Foundation repair, as daunting as it may sound, is a perfectly necessary procedure to take if the concrete underneath your home is in stress. You would expect that a concern of such importance would require tearing down the whole structure and rebuilding it for better durability. However, that’s not the case. We rely on our expertise and structural engineering knowledge to discover instances of foundation stress and fix them without further damage to the base of the building. Our methods of foundation repairs are fashioned to suit the specific type of fault and rectify it completely.
Detecting problems in Foundation
Most foundations indeed settle as time passes, but there’s a problem when the slight unbalances don’t even out or become extreme. For optimum assurance, we detect these severe faults by paying attention to some key things. These are signs that you can also watch out for yourself. Some of these include exterior symptoms of foundation stress such as cracked bricks, displaced moldings, cracked Foundation, and detachment around doors, walls, and windows. Other signs that are regarded as internal are floor cracks, cracked sheetrock, unbalanced floor, and misaligned windows/doors. By an extensive review of these signs and more, we can easily confirm if your building’s Foundation requires a repair.
Why does foundation stress occur at all?
For a foundation built on expansive soil, there’s a relatively high likelihood that it’ll settle unevenly. The reason behind this is usually the change in the soil moisture. We’ve found that this decrease or increase in the soil’s water content can be the precursor to severe shrinkage or swelling. In these cases, you’ll be able to tell by the precise lateral movement of walls caused by the change in soil pressure. However, there may be signs of foundation stress caused by full depth settlement, and the most common of them is matching cracks that are always vertical. This is normally expected due to soil bearing failure that causes the uniform downward motion of the building.
We can tell if your property is likely to require foundation repair.
Your property may already be exposed to the likelihood of experiencing a foundation fault. If your building was constructed on expansive clay or poorly compacted fill soil, it’s likely to require a foundation repair. Your house can also have some foundation faults if its Foundation has improper drainage or in a case where you’ve noticed plumbing leaks beneath your home. Natural occurrences like floods or earthquakes can also be precursors for other symptoms of foundation stress.
Our methods of foundation repair
Depending on the kind of foundation stress, we can select several proven methods of repairing it. Some of these techniques that we employ are effective enough to provide a solution to the stressed concrete without necessarily displacing the occupants on the building. Majorly, we can repair using a slab jacking method where concrete is pumped underneath a slab to restore the required elevation. In contrast, we can use hydraulic jacking methods (also called steel piercing) where steel posts and hydraulic jacks are used to expertly lift concrete slabs affected by the changes in the soil.
