Struc­tur­al Foun­da­tion Repair: Who Can Fix my Dam­aged Foundation?

Aug 8, 2013 • By Matthew Stock.

You’ve noticed some odd things hap­pen­ing inside your house late­ly – win­dows are hard to open, doors are stick­ing, cracks are appear­ing drywall.

Out­side, too, things don’t seem right. There seems to be some crack­ing in the brick on the front of the house and it looks like the trim is com­ing off around the win­dows in the back.

You’re not sure what it is but you know it isn’t good. Your neigh­bor rec­om­mends that you have an engi­neer look at your house so you call one in and he gives you the bad news – you have struc­tur­al dam­age to your foun­da­tion. Not only that but he tells you not to waste time in hav­ing it repaired because the worse it gets, the more the repairs will cost.

You’re con­vinced he’s right but, in the immor­tal words from Ghost­busters, ​“who you gonna call?”

Who’s the Right Per­son to Repair your Foundation?

There are a few pos­si­bil­i­ties that may pop into your head but most will be the wrong choice:

Gen­er­al Con­trac­tor – So you know this guy because he built a house for your broth­er-in-law; he did a good job so he can fix a foun­da­tion, right? Well, maybe…but prob­a­bly not. Gen­er­al con­trac­tors are con­struc­tion gen­er­al­ists who take charge of a build­ing project and hire sub-con­trac­tors to do the spe­cial­ized work – elec­tri­cal, plumb­ing, flooring…and foun­da­tions. You could hire him to hire a sub-con­trac­tor but that makes things unnec­es­sar­i­ly com­pli­cat­ed. Besides, if GC’s got it right the first time, there’d be no need for base­ment water­proof­ing and foun­da­tion repair contractors.

Mason­ry Con­trac­tor – Masons build walls and work with brick and stone and stuff, right? They can fix a foun­da­tion. Not real­ly. Most foun­da­tion repairs require sta­bi­liza­tion tech­niques that have noth­ing to do with mason­ry and every­thing to do with spe­cial­ized tech­niques and mate­ri­als. Even replac­ing a foun­da­tion wall requires engi­neer­ing that is beyond even the most skilled masons.

Handy­man – How about Al? He built our front porch and installed a cou­ple of light fix­tures. He has a truck with his name on it and a bunch of tools. He can fix the foun­da­tion, can’t he? In a word, no. Al may be a great handy­man but repair­ing struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age is way out of his league. He would need tools and mate­ri­als he prob­a­bly doesn’t have access to, not to men­tion a ful­ly trained crew to back him up. Let Al stick to what he knows best.

Base­ment Water­proof­ing Con­trac­tor – Yes, but be picky. First of all, not all base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies do foun­da­tion repair because of the train­ing and invest­ment involved. Some oth­ers only do very basic work and may sub-con­tract the rest. If you choose a base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny to work on your foun­da­tion, choose one that has an estab­lished foun­da­tion repair divi­sion with a track record of success.

Foun­da­tion Repair Con­trac­tor – Now you’re get­ting some­where. Foun­da­tion spe­cial­ists know foun­da­tions – how to con­struct them and how to repair them. They have the tools and mate­ri­als nec­es­sary to fix your foun­da­tion cor­rect­ly and per­ma­nent­ly and they know the lat­est repair tech­niques that will get the job done quick­ly and cost-effectively.

U.S. Water­proof­ing, for exam­ple, is not only a long-estab­lished base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny but con­ducts a foun­da­tion repair busi­ness built on exper­tise and cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy. Our experts rely on engi­neer­ing data to plan and exe­cute repairs rather than the seat-of-the-pants approach tak­en by some com­pa­nies. We offer the same qual­i­ty of work and do-the-right-thing way of doing busi­ness to our foun­da­tion repair cus­tomers that has enabled us to become one of the nation’s largest base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies and to com­pile a list of more than 300,000 sat­is­fied cus­tomers. Why not ask for a free con­sul­ta­tion on your foun­da­tion problem?

Tags: structural foundation damage, fix foundation, structural foundation repair

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