settling basement floor

by brad
(independence, mo)

q. About 8 yrs ago I had a foundation company lift the footing around two sides of my house. We noticed just 3-4 yrs after, that our basement floor was cracking and now it has become a significant concern as doors are sticking and visible signs of settling are showing up in the finished basement. The floor is covered with carpet and there are obvious dips in the floor. So much so that a portion of our finished basement has walls pulling away from the ceiling. Is this a foundation problem or something unrelated to the work we had done? Also who would we call to both evaluate the situation and hire to repair?

A. It does sound like the settling of the concrete floor could be related to the footing problem you had. Some of the sub-base was disturbed both when the footing settled and when they lifted it later.

The concrete floor could also be settling from poor compaction when the foundation was originally back-filled.

I would hire a structural engineer to test why the concrete is settling. Here is a LINK to some in your area.

Depending on their results, they should be able to recommend who to hire to fix the sub-base and concrete floor.