DIY Foun­da­tion Wall Repair: Why It’s Not a Good Idea

Sep 19, 2013 • By Matthew Stock.

I want to go on record, again, that I am not opposed to do-it-your­self repairs. For a home­own­er with the nec­es­sary time, skills, tools and equip­ment, DIY is a viable option, espe­cial­ly for minor repairs to their basements.

Regret­tably, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of home repair TV shows have made it look like every­thing is sim­ple, that any­one can do any­thing regard­less of expe­ri­ence or abil­i­ty and that a home­own­er is fool­ish to pay a pro­fes­sion­al. With all due respect to Tom Sil­va and all the perky hosts on the DIY Net­work, there are many home repairs and improve­ments that just shouldn’t be tack­led by a home­own­er because they’ll end up with a sub-stan­dard job that will waste their mon­ey and end up being re-done by a pro when they try to sell the house in the future.

The lat­est dis­turb­ing trend in DIY is the mar­ket­ing of do-it-your­self foun­da­tion repair ​“kits.” These mar­keters claim that, for a few hun­dred dol­lars, any home­own­er can repair a bowed or tilt­ing foun­da­tion wall with car­bon fiber and get the same results as a pro­fes­sion­al repair that may cost sev­er­al thousand.

Real­ly? This is repair­ing the foun­da­tion we’re talk­ing about here, not paint­ing the kitchen or replac­ing a light fix­ture. I know some pret­ty skilled and expe­ri­enced DIY­ers and not one of them would attempt to repair their foun­da­tion them­selves, even those who work in our indus­try. There are some very good rea­sons why they won’t.

Why DIY Foun­da­tion Repair is a Bad Idea

A glance at the web­site of a typ­i­cal mar­keter of DIY car­bon fiber repair kits rais­es one red flag imme­di­ate­ly when they encour­age the home­own­er to con­tact them for a ​“free foun­da­tion eval­u­a­tion.” Pre­sum­ably, the folks behind this web­site are not going to send a struc­tur­al engi­neer to your home so how are they going to eval­u­ate your foun­da­tion? Astral pro­jec­tion? Texted pho­tos? Skype?

On anoth­er typ­i­cal web­site, there are enthu­si­as­tic descrip­tions of how easy the process is and how much you’ll save, but odd­ly enough, no descrip­tion of what you actu­al­ly get for your mon­ey. There’s an uncap­tioned pho­to that seems to show the kit, with a bunch of bot­tle and jars and what seems to be car­bon fiber strips rolled up in a tube, but no list of what’s includ­ed and no men­tion of the size of the strips. There’s also no price, only a ​“for as lit­tle as…” claim.

By con­trast, here’s how a pro­fes­sion­al repairs a bowed or tilt­ed foun­da­tion wall. A foun­da­tion expert vis­its your home and takes accu­rate mea­sure­ments and uses a laser lev­el to deter­mine exact­ly how and how much your wall has moved and how it has affect­ed the struc­ture above. He then, often in con­sul­ta­tion with an engi­neer, cre­ates an esti­mate that states how many car­bon fiber strips are need­ed and exact­ly where they should be placed – and an exact cost. He will also tell you if your wall has moved too much to use car­bon fiber and rec­om­mend anoth­er appro­pri­ate repair, some­thing miss­ing from the kit approach.

When instal­la­tion day comes, a ful­ly trained crew of installers lays out the place­ment on the wall and grinds down the wall at each instal­la­tion point to cre­ate a flat, lev­el sur­face to ensure the best pos­si­ble adhe­sion. They then apply a pow­er­ful epoxy to the wall and embed each strip in it, rolling each strip over and over to make sure it bonds completely.

Once the strips have been installed, steel angle is bolt­ed to the top of the wall between floor joists at the site of each strip, ensur­ing that there will be no fur­ther wall move­ment. There’s no men­tion of this in any of the kits.

There’s more, but I’ll spare you any fur­ther pain. The worst part of mis­guid­ed DIY foun­da­tion repair is that a bad DIY job will cre­ate false con­fi­dence in the home­own­er and lead to the prob­lem wors­en­ing to the point where the nec­es­sary repairs will be far more exten­sive and cost­ly than they would have been if done by a pro in the first place.

The foun­da­tion experts at U.S. Water­proof­ing do foun­da­tion repairs right and make use of engi­neer­ing data and the lat­est in car­bon fiber and oth­er tech­nolo­gies to ensure that their work is per­ma­nent and cost-effec­tive. Why not ask us for a free con­sul­ta­tion before you order that kit?

Tags: foundation wall repair, carbon fiber foundation repair

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