Paul Brown is known among his friends as a very positive, upbeat kind of guy. But the news he received about his house last week had him truly shaken. "There were just two small cracks in the basement floor when we moved into the house two years ago," he explained to a neighbor. "But when I went down to the basement last week, I saw that both cracks had widened, and that one section of the concrete slab had actually sunk down about 2 inches beneath another."
"I heard that a family at the other end of the development had a similar problem," Paul's neighbor responded. "They had a real mess on their hands. They paid a contractor to jackhammer most of the basement floor; then a big concrete truck came in to pour a new floor."
Paul looked worried. "That's what I'm afraid of," he continued. "It's not just the expense of replacing the foundation that bothers me. I hate the idea of that heavy equipment destroying all the nice planting and landscaping work we've done around that section of the house."
Why A Foundation Settles
Fortunately, this story and others like it can have a happy ending. Foundation settlement problems are prevalent in many parts of the country. Sometimes this happens because the soil beneath a basement or crawl space foundation has poor load-bearing qualities and ends up compressing or sinking over time. Other times, drainage problems actually cause soil to be washed away, creating voids beneath sections of concrete slabs or footings.
Alternative to Excavation-Piering
Regardless of the cause of foundation settlement problems, the cure doesn't need to involve excavation, rubble removal and new construction. The alternative to this extensive and expensive repair strategy is to use piering techniques that connect settled slabs, walls and footings to solid bedrock and/or loadbearing soil. Once piers have been driven down to stable soil at greater depth, strong steel brackets attached to the piers can be used to stabilize settled foundation sections and even raise them back to their original positions.
Which Contractors Use Piers
General home repair contractors don't have access to foundation piers and the equipment required to install them. Nor do they have the training and engineering support to design and warrant this type of permanent repair. That's why some unfortunate homeowners end up paying for excavation and rubble removal work that isn't necessary. The right contractor to call in is a foundation repair specialist. These building professionals are trained to inspect and analyze foundation problems, design permanent repairs and complete the work using highly engineered equipment and materials. In most cases, excavation work can be minimized along with the need to demolish existing masonry and haul it to the landfill.
Expert Engineers
A foundation repair specialist can call on the services of soil engineers to analyze soil characteristics at a site where foundation problems have occurred. By establishing the depth and location of different soil types, engineers can determine what types of foundation piers are most suitable, how many will be required, and where individual piers should be located. Heavy equipment isn't usually required to create openings where piers will be driven. Driving, bracket attachment and jacking operations are also performed with compact hydraulic equipment. Once the holes at pier locations are patched, the repair is invisible.
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