FOUNDATION REPAIR

When your home ages, it may seem like there’s a new issue every week. Some of these are just side effects of your home aging, but others are signaling to you that you need serious home repairs to keep everything structurally sound and your family safe. Some signs that could indicate foundation issues include:

• Drywall Cracks – If you’re noticing cracks in the drywall of your home, whether it’s in the middle of the wall, near doorframes, or on the ceiling, it’s important to call a professional. The larger the crack, the more likely it is to indicate a serious problem. Drywall cracks may be a sign of foundation settlement.

• Bowing Walls – This can often mean there is too much pressure on your foundation, pushing your walls inward. 

• Sticking Doors or Windows – This is a sign that your house is shifting, changing where your doors and windows align. This is not only an annoying problem but a potentially serious one.

• Cracks in Slab Floors – If you’ve got concrete slab floors and are noticing cracks, it’s probably a side effect of too much pressure on the foundation.

• Cracks in Mortar – If you have a brick home, cracks can appear in your mortar due to your home shifting over the years.

• Basement Slab Floor Not Level – When the floor is no longer level, it likely means the house is shifting or settling, which can cause more problems for your home and safety of your family.

Foundation damage can be caused by many things. No matter where you live, no home is immune to the potential danger of foundation failure. This can be caused by:

• Expansive Soils – As the years go by, the soil under your home expands and contracts due to rainfall, temperature changes, and other environmental factors. Since it is located under your home, as it moves, your home is also likely to move, known as settling. Your home’s settlement may be worry-free or it could cause structural issues. 

• Excessive Rainfall – The more rainfall an area gets, the harder it is for the soil around your home to absorb it. When there is flooding or even smaller pools of water around your home, that excess water is putting pressure on the foundation, causing issues. Read a helpful article about excessive rain and your foundation here.

• Tree Roots – If you plant a tree too close to your home, as the tree grows and the roots spread, it’s likely to disrupt your foundation. The roots will push the supporting beams and anchors or your foundation walls themselves, ruining the support for your home.

• Poor Grading/Excavation – When your home is being built, a team of contractors is supposed to accurately grade and excavate near your home to remove problems and create the perfect surface for building. Sometimes this doesn’t happen and you’re the one facing issues later on down the road with foundation settlement. 

• Poor Construction – Sometimes the problem is simply that the contractor who built your home was not knowledgeable in the foundational supports that were needed or did not account for additional loads later on as your house and family grew. 

• Transpiration – For those who know about science or plants, you may be wondering what this has to do with your home’s foundation. Transpiration is the process of plants removing moisture from the soil. If you’re experiencing a hot or dry season and trees are withdrawing moisture at a higher rate than it’s being replaced, this can accelerate the soil shrinkage around your home, affecting your foundation.

• Slope Failure/Mass Wasting – If your home has been built on a hill, you could be at risk for slope failure. Soils have a tendency to move downhill, taking your home with it. If you have underpinnings in your home that are designed to protect against slope failure, you’re probably safe, otherwise your home could be slipping out from under you.

• Dry Soil/Drought Conditions - The subsurface of the soil in many areas of Kansas can be composed of clay loam. When it dries out it is prone to shrinking and cracking. This can result in the soil pulling away from your foundation’s exterior leading to shifting and sinking.

Your foundation is the very bones of your home. Without it, you face a variety of issues that are not only structurally unsafe but medically unsafe for your family. Foundation failure can bring in pests, mold, mildew, and other nasty problems. If you don’t address the issues, your home’s value will go down dramatically each year it continues to be ignored. Not to mention the sheer cost of repairs that will rack up as the problem gets worse. You don’t want to wait to repair foundation issues. Even if it doesn’t seem like a huge deal to you, it could be an indicator of a much larger problem. Call our professional team today.

First, inspect your entire home for signs of foundation failure that were mentioned above. If you happen to see anything, don’t panic. All you have to do is give us a call. You will be connected to one of our qualified professionals who will set up a time to come to your home and inspect the entire property. 

Once our professionals inspect your home, we will then provide you with a free quote for the services we will need to perform to get your home back in tip-top shape. As soon as you’ve approved the services and set up a financing plan, we will work with you to create a work schedule so that we are not in your way and so that we finish the project in a timely manner. If you have any specifications for where you would like our team to put our extra materials, where we should park, etc., this is when you should tell us. Once the project is done, you will be notified and anything that is not done to your satisfaction will be addressed with our team and fixed, if possible.