Ok the subject is a bit confusing I admit. Here is the deal. This spring we gutted our basement because of a problem with mold. The house had been a duplex at one point and they covered up some really shoddy block work. At an even earlier point in the houses' history there was a single car garage in the basement. The opening was blocked up. Sounds simple right? Apparently not.
They blocked up the opening with 4 inch blocks instead of 8 inch blocks. They also didn't do a good job with the mortar either. There are gaps and globs all over on the inside. Outside it looks fine. Until we pulled off the rotting drywall we didn't even know for sure a garage had been there.
I've had a couple 'remodels' look at it and said they wouldn't touch it and one mason suggested that it was illegal and that they'd have to do some major work since it was a load bearing wall. This was said to my wife not me, I was at work, so I think he was trying to feed her BS to make a big repair job sale ($15K to 20K). The house was safe when there was a garage opening there so why would the structural integrity be compromised? In any case I want to fix this. It's draffy and water leaks in the poor mortar work. Should I just block up the inside with more 4" block and make it look good from the inside or tear out the old block and put in all 8" block to fill in the hole?
I'm beginning to realize that buying a former duplex, that was a single family dwelling prior, wasn't a good idea. I'm fixing all kinds of issues with the old duplex work (goofy plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc.)
Thanks!
Marc