REPAIR OF THE FOUNDATION OF A WOODEN HOUSE

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Old wooden houses go to new owners in different situations. They can pass into ownership by inheritance; some citizens deliberately acquire cheap housing for a summer residence. Both those and others subsequently face the same problems. Under the influence of time or due to lack of care, wooden houses require major repairs. First of all, it is necessary to fix the foundation, insulate the walls, repair the roof, replace windows and doors. And after that you can proceed to the internal work. The foundation is the base of any structure, so the restoration of a wooden house most often begins with it. Repair work should be carried out in warm and dry weather.
Common foundation damage.
Depending on the terrain and era of construction, there are different types of foundations.
The oldest houses stand on ordinary stones, the gaps between which are covered with a cement-sand mortar. Over time, numerous cracks appear, which increase annually if the owners did not conduct timely maintenance.
Monolithic foundations replaced stone foundations a little later. However, they are made by the ancestors without taking into account the depth of freezing of the soil and without a reinforcing frame. Therefore, often the corners of the house sag, and wide cracks appear at the base.

Any of these foundations can be repaired on their own, spending on materials and devoting their free time to occupation.
Elimination of cracks and crevices in the foundation
To restore the strength of the base of the house, you must first think about the next steps to repair the entire structure. It’s one thing if you just need a cosmetic upgrade of your appearance (plastering, painting). In this case, you can use a reinforcing mesh and plaster for restoration of the foundation. But if you plan to warm the house, decorate the walls with siding or relief plaster, then you have to increase the thickness of the base. The technology for such repairs looks different.

First, undermining is done under the foundation of the old foundation. This is necessary to increase the adhesion of the new concrete layer to the old.
Next, reinforcement of the sections of the foundation with cracks is carried out. For this, holes are drilled into the hole with a puncher, into which sections of reinforcement with a diameter of 8-10 mm and a length of 150-200 mm are clogged. They should protrude by about 3-5 cm.
Separate steel pins must be connected with a knitting wire.
The next step in the repair will be the installation of formwork. The distance between the wooden structure and the concrete base is selected taking into account the increase in the width of the walls. The formwork must be securely fixed with props from the outside, and wooden partitions are installed inside, fixing the width.

The fastest stage of work will be the pouring of cement-sand mixture into the formwork. To speed up the preparation of concrete, a concrete mixer will be required, and you will have to work with building mixtures using shovels.

In such a simple but effective way, you can restore 2-3-meter sections of the cracked foundation.
Complete replacement of concrete base
In the case of a stone foundation, as well as when the corners subside with the complete breaking of large sections of concrete, it will be necessary to completely replace the foundation. This work must be done in stages, resorting to the following scheme.
First of all, stones or a piece of concrete should be removed from under one of the corners. For this, a certain layer of earth is selected, the remains of the old foundation are removed. At this stage, you can raise the sagging corner of the log box with a jack.

If the soil is loose, then it is necessary to install the inner formwork and fix it. The length of the plot is limited to 2-3 m.
Using steel reinforcement or rods, a reinforcing frame is made. It should go beyond the boundaries of the restored area so that it is possible to tie the reinforcing belt into a single metal structure.

The individual rods are connected to each other by knitting wire.

After this, you can proceed with the installation of the external formwork. To fix the wooden structure, internal struts and external supports are used.

Stones from the old foundation are laid at the bottom of the formwork, and concrete is poured.

It is important to carefully compact the concrete mixture to eliminate large air pores. Breaking up old pieces of concrete is best done with a heavy sledgehammer.
After a day, the formwork can be rearranged to another area where the internal plank wall is pre-installed and a reinforcing frame is created.

When the entire foundation around the perimeter of the house is restored, you can take up its design or repair walls. Now for the foundation of the house you can not be afraid.