Your home relies on its foundation for stabilization. The foundation stabilizes your home by transferring its heavy weight to the ground. 

When the soil beneath a home's foundation expands and contracts from rainwater and humidity changes, it will cause it to settle or heave.

Symptoms of Foundation Movement

Foundation damage caused by excessive soil heaving and settlement is often seen as:

• Cracks in basement walls 
• Cracks in interior walls
• Wet basements 
• Sagging or bowing interior walls
• Sloping floors
• Sticking doors
• Malfunctioning windows
• Landscape damage

As time passes and the foundation problem worsens, you will notice more and more obvious signs of problems, such as sloping floors and doors that stick.

How Residential Foundation Problems Are Repaired

Since foundation problems are widespread, especially in areas with expansive clay soils, they can be rectified in many ways. 

The most common foundation repair methods are:

• Slabjacking with foam
• Mudjacking with grout
• Underpinning
• Foundation wall repairs
• Stormwater rerouting
• Foundation soil stabilization

Although stormwater rerouting through the use of French drains and rain gutter systems is a common way to fix flooding basement problems, most serious foundation problems are fixed using slab jacking with foam or mud jacking with cement grout. 

One of the most significant advantages of using slab jacking or mud jacking is these procedures can be done in any weather, and there is no disruption to your household during the process.

Both mud jacking and slab jacking require small holes to be drilled through the foundation concrete. Into these holes, either a mud grout or polyurethane foam is injected, and as it expands underneath, it lifts the foundation.

Mud jacking and slab jacking are very accurate and are much less expensive than many other options for foundation repairs. 

Foundation Damage Requires a Professional Inspection and Repair

To determine which foundation repair method best suits the needs of your home, a foundation repair contractor will inspect the foundation with an expert eye toward the following:

• Excessive pooling of water around the foundation or in the basement
• The type and scope of the foundation movement
• Whether or not any cracking or signs of damage are structural or cosmetic

Finally, once the home's foundation has been thoroughly inspected, the foundation repair contractor will recommend how to rectify the damage and prevent future damage.

The good news is once a foundation is repaired, it is often decades before the same house will need any further foundation work.

Contact a foundation repair contractor to learn more.