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Owning a house is a significant milestone in your adulthood. Although it could be considered a display of financial stability, some may see it as having a solid grasp on your life because having your own home is a tremendous responsibility. Other than taking care of yourself and the bills, your house needs to be watched over as well.
What Is Foundation Repair?
The foundation is where your home stands. Therefore, it must be designed to withstand anything and remain unaffected by the elements. However, poorly-made or neglected foundations can weaken their durability. So, this calls for a home foundation repair.
Depending on the damage, repairing the foundation isn’t limited to slapping cement to fix all visible cracks. Many factors could’ve led to a damaged foundation. The soil quality changing can cause the ground to shift, making it difficult for the foundation to adapt. And if you add another story in the house, it can easily overwhelm your foundation’s expected weight capacity. Therefore, causing it to crack.
And through these cracks is a chain reaction of what’s going to happen. Water damage and weakened structural integrity will be your most significant problems yet. Since plumbing is done underground, there’s a chance the soil might damage the pipes enough for water to leak. Once that happens, it can easily slip through, ergo, flooding your basement. Not only does it flood, but having stagnant water is a warm welcome to your pests everywhere, such as mice or flies.
Of course, the longer these cracks are neglected, their condition could only worsen. This is shown from the ceiling and walls warping. Although it might not seem like an obvious problem at first, your house warping can cause these parts to no longer fit anymore. Because of the shifting foundation, it can skew everything’s orientation enough to cause an inconvenience.
What To Expect From A Foundation Repair
As mentioned earlier, repairing the foundation isn’t as simple as it seems. After all, its role in securing the building deserves your full attention for a reason. So, it’s highly recommended this is one of the areas on the house you’d never neglect as time goes.
- Cleaning Up
Since the foundation is connected to the ground, clear out nearby areas. You must put any plants or yard accessories away to make space. Once you’ve done that, set down a tarp to reduce the cleaning time afterward. Then, proceed with scouting out the damage.
Of course, if there’s a crack at only one place, prepping the work area won’t take too long since all you need to do is dig out the ground near the damage. However, be it at a larger scale or not, an expert contractor wouldn’t ruin the rest of your landscaping too much.
- Digging It Out
After you clear out the perimeter, the next thing on the list is to dig holes. Compared to having minor damage, you need to dig out bigger holes. If your foundation is damaged, the basement is already flooding and letting in pests. That’s how you can tell you have a big problem in your hands. This could reach a point where you have to make holes around the entire house perimeter.
Because you have contractors digging around your home, plumbing repairs shouldn’t surprise you. Of course, this shouldn’t demean their status. Because although they’ve consulted the blueprints of the house, even the expert contractors can’t avoid hitting the pipes.
But don’t be disheartened. It’s best to leave it all up to the professionals as these contractors are not experts for nothing. After all, despite actively damaging your plumbing, highly rated foundation repair companies already have plumbing repair companies just as adept in their connections. So, they have to contact them to assist in the prepping phase.
- Identifying The Problem
To pinpoint the problem, use these holes to install the piers. Piers are used in lifting and stabilizing the foundation. This should be helpful for a house that’s starting to shift because of the un-leveled soil. Furthermore, since you have these tools holding up the foundation, contractors can safely dig beneath it without worrying about getting buried alive.
Now they’re allowed access underneath, and contractors can dig out tunnels. Here, they’ll be able to draw out a guide for where the source of the problem is likely to occur. On the other hand, knowing the soil where the foundation rests is another factor you should consider. This way, they can replace it or cover it with a layer of soil that’s not sensitive to changes in water content to cause soil erosion.
Once they’ve located the source, they can now repair the foundation using the method that could efficiently resolve it (or include something else to improve it). Ironically, this phase shouldn’t take as long as the preparation. However, cleaning up may take a while since they have to cover the holes back up again.
Building Up
As a homeowner, watching over what happens with your house should be one of your top priorities. One of the areas you’re supposed to keep an eye on is the foundation; since that’s where the house and its occupants rest, you should avoid anything that could damage it. Although, once there’s a crack that appears, hiring contractors for some home foundation repairs will do the trick.