In the Coveted YMCA Area there is an open tract of land at Brandon and Illinois. Half way back I can see utility boxes. It has been that way for years and years and I always wonder why the southern most lots haven't been developed. The northern edge looks like a potenial flood area.
Can anyone give me the 411 on this?

Hey Hey! Why are you snooping in my backyard!

That is part of Manor Woods. I know some of the neighbors on the south side of hillcrest have parts of their property in a flood plain. It is possible those on the northside are fully in a flood plain.

I have seen many a park district soccer team practice there, but that is about it.

The village used to work with the residents to clean up Manor Woods every other year, but in the past couple months no trespassing signs have appeared. It appears they have changed their policy on the woods. Instead of cleaning it up for all to enjoy, they would rather let no one in.

Interesting DTM, I didn't see those signs, but it's been so wet in there lately that I haven't gone in there. Didn't they just install a sittin' bench on Newton right by the edge of the trees?

Anyway, Buggy, if you ever decide to (apparently) trespass and go into to Manor Woods, you'll see old hydrants and buried sewer pipe, etc. consistent with planned development that never happened.

Back when I was house hunting (it's the Posh YMCA District, by the way, not Coveted YMCA Area - that sounds too much like the CLEA tag the noveau riche use to try and make their little area of the world sound as sweet as the YMCA District) I walked through a house right behind DTM on Hillcrest that was settling at a steep angle. I felt like I was on a ship at sea. A resident was there and I asked what it was like living with the slope of the floors. "I haven't really noticed it" she said. Anyway, the short story is that that area is historically a swamp and there are settling problems with homes in that whole general area. I'm guessing that may be a contributing factor to why that area wasn't further developed. While my foundation is doing OK, my stoop, deck post foundations, and backyard patio slab have all settled pretty significantly. And I live a couple blocks west of the forested area.

That is a cool link. Confirms my house was built in 1974 or earlier, not 1977 as I was told.

The story on the bench, as told by my neighbor, is that a group of guys around 50 years old used to hang out in the woods back in the day. Apparently, one of their group passed away recently so they pitched some cash together and bought the bench in his memory and had it installed near the woods on Newton Ave. The name of the gent that passed is on the bench.

The story on the hyrdrants and sewer pipe is that the pipe was put in by the army corp of engineers back in the 20's to drain the swamp that was once in there. Apparently, there is a layer of peat in the woods under the ground. In the event the peat would catch on fire, you would have a fire 6 feet under ground that would be impossible to put out unless you flooded the area, hence the hydrants sprinkled in there. In the 6 years I've been here, the FD has been called once that I recall to the woods and that was after some of us smelled something burning coming from the woods for a couple days. I guess some kids had started a camp fire in there, covered it up, and it continued to burn down into the ground. Fortunately, they were able to put it out with out drowning the entire area. So, if you smell a lingering burning smell emanating from the woods, call the FD.

The house behind me has had pilings put on bedrock and attached to the foundation, so it will not settle anymore. I think the slope is a couple of inches across the whole width of the house.

I was told my house and the surrounding homes did not have their foundations dug out with a back hoe, but rather 'carved' by a bulldozer into some small hills. As a result, the foundations did not have a lot of compaction that one would hope for.

Thanks for the history, DTM. I remember hearing that the area where the Village Links is was also an area of peat bogs, so the Manor Woods area is probably a continuation of that area. Also, I remember hearing stories from old-time Glen Ellyn folks that peat fires in the summer were a fairly common occurrence south of Roosevelt and the smell of burning peat could be smelled for miles.

quote:

Originally posted by DTM:


The house behind me has had pilings put on bedrock and attached to the foundation, so it will not settle anymore. I think the slope is a couple of inches across the whole width of the house.

Despite the slant, I did seriously want to consider that house, because of the size and the woods. I looked into doing essentially what you're describing, only it was screwed-in piles (auger-type) rather than conventional piles down to bedrock. Then you'd jack up the house and level with shims. I figured between $30-$40K all in. At the time, lowball offers were laughed at - and the foundation repair costs pushed the property out of my price range. Oh, and Mrs. Middle wasn't thrilled with the idea of jacking up a house and shimming it. Women!

I believe the owner said when the job was quoted the contractor estimated bedrock down 35 feet or so. Turns out they had to go down 70 feet. I think it was $30/k just to stabilize. To relevel would have been much more. The neighbor next to me did the full releveling and it cost $100k from what I remember they told me.

We haven't had issues with the foundation, maybe we are far enough away or since we only have a ranch there is not enough weight to cause it to settle, I don't know. The only settling I've noticed is a part of my driveway and sidewalk on the front porch, similar to what you were describing. I attribute some of my driveway settling to the fact that the gutter used to empty right next to the driveway, washing out material under it. I have since put a 30 ft hose on the end of my gutter and shoot the water into the backyard.

I'm surprised leveling the house would've cost so much. Perhaps its apples and oranges. I was envisioning stabilization of the foundation, and then jacking up only the stick-built portion of the house, and shimming between the foundation and the sill plate. I figured the leveling to be a do-it-yourselfer job with about 10-20 column jacks, some timbers, and a lot of free time.

So the basement floor would still be slanted, but you could re-pour it or shim it level and put in plywood subfloor. I could see trying to lift the whole foundation back level to be big bucks, though.

quote:

Originally posted by middlein87:
Cool Link, by the way. Historical aerials.

Wow that's neat.

I had done some research years ago on our old house and found a reference to people going from 5 corners east to a farm for apples and produce. I had always assumed this was the dead end block of Lenox road and the farm was where our little cluster of homes was. Appears it was just to the east of us, roughly where the Riford road access to the park is now.

Additionally, those lots (from what I have heard) on the dead end of Lenox were originally (after it was a farm and subdivided) given away as door prizes at events for the kiwanas or something like that. Mom and Dad would know better.

Pretty interesting.. thanks for the link!

My friends and I used to play in the bog and then hung out at the construction site when they were building our homes. I remember houses being built with the foundations partially above grade. I think most if not all of the houses from Lambert East were backfilled. Middlein, you sit so much higher than us, I doubt they did that on your street.

About 4 years ago we found a huge crack in our basement. When I say huge I mean panic size…. I spoke to a couple geotechnical engineers from work and found a good engineer to help us. Apparently our property had settled so far that the cast in stoop in the back had sunk and pulled the foundation with it. Based on our repairs, I can believe that the Hillcrest house could have cost that much to repair. Funny, our insurance company didn’t cover any of the costs (we didn’t think they would), but they agreed to pay for a new deck since we had to tear up the old to make the repairs.

Oh, I forgot the best part… While the engineer was doing the survey he pointed out the sill plate to foundation connection. We were both surprised to see that the house was not anchored to the foundation. All those years our house just sat on top of the foundation without so much as a single bolt to secure it down. We made the local Hilti distributors day with that order. If anyone wants to see what we had to do to fix it, let me know.

P-dog...go ahead and post some pics of the hell you went through. I love that kind of stuff.

Hilti guns are cool.

My offer was for a visit, not pictorial (for those in the Posh YMCA District who might have the same issue). I only have 3 pics, the MRS. has most of them.