When your home’s foundation is damaged, leaking, or letting pests make their way into your home, there are several affordable options that the insured foundation repair experts at Tom’s Basement Waterproofing can use to get your foundation’s structural integrity back quickly. Depending on the problem your foundation is facing, our team can use several effective foundation repair techniques, including underpinning, slab jacking, and piering. Let’s take a look at these foundation repair methods and how Tom’s Basement Waterproofing repairs foundations quickly, affordably, and effectively.
Inspecting and Diagnosing Foundation Problems
Before choosing the right repair method for your foundation problems, our team will thoroughly inspect your home’s foundation. This will include looking for signs of visual damage like:
- Foundation cracks
- Uneven floors
- Improperly aligned doorframes and windows
These can all be signs that your home’s foundation is starting to fail and needs repair. Crack monitors may be installed in certain foundation cracks to monitor areas of concern after the initial inspection. Other tools, like levels, can be used to identify areas of a foundation that are starting to settle unevenly or fail in key areas. Outside your home, our team will look to see if drainage problems are causing water to settle around your home’s foundation, which is often the cause of foundation problems. After the inspection, our team can recommend the appropriate course of action to restore the structural integrity of your property’s foundation.
Common Foundation Repair Methods
Tom’s Basement Waterproofing has all the tools and skills to quickly and efficiently repair your home’s foundation problems. Depending on the cause of your foundation’s problems, we will likely use underpinning, slab jacking, or piering to restore its structural integrity. Let’s look at these three techniques and how they are used in foundation repair.
Underpinning: Underpinning is a method of foundation repair that works by extending an existing foundation’s depth or distributing the load on a foundation to more stable ground. Underpinning starts by slowly excavating dirt around your home’s foundation in sections to avoid destabilizing the structure. Fresh foundation material is poured into these excavated sections to support the existing foundation and restore its structural integrity. This method works best for homes that are having foundation problems caused by unstable soil surrounding a foundation.
Slab Jacking: Slab jacking, also known as mud jacking, is a foundation repair method that lifts a sunken foundation up by laying a grout mixture underneath the existing foundation. The process starts by drilling a number of holes into the sunken foundation, which will then be used to inject a mixture of grout underneath the foundation. The foundation will then be leveled, and the drill holes will be sealed with concrete, restoring the integrity and level of your home foundation’s structure.
Piering: Piering or pier foundation repair is a method used to repair foundations by installing columns that anchor a foundation into deeper soil or bedrock. The process starts by slowly excavating sections of a foundation to be supported by these columns. As the columns are installed, they are bracketed onto the existing foundation to support it by the columns that are anchored into the more stable ground. This method works best for foundation problems that are caused by uneven settling of a home or weak soil.
Factors to Consider in Foundation Repair
Having your home’s foundation repaired and choosing the right method will depend on several factors, including:
- The severity of your foundation’s problem
- The condition of the soil around the foundation
- Your budget for repair
- How quickly the work needs to be done
At Tom’s Basement Waterproofing, we understand that finding a solution that balances all these concerns is important, and we will work with you to find a solution to quickly, affordably, and effectively repair your property’s foundation.
Contact Tom’s Basement Waterproofing Today for Foundation Repair
Getting your foundation repaired quickly at the first sign of trouble is the best way to prevent further damage to your property and avoid more costly repairs. To schedule an inspection and find out what repair method will work for your home, call our team today at (586) 949-7826.