4 Tips For Deciding On The Best Foundation Repair Method

4 Tips For Deciding On The Best Foundation Repair Method

. 4 min read

The majority of people would assess a house by the surface appearance of its walls and roof. While aesthetics contributes to a home’s appeal, the wall and the roof are not the most significant components. The foundation is the structure that supports and carries the weight of your house. Walls and roofs can shield you from the elements, but the foundation is the structure that supports and bears the weight of your home.

The entire home might suffer considerable damage without a solid foundation, such as cracking walls and bulging floors. Foundations also keep moisture out, keep the cold out, and keep the earth from moving around them.

If your house has foundation issues or unsightly cracks, you should address them as soon as possible. However, before having foundation repair work done, you first identify the extent of the foundation failure and learn about the many repair options available to you.

Here are some tips to help you choose the best foundation repair method:

1. Conduct your inspection

Timing is crucial when it comes to foundation cracks. The sooner you detect the problem, the easier and less expensive it is to remedy. Here are several indicators that your home requires repair:

  • Uneven, sloping, or bulging floors
  • Doors that are sticking more often
  • Cracked bricks, especially on a chimney
  • Cracked ceilings or walls
  • Wall rotation
  • Separation around garage doors, windows, or walls
  • Displaced moldings
  • Sagging crawlspace
  • Tilted chimney

Once you conduct an investigation and you see these indicators, it might be a sign of a larger foundation issue. Or perhaps, you may have discovered cracks in the foundation itself.

Water, bugs, and mildew can enter into these cracks, causing them to worsen or expand and create further problems. If water drives the fracture bigger and the foundation becomes uneven, your home's structural stability is jeopardized.

2. Identify the causes of foundation cracks

The type of soil, climate, and materials used all influence foundation repair procedures. Before selecting a repair method, you should inspect first what might have been the cause of your house's cracks.

Cracks are caused by a variety of factors such as:

Unstable Soil:

Soil texture substantially influences water infiltration, permeability, and water-holding capacity. Because water is retained tighter in small pores than in big pores, fine soils may hold more water than coarse soils.

When the soil surrounding your home's foundation becomes saturated, it exerts pressure, causing the foundation to break. Because of lack of moisture, the soil shrinks, leaving a gap that permits your foundation to shift.

Temperature:

Construction materials such as concrete and cables are affected by temperature. When the temperature rises, these materials expand. Similarly, during winter, concrete shrinks. With temperature variations, the foundation expands and contracts, causing it to crack eventually.

Settlement:

The weight of the home causes the soil particles to consolidate tighter, which causes the home to sink or settle. Once your home is loaded with furniture and other goods, the earth beneath the foundation may settle owing to the compressive load and fluctuating soil density. This uneven sinking might result in cracks.

Geohazards:

Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, mudslides or landslides, avalanches, glacier surges and outburst floods, tsunamis, and other land collapses caused by thawing permafrost are only a few examples of geohazards. When infrastructure is built in the presence of geologic risks, it can have a substantial impact. For example, during an earthquake, your foundation shifts, causing it to weaken and crack.

3. Know the different repair methods

You must be well-informed about these repair techniques so that you won't have to rely your ultimate selection on advertisements or low costs. If you understand the extent of the problem, you'll know what can be done to address it. With options at your disposal, you can decide on the most cost-effective solution.

The following are the most common types of repair methods:

Using Sealants And Patches:

If your house is already built on a concrete foundation and you've spotted any weak places, masonry fixes and sealants can assist. Occasionally, minor foundation chinks can be corrected by repairing them and coating them with a waterproof masonry sealant. Depending upon the severity of the cracks, hydraulic cement, vinyl concrete, epoxies, silicone, and polyurethane are all commonly used sealants

Using Supplemental Piers:

There are widely used piers to stabilize foundations: concrete, steel, and helical piers.  Steel helps strengthen homes that have started to sink or slope at an uneven angle. Concrete piers are buried underground to reinforce foundation support and compress your home's soil (since soil pressure is frequently the source of horizontal fractures). Helical piers employ steel with helices (helix-shaped features), allowing the beams to be pushed deep into the earth to stabilize your house.

Slabjacking:

Changes in the underlying soils cause concrete slabs to sink over time. Mudjacking corrects these issues and restores the concrete's structural integrity. Mudjacking is used for elevating and stabilizing settled concrete slabs. This restoration process, also known as slab jacking or concrete lifting, involves pumping a combination of water and cement beneath a sunken concrete slab to elevate it to a preset level or lift.

Polyjacking:

Polyjacking involves injecting high-density polyurethane foam from above into your home’s foundation. The foam restores the house's original elevation. This polyfoam is a strong substance that works by compressing the earth beneath a residence, allowing the building to be lifted. As the foam is injected, it expands. However, unlike shaving foam, it dries to a firm substance similar to the hard styrofoam used in shipping electronics. If a home requires both interior and exterior foundation support, poly jacking is an excellent indoor application to employ in conjunction with drilled piers around the perimeter.

4. Have a foundation expert assess the damage

Not all foundation cracks need major foundation repair; others may easily be fixed. You must, however, exercise caution and not disregard any indications that your foundation is fragile. Asking a professional to inspect the damage to your foundation, especially after an earthquake, might be a prudent move.

While it may be tempting to fix foundation damage on your own, leaving it alone allows the origin of the cracks to be better investigated. The specialists can completely examine why the crack occurred and what has to be done without applying anything to the fissures.

Key Take-Away

Just remember that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. There are different repair options, but they must be tailored to your specific circumstances, such as your house's structure, the type of soil, the slope of the ground, the climate, and many other factors.



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Courtney Rehman

Part of the expertEasy editorial team, Courtney is from South Africa.

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