Foundation Repair in Chelsea, Manhattan

Local Conditions

What Foundation Problems Do Chelsea Buildings Have?

Mostly age and water. Row houses and tenements sit on stone and brick foundations that are well over a century old. Cracks in cellar walls, joint loss below grade, damp stone and leaking vaults are the usual findings. The low west blocks near the Hudson add water pressure.

Chelsea's side streets have Italianate and Greek Revival row houses. Their cellars have stone or brick walls, often parged over many times. Old repairs hide the true state of the wall until a crack opens through them.

The far west blocks sit low. West Chelsea galleries near Eleventh Avenue flooded in Hurricane Sandy. Where the ground is wet, cellar walls take pressure, mortar washes out and walls can crack or lean.

Neighboring construction deserves a mention. Chelsea has seen heavy building along the High Line and in West Chelsea, with deep excavations beside older walls. If cracks appeared after nearby digging began, note the date and tell us. That detail helps an engineer judge the cause.

Keep notes for your engineer. Record when you first saw each crack, whether water comes through it and whether doors or windows nearby have started to stick. A short written history of a crack is often more useful than a single photo.

Old parging hides problems. Layers of cement over stone can cover loose mortar and hollow spots, so we sound the wall by tapping and remove failed coatings where we need to see the stone.

Some buildings have vaults under the sidewalk. The vault walls are part of the foundation system, and a leaking vault can undermine the wall above it.