A few years ago, we were contacted by a Homeowner to underpin his cabin in the northern part of the state. The home was a crawl space with a heavy brick fireplace (not a great combination) and was built improperly. The home was constructed as a vaulted ceiling. This was not a scissor truss. See below for an explanation.
Figure 1 is a scissor truss, constructed to shed the roof load to the perimeter walls. Figure 2 is what was built. These types of configurations need to have an extremely large/strong beam running at the top to carry the roof loads to columns on either end of it. In this case, the beam up at the top was not nearly large enough to hold up the roof and was sagging badly and pushing the perimeter walls out. Collar ties could have been designed and installed to remedy this problem.
The Homeowner was convinced that if we could have leveled the house that it would have saved the structure.
We were hired to stabilize the foundation, however the Homeowner hired a different contractor to repair/install the interior supports, not realizing that that would stop us from being able to raise since they naturally would need to be done at the same time. Once that decision was made, we gave the Homeowner additional options to save money by removing additional piles at the fireplace that could not be easily accessed due to unknown false walls.
We installed our piles in a workmanlike manner and (as usual) had them verified by a third-party inspecting engineer. Fast forward a few years... the house continued to sag until it became unsafe, and eventually had to be torn down. The Homeowner was convinced that the poor performance of the house was attributed to our pile installation. Ultimately, a court ruled otherwise.
The Homeowner was convinced that if we could have leveled the house that it would have saved the structure.
Even though we warned the Homeowner of the sagging problem, and urged him to get a licensed engineer to evaluate the framing and recommend a repair such as collar ties, he was convinced that his contractor (who seemed really confident) could handle it. Additionally, interior walls were removed that exacerbated the problem and accelerated the demise of the house!
Looking back on it, our engineers could have taken a more proactive role in strongly advising him of the consequences of not dealing with the framing problem. Our sales advisors could have communicated this more forcefully. Even though we installed our piles in a workmanlike manner, we should have listened to his needs and advised him better.
