HERE IS THE ISSUE

A wet area near the base of the wall indicated a leak inside the masonry wall or cement floor. This is how whomever did things; they put walls and footings directly in or on top of the plumbing. That has lead to the homes main water line to leak and require fixing last year. This other one is complicated, since as I break up the concrete I could fracture the pipe and have a worse issue.

So in these photos you can see the poor construction work; air holding up a makeshift concrete sink that is cracking and falling in. I am going to support that with a wall. That sink will likely become a planter under a whole redesigned area with a raised planting bed, wide concrete counter and an overhead arbor or trellis to hold a nice wisteria vine.

But for today, after yesterdays cutting in with a tile saw and fracturing of the cut areas with gentile hits of a sledge hammer, hopefully today I will pry out the pieces around the pipe and cap it off. I have put another water line this side of that hole with the water in it in the photo. There is already a water spigot 8 feet from this area.

Notice the non existing footing. That is not all; walls are not tied to slab by re-bar or any metal! I will go under in spots to put real footings where I do wall add ons for planter that will help keep walls up by being bolted to them with re-bar from wall to planter wall, grouted with cement.

Scary thing is, this seems to be an area the ex inhabitants were going to annex to the actual home square footage, since it seems to have had window spaces formed. A roof and a cut through to the home would have completed the new room.

Often with older homes (this one only 30 yrs.) one has to deal with homeowner ideas gone bad. But it is wise to watch your “contractors build confidence” group like a hawk as well.