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Mr. and Mrs. Tatum March 16, 1995 Page 3 There are relatively fresh cracks on the west wall of the maid's apartment. A diagonal cr:•ck with a fresh spalling of plaster extends upward to the north from the north top corner of the window. The basement under the west end of the residence has cast-in-place concrete walls. We did not observe significant cracks in the basement concrete walls or floor. Within the basement is a boiler that feeds a steam heater radiator system. There is a sump in the basement floor with water standing 5" below the top of the floor slab. A sump pump has recently been replaced by a gravity drain. I inspected a crawl space utility access that extends easterly under the residence from the boiler area. The native soils into which the crawl space was excavated consist of silty clay with some fine to coarse medium gravels. The clayey surficial soils had minor vertical shrinkage cracks. The clay itself was very dry and hard. The base of the exterior walls could be observed at several locations. The adobe appeared to be resting on hand-placed stone foundations consisting primarily of river run cobbles. I could not tell at any specific location if I was looking at the bottom of the foundation zone. SITE SETTING The residence is located on a terrace that extends into the Purgatoire River Valley. There is a thin, surficial clay layer overlying river gravels at the residence location. The colluvial clay has eroded off the hillside to the south. The groundwater table appears to be quite shallow. A relatively high water table in the river terrace is indicated by natural springs that occur immediately southeast of the residence. In our opinion the water in the basement sump is a natural condition. OPINIONS In our opinion there are two types of cracks in the residence which are: 1 . Cracks normally found in an old adobe structure, and 2) Relatively recent cracks, possibly ongoing, resulting from a settlement incident that involves the front and possibly other portions of the residence. Manifestations of the settlement are pronounced in the front, two-story portion, and at the connection between the one and two-story portions. The freshness of some of the cracking is indicated by the separation of recently painted surfaces. COAL MINING ACTIVITY A modern coal mine operated by Basin Resources is extracting coal from a seam that underlies the residence. The mine entry is approximately one mile east of the residence. We t:~propcn12s01 B-01.nr