When is the Best Time to Do Struc­tur­al Foun­da­tion Repair?

Feb 21, 2013 • By Matthew Stock with Barry Schilling.

There are lots of rea­sons that home­own­ers put off home repairs. The prob­lem is minor. The repairs cost too much. The work would be intru­sive, messy or oth­er­wise both­er­some. They have oth­er pri­or­i­ties, etc., etc.

Just about everybody’s been in this posi­tion at least once and can sym­pa­thize but some­times a home­own­er just has to bite the bul­let and fix a prob­lem with his or her house before it gets worse or leads to oth­er dam­age. Most of the time, struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age falls into this category.

Why is it Bet­ter to Make Struc­tur­al Foun­da­tion Repairs Now Rather than Later?

Struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age falls gen­er­al­ly into one of two cat­e­gories: Foun­da­tion walls can crack, bow or tip inward or large sec­tions can sink sig­nif­i­cant­ly due to shrink­ing soil under­neath. In either case, the prob­lem is not a sin­gu­lar event – it can and will get worse. Also, either can lead to fur­ther dam­age to the home that sits on the foundation.

Here are two rea­sons why it makes sense to repair struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age quick­ly:

Bowed or tipped foun­da­tion walls can be repaired more eco­nom­i­cal­ly before dam­age wors­ens – When a poured con­crete foun­da­tion wall cracks from lat­er­al pres­sure and begins to tip or rotate inward, the wall must be sta­bi­lized in order to stop fur­ther move­ment and main­tain its integri­ty and abil­i­ty to sup­port the struc­ture above. The same is true for a con­crete block (or oth­er mason­ry) wall that has begun to bow or bulge inward. If this wall move­ment is stopped before it exceeds two inch­es, the repair method is less intru­sive and less costly.

The most advanced method of foun­da­tion wall repair is the appli­ca­tion of car­bon fiber strips to tipped or bowed walls. Car­bon fiber is a super-strong, vir­tu­al­ly unbreak­able mate­r­i­al that is wide­ly used in auto­mo­bile, bicy­cles, air­craft and oth­er prod­ucts where high strength with low bulk and weight is required. For foun­da­tion wall repair, strips of car­bon fiber are epox­ied to walls over cracks and at oth­er key points deter­mined by the extent of dam­age, load and oth­er engi­neer­ing data. When fin­ished, the car­bon fiber repairs can be paint­ed over and show up as only a minor ele­va­tion on the wall.

The only fault with car­bon fiber is that it is lim­it­ed to use on poured con­crete walls that have moved two inch­es or less or block walls where the blocks have not shift­ed out of line with one anoth­er. When dam­age is more exten­sive, the use of steel beams is required. Mod­ern steel repair beams are not the old full-size I‑beams of the past but low­er pro­file chan­nel steel that con­forms to the wall when sta­bi­liz­ing it and can be fin­ished over with nor­mal 2 x 4 stud wall. The beams are secured to the foun­da­tion foot­ings and to the floor joist above where a screw jack tight­ens the beam against the wall.

Either repair will be effec­tive and per­ma­nent. The big dif­fer­ence, beyond the fact that the car­bon fiber repair is less obtru­sive, is that steel costs approx­i­mate­ly twice as much as car­bon fiber. 

Dam­aged foun­da­tions con­tin­ue to cause dam­age to the home – Most home­own­ers first notice that some­thing is wrong with their foun­da­tions not when they’re in the base­ment but when they try to open a door or win­dow in their home. Stuck win­dows and jammed doors, along with cracks in dry­wall inside and brick and stone facades on the exte­ri­or are the tell­tale signs of struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age.

If a foun­da­tion is sink­ing, the repair involves per­ma­nent­ly under­pin­ning the foun­da­tion to raise it to its orig­i­nal lev­el and sta­bi­lize it there. Although there are a num­ber of meth­ods, this is best accom­plished by installing hydraulic push piers that will per­ma­nent­ly sta­bi­lize the foun­da­tion with­out fur­ther main­te­nance and will be hid­den from view when done. Until this is done, the foun­da­tion is like­ly to con­tin­ue to move down­ward, caus­ing fur­ther dam­age to the house above.

With tipped or bowed foun­da­tion walls, the same signs are present, with the same dam­ages result­ing. Until the dam­aged wall is sta­bi­lized not only will the dam­age to above-ground struc­ture con­tin­ue but the cracked walls may also allow seep­age of water into the base­ment, caus­ing fur­ther damage.

So, when it comes to mak­ing deci­sions about struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repairs, the choice is pret­ty clear: Fix it now and pay less and suf­fer few­er dam­ages or fix it lat­er and get reward­ed for pro­cras­ti­na­tion with a high­er price tag and oth­er dam­age that needs repair. Ques­tions?

At U.S. Water­proof­ing, our spe­cial­ly trained advi­sors and installers are expe­ri­enced in design­ing and installing per­ma­nent, cost-effec­tive struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repairs that will sta­bi­lize the foun­da­tion and stop fur­ther dam­age from occur­ring. Doesn’t it make sense to ask us for a free con­sul­ta­tion before you put off need­ed foun­da­tion repairs?

Tags: foundation damage, foundation repairs, structural foundation damage, house foundation repair, home foundation repair, structural foundation repair

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