I have a single story house over a full basement. The soils in my area are predominantly sandy (not sandy, but pretty much pure sand once you get through the sod). We bought our house about a year ago. Th two long wall were shored up/repaired several owners ago. They used large timbers (8x10 or so) that they sunk through the slab floor and bolted through the wall at the top to some sort of concrete anchor onthe outside. I have not dug any o fthem up to see what they are exactly, but there is a small concrete pad (16x16") on th eoutside of the house that corresponds with each timber on the inside. One of the short walls I know found out is bowing and cracked. Probably about a 2" bow in the middle of the wall. I have been looking online for different ways to repair this. The wall is on the same side of the house as our driveway, so I am a bit reluctant to dig and anchor due to having to tear up the asphalt.
I am on a bit of a ridge with very sandy soils, so drainage is not much of an issue. With the fairly large cracks in the wall, there are very few signs of water damage. A bit of staining on the wood, but not rot, mold, etc.

Are any of the systems installed from the inside any good? The carbon fiber straps, the steel braces that bolt to the floor and the overhead floor joists, etc. We are wanting to finish the room for an office, but we can get away with 2x8 wall if needed to hide the bracing.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
BEn

There is very good information on carbon fiber on the following website www.fortressstabilization.com then when you go to fix finish the basement check out www.thebasementtuxedo.com

Whatever bracing you might install will not attack the cause of your bowing wall, nor will it stop the bowing. What it will do is make the bowing less noticeable as the wall continues to bow between the braces, and what else it will do is fail to control cracking, which in turn can admit insects and vermin, radon gas, and water.

It will probably be less exepnsive to remove 18 inches of driveway and make a proper repair from the only side a proper repair can be done on, and that's the outside. If your driveway is right up against the house, that may be the cause of the bowing, but the point is, you won't know the cause unless you investigate where the problem lies, and that is outside the wall.

How close is the driveway to the wall? What is the measurement from basement floor to the grade on that side? How thick is your basement wall? Is it a block wall? What weight of vehicle has been in the driveway? Those are questions that can be answered without any digging.

Some questions that need some digging to answer: Is there improper backfill, such as stumps, large rocks, or construction debris? Are there any tree roots which may be causing the bowing? Probably unlikely from what you describe, but is there hydrostatic pressure behind that wall?

A band-aid repair such as you already have or are contemplating will not stop the bowing, will not stop the cracking, will not stop the intrusion of water, vermin, insects and radon gas, and basically will not solve a problem. If you hide it all behind a wall, you will have created a completely hospitable mold environment.

If you first DEFINE THE PROBLEM and than solve it properly, you will have solved it forever. You won't get discussion of this type from the band-aid salesmen, as you will have noticed. You'll just get sent to a web site where the glib high-pressure sales pitch will be present, along with promises to cure your disease, without ever diagnosing it. They'll say "who cares what the cause is, our system can fix anything." Just like the "cure" that was already applied to your wall, and which failed to do anything except perhaps delay a possible collapse.

Do it right, and do it once. It's already been done the wrong way, and how did that work out?