Wood should never crumble away like this.

I guess they wanted an open floor plan? They took the brick wall separating the two rooms down. No permits, no contractor, just a man and his trusty hammer.

It’s always nice when I don’t have to crawl into a crawlspace but, these stairs are pretty frightening.

I think one more shim should do the job.

Another failing railroad tie “retaining wall” that should be replaced soon. You can see how far it has begun to lean towards the street.

Here’s a concrete pier practicing for its role as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Omelets anyone?

And for my next trick I will levitate this post…

Here we have some expansive soil, clearly affecting the foundation already.

There should not be a space here. Never good news when you see stem walls separating at the corner.

These balconies have seen better days. As you can see, the wood framing of these balconies is experiencing some deflection. This is why The Balcony Bill exists. The Balcony Bill, formerly known as California Senate Bill 721, was signed into law back in 2018. This bill requires the inspection and possible repairs on all balconies, decks, and stairs that rely in whole or in substantial part on wood structural support in multi-family residential buildings with three or more dwelling units.

This failing retaining wall won’t last much longer. Some movement over the years has taken place and has caused the wall to lean into the sidewalk.

A customer called us in because of this crack running off the corner of their door, which is never a good sign and points in the direction of foundation problems.

I don’t know about you but I would want to park the furthest away from this wall…

This is what no steel in the concrete and moving soil will do to your foundation. Someone placed a few shims in there to level it all out.

Who knows what’s going on here?

We weren’t able to perform a proper torque test on this bolt… but something tells me we didn’t have to.

This is a pretty wicked stilt home we inspected this past week. Retrofitting these for earthquakes is one of our many specialties.

There appears to be a cave system leading down underneath this home’s foundation.

Anyone want to step foot on this balcony?

The brick and mortar piers are literally turning into dust. Not something you want holding up your entire house.

“How do you know if your wood is rotting?” This is how.

Some of the piers weren’t even in contact with the posts.

The old lathe and plaster ceilings are sagging, looking like it’s about to collapse.

Here is a brick pier that’s sitting dangerously close to a big hole in the ground. Something tells me the homeowner will start to feel some dipping in the floors soon!

Here is yet another brick foundation we inspected this past week. We want to get as many of these replaced, or at the very least, sistered before the next major earthquake in LA. The external foundation walls of this building are bowing, and many of the bricks are falling out of place. (Image 2) Not only that, but the framing is in really bad shape and a lot of it needs to be replaced as well. (Image 3)