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I recently bought a house made in 1926. It's built into a hill where the basement is exposed in the back of the house. The basement is poured concrete. Over the years the foundation has settled about 2 to 3 inches from one end of the house to the other, so the floors slope. This has also caused a pair of small matching cracks on either side of the house in the basement walls.

There are no other problems that I know of other than that the floor slopes.

The fix to this, as I understand it, is to level the foundation by jacking it with piers. That is the root cause. However, that's expensive, and I wanted to monitor the settling before committing to the jacking (since I'm new to the house). While I wait and monitor, I was looking for suggestions or ideas on how to mitigate the sloping floors.

It's in an expensive area, so the cost of repairs tends to be small compared to the cost of the location, land, and house itself. I'm a first time home buyer, so no experience, but I naturally enjoy the DIY lifestyle when possible. :)

Looking for DIY options, guidance, or ideas for fixing these framing issues.

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  • You are asking about mitigating the upper floors sloping due to the basement supporting them settling, or the basement floor itself? For the upper floors, you either live with them (put shims under furniture legs if you feel the need, but mostly "ignore until you choose to fix" is the only practical thing to do there.) A slab floor in the basement can be "fixed" with self-leveling material or material leveled by you, and won't affect the eventual jacking of the upper floors when or if you get to that. 2-3 inches across an entire house is small change unless it's a very small house. – Ecnerwal Apr 12 at 21:12
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If your house was built in 1926, it probably finished settling a long time ago. If you are going to have it fixed, you should just do it. Monitoring it will not likely reveal anything useful at this point.

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The easiest way to get a level floor is to pour a self leveling product on the existing floor. There are many different types, determining which one depends on budget and what you plan to have as a finished floor option. What type of finish did you want to see?

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  • Pouring a self leveling product on a sloping floor precludes the eventual fixing of the cause of the slope, because after you fix it, your poured floor now slopes the other way... Keep that in mind. – J. Raefield Apr 12 at 19:11

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