Bryan Baeumler
Fixes for foundation cracks and an icy roof,
Your holiday traditions may be more solid than ever after the years. But maybe the same can’t be said for your foundation wall.
Like it or not, external factors — from time to climate — will alter elements of your home. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. But with enough elbow grease, you can defy the effects of aging . . . at least on your house.
“I expect to find a can of worms any time I work on an old house,” says Bryan Baeumler. “But more often than not, it’s nothing that can’t be reversed with a bit of hard work.”
The host of HGTV’s House of Bryan and co-star of Canada’s Handyman Challenge has your back in the fight against Father Time.
In a conversation with Alex Nino Gheciu, Baeumler answers Star readers’ questions about cracking foundations, sagging roofs and swelling doors. Hi, Bryan. My wife and I love your shows and your sense of humour. We own a townhouse that is about 30 years old and we have a “wedge” foundation crack. I have read that it is usually caused by the structure on top that puts a sliding pressure on the foundation corner, causing it to crack. I am more concerned with an entire brick of the first level that sits on the wedge. The tape measure shows the crack runs about 23 inches, top to bottom, and about eight inches in on the right side of the wedge. How serious is it? What should be done? Thanks. Phil C., Oakville Well here’s the deal, Phil. The townhouse is 30 years old so I’m guessing it’s not a candidate for imminent collapse; you probably shouldn’t pack your up your stuff and run screaming to a hotel just yet. I’m not sure if you’re getting any water in it.
When you get a crack through the course of the bricks that are sitting atop the wedge, which is part of your foundation, that’s something I’d be concerned about. You’ll probably want to get a mason in to do some tuck-pointing. A lot of times what happens is: they’ll start building a house, the mortar goes in, it’s a bit cold and it might freeze, causing the mortar to freeze a bit and form some cracks. It doesn’t mean your house will fall apart because there are brick ties every two feet holding that brick veneer in as a unit.
The problem I could foresee with having cracks in your mortar and brick veneer is any water running down the wall could work its way into those cracks, get behind or inside the bricks and then freeze. That could start to cause problems over years and years. So I’d say seal those cracks with exterior caulking and then have a mason come in during the spring — he could possibly dig out some of that mortar, tuck-point and re-mortar those bricks to hold everything securely in place. You’ll be OK, Phil! Your house isn’t going to fall down. Bryan: Relatives of mine live in Fergus, Ont., in a heritage stone home with an unvented soffit on the north elevation, and at each side of the two gable ends. (The roof framing has sagged at the centre of the north elevation, at the eaves, and the sloping roof is now closer to flat than sloped.) At the south elevation, there is no soffit — the fascia and eaves trough are attached to the stone. The roof covering is asphalt shingles with no vents. The major problem each winter is ice damming at the north elevation. What should be done to stop this happening? Rob G. Rob, the problem here occurs when there’s snow on the roof and there’s heat loss from inside the house up into the attic. It melts that snow that’s up on the roof and that snow runs down the roof as water. But the point on the roof where the exterior wall meets, directly down to the fascia right above the soffit, is completely unheated so the water again freezes. It just keeps backing up and building a bigger and bigger ice dam.
It depends if there are other roof vents in there, but it should be a vented soffit and you want to make sure the attic is vented as well up as close to the ridge as you can get. But the most important thing you have to do is keep the heat inside the house so it’s not melting the snow off the roof in the first place. Take a look up in the attic, insulate the crap out of that sealing and put a vapour barrier down. The insulation that was there, if any, is very thin, has condensed over time and has very little R-value. You will be getting a lot of warmth and moisture up into that attic and all that snow will be melting, running down and creating the ice dams.
So put in some soffit vents, put in some vents in the ceiling near the ridge and then insulate that attic properly so you’re not losing heat from the house. That should solve it! Hello, Bryan. I have a suite in a seven-year-old condo. During the summers, the bottom of the heavy wooden door sticks/ scrapes when it opens and closes. During the winter this goes away. I tried to sand off a little of the door bottom but the problem persists. It’s quite heavy on spring loaded hinges; but maybe I need to get a planer on it? Alternatively, could the tile floor be heaving a bit? I’d appreciate any suggestions. David J., Toronto Well David, you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s the big heavy wood door — in the summer, when the humidity is higher, it grows a little bit and in the winter, when the air is extremely dry, it shrinks. Even if there’s a little bit of humidity control in the condo, it’s not going to be enough. The door still fluctuates in size.
I’d say in the winter, when that door shrinks, have a look at the bottom of the door and see just how much it’s moving. Let’s say in the summer you notice the door is hitting the ground and you decide to plane it down so it’s not. Come winter, the door will shrink and suddenly you’ll have space under the door. You want to make sure not to take too much off the door, but the winter’s the best time to do it because the door’s at its smallest.
So I’d suggest taking the door off and planing it, but before that I’d scribe the bottom of the door with a pencil. I highly doubt the tile floor is heaving; I do think it’s the wooden door. It’s on heavy, spring-loaded hinges, so you’ve got to be really careful when you pull that door off, where there’s no pressure on that spring. Otherwise, the hinges will go flying and you’ll have a hinge tattoo on your forehead. Hi, Bryan. I watch your shows regularly and I have a question for you: When we bought our home seven years ago, we had two bedrooms and a full bathroom built in the basement. The doors on these three rooms never functioned properly. Initially, we were told the wall wasn’t straight and they could do nothing. We were thinking of buying a pre-hung door and setting it up on the outside of the present door and putting shims between the old wall and new pre-hung frame. Do you think this might work? Have I scrambled your brain? Val McD. Yes, Val, my brain is a little scrambled here! I’m not sure why anyone would put a pre-hung door in front of an existing one. When I go into someone’s house, one of the first hints I get that they’d done the work themselves is the doors opening and closing like crap.
It doesn’t matter how out-ofplumb or off-level a wall is — if the rough opening for the door is at least half an inch bigger than the frame, you can install the door perfectly plumb so it operates properly. So, whoever told you the wall isn’t straight and you can do nothing clearly doesn’t know what needs to be done. If you want a new door, you should rip the old door out, buy a pre-hung door and install it properly in the old opening. I can’t see sticking a pre-hung door outside the present one — I just can’t picture it! But my recommendation? Just fix the existing door.