This old log cabin is one of the “original buildings that remain in the ghost town of American City, an 1890’s gold mining town” as described by family owners who purchased the property in the 1960’s.  It is a single-story log cabin, with a raised wood floor constructed over existing grade.  The foundation consists of logs constructed on grade.

Location: Black Hawk, Colorado at roughly 10,600 feet of elevation in the mountains.

Year Originally Built: 1890’s

Proposed Work: The owners want to know what it will generally take to repair this old log cabin.

Issues/Concerns: The roof structure has temporary shoring supports due to cracks in wood roof truss members.  The log walls are leaning and shifting.  There is wood decay, rot, and crushing failures.

Challenges: There is difficult access to the site with off-road 4×4 trails high in the mountains. There is no running water or electricity.

Date: 2021

Services: Structural Inspection for Condition Assessment and consulting on findings and recommendations for potential repairs.  Worked with a structural repair contractor to discuss potential repairs, limitations with the site location, and to develop preliminary very rough magnitude of potential repair costs to help the owners with their decisions.

Building Structure: This is a two-story house with an added loft on the second level and a crawlspace below the main floor.  The house is constructed with wood framing and exposed timber roof beams that extend beyond the roofline on each side of the house.  The foundation is constructed with masonry foundation walls on concrete spread footings.  An upper-level balcony deck cantilevers out from the upper-level floor framing.  There is a large main level wood deck along the back of the house that supports a hot tub at one end.

Location: Breckenridge, Colorado at roughly 9,900 feet of elevation in the mountains.

Year Originally Built: 1978

Issues/Concerns: There is extensive deterioration of exposed timber roof beams extending beyond the roofline on each side of the house.  The cantilever balcony deck joists are damaged with extensive wood rot.  The balcony deck railing and posts move laterally back and forth with little effort.  A hot tub is located on the rear wood deck without apparent reinforcing of the deck framing.

Services: Structural Inspection for Condition Assessment with a written report on findings and recommendations.

Date: 2020

This is a split-level house with a main level floor and two additional levels split off the main level creating an upper and lower level.  There is a crawlspace below the main level floor and an attached garage structure in line with the house.  The house is constructed with wood framing over concrete foundation walls that are constructed with 4-inch-deep voids along the bottom of wall to create isolated wall bearing pads to transfer load to the supported soils.

Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Year Originally Built: 1977

Proposed Work: Create a new one-story house addition to extend off the existing house main level and garage structure at the back of the house to replace a previous failing patio slab-on-grade enclosure.  Create a large opening from the existing kitchen into the new addition.

Challenges: There are expansive soils onsite.  Steel posts in the crawlspace were leaning and rusting causing the steel beam to twist.  There were moisture issues in the crawlspace due to poor perimeter surface drainage.

Services: Investigation and Design Services
Date: 2017 to 2018
Resolution: Construction documents were provided for the house addition, alterations and repairs.  The house addition was designed with a crawlspace.  A voided shallow spread footing foundation system was selected for the new house addition to work with the existing house voided wall foundation system.

This old house was originally a gold miner’s house and built during the gold rush.  It is a single-story house with a second floor located within roof rafter A-frame construction.  It is primarily constructed with wood framing over a stacked rock foundation.  There is a shallow crawlspace below the main floor framing.

Location: Central City, Colorado  

Year Originally Built: 1867

Proposed Work: Create an upper-level bathroom and a large master bathroom on the main floor.

Issues/Concerns:         

• Existing framing is failing with wood crushing, joist rotation and support failures in numerous locations.
• The existing stacked rock foundation does not readily allow for anchor installation and does not provide solid bearing support for new framing and loads.
• There is wood rot in an exterior load bearing wall.
• There are cracked roof joists.

Challenges: The original house construction is on a stack rock foundation set into a hillside and on sloping bedrock.  The shallow sloping bedrock provides minimal or no joist clearance.  Some areas of the crawlspace are not accessible.

Services: Investigation, Design and Repair Services
Date: 2016 through 2017
Resolution: Roof framing, Floor framing, wall framing, and foundation repairs developed for construction.

This old historic brick house is a single-story house with a second floor located within the roof rafter A-frame construction.  It is constructed with wood framing for the roof, floor and interior walls.  The exterior walls, foundation walls and interior foundation walls are constructed with brick.  There is a small basement with crawlspace below the main floor.

Location: Denver, Colorado

Year Originally Built: 1891

Issues/Concerns:

• There is extensive brick and mortar deterioration in the foundation walls.
• Brick interior bearing walls are damaged with openings created for mechanical ducts causing structural framing support issues.
• Wall cracking is present on the interior and exterior walls.
• Exterior wythe of bricks are separating from the interior brick wythe at the front of the house,
• Floors are sloping.
• High-strength mortar repairs were previously used with old brick construction.
• Ground water is saturating soils around the perimeter of the foundation in the crawlspace.
• The exterior grade is relatively flat around house and property.

Challenges: There is asbestos and construction debris within the crawlspace.  Lead paint is present on exterior brick walls.  Brick foundation construction around the crawlspace is very shallow below exterior grade.

Services: Investigation, Design and Repair Services
Date: 2015 through 2016
Resolution: Brick wall, foundation and main floor framing repairs developed for construction.