Serving The Western Slope
Friday, March 8th, 2019 by Maintenance Blizzard
To start, let me tell you that the majority of the concrete foundations have cracks. Cracks in concrete appear for many different reasons but the most common reason is ground settling under the weight of the house built either on improper types of ground and miscalculation of the bearing capacity of the type of soil built on. Having an engineer perform a ground test before construction is a wise thing to do. Not doing so to avoid spending the money may cost you way more. Never the less with the best precautions cracks will happen. What should you do if this happens and it is recommended to fix it? It is never a good idea to let things go and if not taken care of, in long term it might bring you a bigger problem. Not fixing it might mean water infiltration, insects, mold, and mildew. The longer you wait worst it will get.
The process consists of filling the crack with a waterproof material under pressure (polyurethane or epoxy) and depending on the width of the crack, install steel belts for structural value.
Basically, you have to get to the cracked foundation and expose it. There is two way to do it with pros a con.
To have access to the crack sometimes means to remove the wall finish if covered (drywall, studs, etc…). The process is to inject material inside to outside.
Pros:
Cons:
In order to expose the crack from the outside, excavation is needed. The injection is done from the outside toward the inside. The inside crack is covered with hydraulic cement when accessible to prevent material spill inside. The installation is doubled with a membrane covering the crack making the repair more efficient.
Pros:
Cons:
Both approaches in crack repair have their place depending on the situation but in most cases, it is far better to make the repair from the outside unless impossible.
Aspen Foundation repair LLC offers you expertise in crack repair with more than 20 years of experience. We serve the western slope area including, the Grand Junction area, Aspen, Vail, Carbondale, Glenwood, Meeker, Montrose, Delta, and Paonia. Give us a call for a free estimate.