Addition on back of the house settling

So I moved into a house a couple of years ago, and there is an addition on the back of the house that currently is my laundry room. When I put my washer and dryer in there, I noticed that the floor is not level at all, as I had to really shim my appliances to get them to sit level. Going outside and looking, I can see that the addition is in fact settling, and the back part of the addition is lower than the front part. There is a crawlspace underneath it to access the foundation and joists, but wondering what I can do to remedy it. Would going underneath it and using jacks to re-level it work, or will the foundation also need to be redone? I would say it's about 2-4" unlevel, which doesn't seem like a lot but is really noticeable when you are in the room.

The addition doesn't have a poured foundation, it's blocks and mortar, not sure if that makes a difference (There are no cracks in the foundation or blocks at all).

 

You could try jacking it up - go slow, and then add lumber to make up the difference. It's quite possible that the footer under the foundation wall is inadequate with some luck it will have stabilized itself.

Any chance that this laundry rm was originally a deck?

 

Hard to say without more info and pics.

 

Where are you located?

What is underneath the crawl space (cement block) walls? If you dig down at the base of the wall do you hit a concrete footer?

2-4" is a huge amount of settling especially for something small and laundry room sized. With that amount of settling something is majorly wrong and not likely to be fixed with some simple jacking.

 

I am located in Michigan.

I guess I should have given room dimensions. The room itself is half the width of my house, and about as equally long, so i'd say 12' wide by 12' long. I am not sure what the original owner used it for, but it wasn't a laundry room as I had to run water and drain lines to the room when I put my washer and dryer down there.

As far as what's under the concrete walls, I am not sure, as I haven't crawled under there to investigate yet. I've been in the house for about three years, and haven't noticed any additional settling, so it's possible that it's done shifting.

Directly above the addition is a platform/sunroof type area off of my bathroom, that has a roof on it as well, so I am not sure if that is adding to the settling.

It's possible there could have been a deck there at one point, but not where the foundation is.

2-4" may have been an exaggeration based on visually looking at it. It's visually not level/square.

One of the things I have feared is crawling under it and starting to jack it up to level, and having the entire thing fall ontop of me. When in the back room standing on the floor it doesn't move or anything, but that doesn't mean a slight lifting of it won't change that.

I will try to get pictures tonight of the exterior, so you can visually see what it looks like. Hopefully it'll give a better idea of what the problem is.

 

If you jack the room even improperly the worst that will happen is the jacks slip and the room falls/settles back down on the foundation where it was before. It can make a spooky noise but it won't hurt you. You're more likely to get hurt by your jack kicking out and hitting you.

Look around the room and outside for signs of sagging. Go outside, does all the siding look level? Does the siding on the addition line up with the rest of the house. Inside do you see cracks or gaps where the walls and floor and ceiling meet? Are the doors and windows square or do they have pie shaped gaps around them when closed.

 

How will raising one end of the laundry rm affect this?