rods.
• Proceed to layer-by-layer pouring of concrete. The thickness of the layers should not exceed 20 cm.
• Carry out waterproofing of the reinforcing belt and arrange a blind area.

Strengthening the supporting structure in this way allows you to evenly distribute the load over a double area.

Strengthening the foundation by installing piles

The foundation of an old wooden house can be strengthened with piles, and there are several ways to carry out such work with your own hands:

• Bored method. On both sides of the base, every one and a half meters, wells are punched to a depth of about two meters. Then we carry out reinforcement and waterproofing of the recesses. After completion of all preparatory work, the wells are poured with concrete.
• With screw piles. This is a less labor intensive way. True, in order to perform it correctly, several people are required. It is necessary to simultaneously monitor the position of the rods and directly carry out work on their deepening.

After the piles are installed, they are attached to the house with anchor bolts.