Could be worse

An old First Communion song proclaimed, “Peter built the church on the rock of our faith.” Closer to home, bricklayer Frank “Banty” Wendt built a small cabin on a concrete slab jutting into Lake Hallie sometime in the 1930s. I’ve lived there with my husband since 2010.

Stonemason Aaron Hanson recently explained to Bruce and me how Banty likely poured the cement base: dammed the water with sandbags and used a wood frame to hold the shape of foundation. Once that cured, he pulled out the bags and lumber. Voilà: a house that sits in a lake.

When we first toured this cabin 14 years ago, Bruce and I were giddy over a waterfront property in our price range. Later that night a horrified Bruce said, “You know the foundation is in the water.”

“Isn’t it great!?” I responded. This was just one feature that made the property unique albeit a little scary. Bruce fretted for days. Finally, I told him, “If we don’t buy this house, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.” Who could argue? Certainly not a husband. We moved in that September.

Way back when, Banty embedded 8-foot-long metal railroad tracks in his cement foundation to hold up the wooden dock, from which he rented boats and sold bait. This spring, I laid on that dock to inspect the foundation — as I do every year after the ice goes out — and along the water line I noticed a crack. A week before, our chimney’s crown broke during a storm that produced 6 inches of cement-like snow. Raindrops poured into our gas fireplace insert. Then we discovered a leak in our basement caused by rotting joists under our deck. A few weeks later, our hot water heater burst. Fortunately, I happened to be in the laundry room and discovered the first small puddle.

I turned off the water main and woke up Bruce to warn him Tony-the-plumber was on his way. Bruce joked, “That’s the best way a bad thing could turn out.”

I didn’t even have to say, “Could be worse.” Bruce claims this is the See family motto. He married into a stock of tough old birds who regularly squawk “it’s-not-so-bad.” Today, this is called toxic positivity: minimizing any pain with superficially optimistic statements. Your beloved dog died? Well, you had him a good long while. Totaled your new car? Well, at least you weren’t hurt. Actually, my family’s most common response to any difficulty is more along the lines of that country song lyric: “Gotta keep it together even when you fall apart.”

Recently, a family member awaited biopsy results from a grapefruit-sized tumor on his lung. This ordeal reminded me: a house is just a house. Still, many times throughout April and May I awoke in the middle of the night with thoughts of our home sliding into Lake Hallie.

My mom was what people used to call a “worrywart,” someone perpetually concerned about the possibility of trouble, however unlikely. When I was a kid, she stressed over a kidnapper nabbing me from the mall or that I’d get a deformed “cauliflower” ear from too many piercings in cartilage. She had different worries for the rest of her eight kids.

Whenever Mom couldn’t sleep, she prayed the rosary. Bead to bead, decade to decade, she’d calm herself with a litany of Hail Marys, Our Fathers, and the Glory Be. Her devotion was her foundation. Even when Alzheimer’s hijacked her memory, she’d hold her rosary and know exactly what to say.

Like faith, house foundations are something you tend not to think about until there’s a visible problem. My worries were compounded by the challenge of getting a professional to evaluate our issue. Many homeowners (including me!) expect a response quick as making a 911 call. Most often, a resolution takes weeks or much longer.

The first concrete guy I reach out to, I send photos of this new crevasse. He calls me back a few days later and asks, “Just how much water is in your basement?”

“No,” I say. “That’s a picture of the lake against our foundation.”

He agrees to come the following week only if his current job gets rained out. I tell him he’ll have to lie on the dock on his belly to see the problem. Long pause. Then: “I don’t lay down in the rain.” He doesn’t call back.

One guy lectures me on how fixing cement in standing water would simply be cosmetic. Another tells me that cement in water becomes stronger over time. One warns against structural engineers, who’ll take your thousand dollars an hour and give you the same advice as a bricklayer. Online, I read about what might happen if you don’t consult an engineer. One chimney repair person won’t touch foundations; one foundation expert won’t climb ladders to work on chimneys.

I’ve pulled off a few dock boards so Greg, owner of Pozarski Concrete & Masonry, can get a good look at the crack, a two-inch wide jagged gap that extends into the foundation nearly a foot. He’s here mostly out of curiosity; Greg remembers this cabin from when he was a kid fishing Lake Hallie. He doesn’t want the job, but he’ll help us figure out our next steps.

Within five minutes Greg says, “Your house isn’t gonna fall in the water or anything, but you should get this fixed.” That night, I sleep so well. Though many houses shift and fracture, not all develop structural problems.

The next day Aaron Hanson sends us an estimate on our chimney and foundation. He tells Bruce that he repaired a boathouse with a similar problem. Aaron learned this trade from his father and took over the family business, B&M Masonry and Repair, in 2006.

When I’m worried, I pray and do research. After hours reading about underwater concrete repair, I find an industrial-grade product used to patch bridge pylons and concrete dams. I send the specs to Aaron, and I connect him with a Belzona distributor in Minnesota who agrees to offer guidance on the application.

Where I saw only fractured cement in two inches of Lake Hallie — and agonized over it for weeks — Aaron appreciated fellow stonemason Banty Wendt’s nearly 100-year-old artistry. After Aaron’s repair with the stronger-than-concrete 4141 Magma-Build, this foundation will last another century or at least the rest of my lifetime.