Base­ment Foun­da­tion Cracks: Seri­ous Prob­lem in High­land Park IL 60035

Apr 14, 2014 • By Matthew Stock.

High­land Park is a com­mu­ni­ty of about 30,000 res­i­dents locat­ed on the banks of Lake Michi­gan on Chicago’s North Shore. A year-round shop­ping, din­ing and cul­tur­al des­ti­na­tion, High­land Park becomes even more pop­u­lar in the warmer weath­er months.

The Port Clin­ton Art Fes­ti­val, one of the country’s largest juried art fairs, draws more than a quar­ter-mil­lion vis­i­tors to High­land Park for its week­end showing.

The art fair has been joined by the Taste of High­land Park where the city’s restau­rants offer up street food and live per­for­mances help draw crowds.

The longest-stand­ing attrac­tion in High­land Park is the Ravinia Fes­ti­val, the country’s old­est out­door music venue. Ravinia, as it is known, presents jazz and pop­u­lar artists through­out the spring and sum­mer to crowds of thou­sands and serves as the sum­mer home of the Chica­go Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. Found­ed as a recre­ation­al park in 1904, Ravinia suf­fered a few ear­ly finan­cial set­backs but has been oper­at­ing con­tin­u­ous­ly since 1936 and is one of the top sum­mer attrac­tions in the Chica­go area.

Life in High­land Park, of course, isn’t all sculp­ture and sym­pho­ny con­certs. Own­ers of the 12,000 homes in High­land Park, espe­cial­ly the half that are more than 50 years old, often dis­cov­er base­ment foun­da­tion cracks in their homes and these can present a seri­ous problem.

Base­ment Foun­da­tion Cracks in High­land Park Homes

Just as in homes in near­by Win­net­ka and Glen­coe, base­ment foun­da­tion cracks in High­land Park homes fall into two cat­e­gories: struc­tur­al and non-struc­tur­al:

Non-struc­tur­al cracks are the less dam­ag­ing of the two because they don’t threat­en the struc­ture but they do seep water. These cracks are nar­row, usu­al­ly less than 1÷8”, are more or less ver­ti­cal in poured con­crete walls and do not show up in a dis­cernible pat­tern. In mason­ry walls, these cracks gen­er­al­ly show up in a ​“stair-step” con­fig­u­ra­tion in mor­tar joints.

Struc­tur­al cracks are more wor­ri­some to home­own­ers because they can cause insta­bil­i­ty of the entire struc­ture. These cracks will be wider than 1÷8” and, in a poured con­crete wall, will usu­al­ly be seen in a pat­tern that includes one ver­ti­cal crack in the cen­ter, an angled crack across each upper cor­ner and, invis­i­ble from inside, ver­ti­cal cracks on the out­side where the dam­aged wall meets the oth­er walls.

In mason­ry walls, cracks run through mor­tar joints and gen­er­al­ly lead to an inward bulging or bow­ing area in the cen­ter of the wall.

Non-struc­tur­al cracks must be repaired to pre­vent or stop base­ment seep­age. In poured con­crete walls, these cracks can be per­ma­nent­ly filled and sealed by inject­ing them with expand­ing poly­styrene from inside. If the crack is inac­ces­si­ble from inside it can be repaired on the exte­ri­or by cre­at­ing a below-ground bar­ri­er of sodi­um ben­tonite clay.

Seep­age from cracks in mason­ry walls can be man­aged with inte­ri­or drain tile or sealed by installing an exte­ri­or water­proof­ing mem­brane, a thick coat­ing of asphalt-mod­i­fied polyurethane, to the exte­ri­or foun­da­tion walls.

Repair­ing struc­tur­al cracks is a bit more involved. If the dam­aged wall has moved less than 2” inch­es inward, it can be repaired with car­bon fiber strips, which are epox­ied to the sur­face of the wall at inter­vals deter­mined by engi­neer­ing data and secured at the top to sta­bi­lize the wall. If the wall has moved more than 2”, it will be nec­es­sary to use low-pro­file steel chan­nel, anchored to the foot­ings and to the floor joists above to secure the wall and pre­vent fur­ther move­ment. Either repair can be cov­ered by a stan­dard stud wall and will require no main­te­nance or adjustment.

In any event, repair­ing non-struc­tur­al seep­ing cracks requires the help of a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor and a foun­da­tion repair expert is need­ed for struc­tur­al cracks. At U.S. Water­proof­ing, our base­ment water­proof­ing team has been seal­ing cracks per­ma­nent­ly in thou­sands of homes since 1957 and our foun­da­tion repair experts employ the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and engi­neer­ing data to ensure every foun­da­tion is per­ma­nent­ly sta­bi­lized. Why not ask for our free advice?

Want to know more about base­ment foun­da­tion cracks in High­land Park? Please post your ques­tions in the Com­ments box below.

Tags: highland park basement foundation cracks, basement foundation cracks highland park

Previous Article | Learning Center Archive | Next Article