Can I Repair my Sink­ing Foun­da­tion in Chicago?

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

The past few years have fea­tured a broad offer­ing of weath­er in Chica­go. Cold spring, warm spring. Wet sum­mer, dry sum­mer. Lots of snow in the win­ter, no snow in the win­ter. Inter­est­ing to Tom Skilling, no doubt, but mys­ti­fy­ing and occa­sion­al­ly frus­trat­ing to Chicagoans in general.

For Chica­go home­own­ers, though, the wild­ly vary­ing weath­er of recent years may have spelled dis­as­ter for their base­ments and foun­da­tions. The ongo­ing drought, fol­low­ing some very wet sea­sons, may be caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to foun­da­tions, not to men­tion a lot of wet base­ments – a top­ic for anoth­er day. When Chica­go home­own­ers dis­cov­er that cli­mat­ic con­di­tions have caused their foun­da­tion to drop, the first ques­tion on their mind is: ​“Can I Repair my Sink­ing Foun­da­tion in Chicago?”

How to Repair a Sink­ing Foun­da­tion in Chicago

The word ​“sink­ing” sounds a lot worse than ​“set­tling” but the two are vir­tu­al­ly inter­change­able. A new house may set­tle slight­ly after con­struc­tion as the soil under the exca­va­tion com­press­es a lit­tle. Any fur­ther move­ment is cause for con­cern because a foun­da­tion that drops out of lev­el caus­es dam­age through­out the home. Typ­i­cal­ly, this hap­pens when soil sur­round­ing the foun­da­tion expands from being over-sat­u­rat­ed, com­mon in the clay soil found through­out much of Chicagoland. Then, when a dry peri­od like the cur­rent one comes along, the mois­ture is with­drawn from the soil and it shrinks, caus­ing the foun­da­tion to drop.

When this occurs, cracks appear in above­ground walls and in exte­ri­or walls, espe­cial­ly in brick or stone fac­ings. In severe cas­es, foun­da­tion walls detach from the struc­ture above and begin to crack and rotate out of plumb.

This may sound dis­as­trous, and it is indeed a seri­ous prob­lem, but it can be repaired.

Basi­cal­ly, a sink­ing foun­da­tion is repaired by rais­ing it back to lev­el and sta­bi­liz­ing it so it remains there. Of course, any foun­da­tion wall dam­age must be fixed, as must above­ground dam­age, but rais­ing the foun­da­tion is the first and most impor­tant step.

A sink­ing foun­da­tion is repaired by a process called under­pin­ning in which mechan­i­cal devices are placed under­neath the foun­da­tion that raise it and hold it in place. There are sev­er­al meth­ods of under­pin­ning but the most effec­tive and least dis­rup­tive is the instal­la­tion of steel hydraulic push piers.

The process begins with gath­er­ing engi­neer­ing data about the home, its foun­da­tion and soil con­di­tions; this is used to deter­mine the num­ber and place­ment of piers. 

Instal­la­tion starts with small holes being dug next to the foun­da­tion at the site of each pier; the holes extend to the foun­da­tion foot­ings. The installer notch­es the foot­ing and installs a steel brack­et. Sec­tions of steel col­umn are then dri­ven hydrauli­cal­ly down through the brack­et until the col­umn reach­es a load-bear­ing stra­tum that will sup­port the house.

Once all columns are in place, hydraulic lifts are attached and the foun­da­tion (and the house above) is slow­ly raised back to lev­el. Once the desired posi­tion is reached, the brack­ets are attached per­ma­nent­ly to the columns and the affect­ed part of the house is now sup­port­ed by them, keep­ing it per­ma­nent­ly lev­el and stabilized.

Once the instal­la­tion is com­plete, the holes are back-filled and the entire repair is now invis­i­ble and maintenance-free.

This sounds like a big deal and it is. The Chica­go home­own­er who is faced with a sink­ing foun­da­tion needs to find a foun­da­tion repair com­pa­ny that real­ly knows its busi­ness and that is famil­iar with work­ing on Chica­go homes. At U.S. Water­proof­ing, our busi­ness is base­ments and foun­da­tions and we have been help­ing Chica­go home­own­ers ensure their safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty for more than 55 years. Our spe­cial­ly trained team of foun­da­tion repair advi­sors and installers have saved foun­da­tions all over Chicagoland so why not ask for our free advice?

Tags: house foundation repair, home foundation repair, structural foundation repair, hydraulic push piers, sinking foundation chicago, sinking foundation repair chicago

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