Brownstone Foundation Shaking

Over the past year, I’ve noticed that our house shakes when especially heavy vehicles speed down Court Street, which is a few hundred feet away. The shaking seems to have gotten worse, and I see the occasional crack where the floor, walls and ceiling meet.

Who might I consult to learn whether these vibrations are standard for 100+ year old brownstones, or whether we need to do something?

brownstonebettie

in General Discussion 7 years and 4 months ago

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murph | 7 years and 4 months ago

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How long has your house been there and not fallen down yet?

My 1905 brownstone is 100 feet up from the R/N line under 4th Avenue. Every ten minutes a train passes and the house shakes. That’s 24/7. I used to have trailer trucks bounce down the street on the old paving blocks and it shook. But I’m here! Live with it and soon you won’t notice it.

The cracks might from settling(subsidence). It happens still.

cate | 7 years and 4 months ago

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You should probably look into it. We have a frame house and it was shaking a few years ago but wood is more able to withstand shaking than masonry. We put in some stronger columns in the basement and more shimming and that helped a lot. More recently, we decided to investigate the cause of a sinking floor in a rear corner of the house. Our handyman exposed some beams and ceiling in the rear of the basement so an engineer could take a look, and he found one of the joists was falling out of its pocket. A contractor shored it all up per the engineer’s recommendations with two new beams and a column. It was $2,100 for that and some necessary related concrete and floor work. I can’t recall feeling any shaking since we did that work.

dorkofwindsor | 7 years and 4 months ago

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This isnt unusual unfortunately. None of the old houses were designed for these massively heavy trucks slamming potholes and telegraphing through the clay soil. I used to live on a truck route in manhattan and the building would literally bounce up and down a few cm all day long. fyi, this happend to my current house – – i did a 311 and complained about house shaking and thry came out and filled potholes on my street. Thats the advice i would offer is to go identify (clearly) any surfacing issues on Court St that is making the trucks slam the pavement. I think they came in a week or two, although to be fair that was under Bloomberg idk how this current admin has managed things.

RobertGMarvin

in General Discussion 7 years and 4 months ago

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I live around the corner from a firehouse and notice shaking when their heavy trucks speed down my street. While we’ve had some plaster cracks over the years, there’s nothing worse. The firehouse says “Brooklyn Fire Dept.” so it must precede my 1899 house and no houses on the block have collapsed.

BTW, skim coating with fiberglass mesh seems to have prevented further plaster cracks.