A1 Foundation Crack Repair is on speed dial with many realtors for a good reason. In this episode, Adam explains how a foundation crack can cause a costly delay in the home sale process.
Narrator: It’s time once again for the “Crack Man Podcast” hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I’m Darren Kincaid here with the Crack Daddy himself, Adam Tracy. Adam and The Crack Man Rich have over 30 years’ experience in the construction industry. Rich as over two5 years as the president and founder of A1 Foundation Crack Repair. This podcast provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair, and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation’s valuable insight will help avert a disastrous flood within the basement, health problems associated with water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment….your home. The topic of today’s podcast: Can an unrepaired crack come back to haunt your home?
Narrator: So, Adam, you sent a series of pictures that showed a nasty structural issue on the outside wall of a foundation. I'm guessing that didn't happen overnight. Am I right?
Adam: It did not happen overnight. In fact, this was a very standard foundation crack, probably in its early ages. It's at a drop down in the concrete foundation. This property is in the Providence area, and the property slopes off from the high level, which would be the street, down towards the backyard.
And so, the concrete will go in levels where it goes straight and then it drops down a couple feet, then straight, and it drops down a couple feet to follow the contour of the land. It is very common for construction. We see it all the time. And a lot of times, we see cracks developing on that corner where the drop down or the step down in the foundation is.
Part of the reason why is that as concrete cures, it starts to shrink a little bit from when it's originally poured. And as it shrinks, it causes stress around right angles. So we see them typically in corners of windows, in beam pockets, and on step downs of the foundation.
We'll often see a hairline crack develop very early on, usually within the first six months after the pour. It goes from the corner down towards the floor and is generally considered more of a settling or shrinkage crack. By all measures, it is not a structural issue. Many people just ignore these.
Because they're not usually nuisances, they're just there. You can see them; they go from the inside to the outside. But they're not necessarily ones where water is always flowing through, or something that would cause concern about the structure of the house.
I usually caution people: you don’t know what's going to happen to the house or to the landscape with these types of properties. You want to get these early while it's inexpensive to do a full, through-the-foundation repair—where you're actually physically binding everything together and making it a continuous piece of concrete again.
In this particular case, the foundation was poured in the early 90s, and the house was left undisturbed for a long period of time. As the years went on, one homeowner decided that they wanted to level off part of the yard and build a retaining wall to undercut and level off the back. Again, very common and totally acceptable to do with the landscape.
They used railroad ties as their holdback of the soil. What they did—probably rightfully so—was anchor the foundation to the retaining wall to help give it stability on that side. Well, they did that just over the side of the crack, which was, again, a hairline in its early stages.
As the soil conditions changed and backfilling happened, years and years of exposure caused that wall to pull on the house. Normally, that’s not a problem because the whole structure is one monolithic slab, continuous concrete designed to support loads. But because the foundation was cracked in that exact area, the weight of the wall and the soil behind it helped pull the foundation apart.
What was once a hairline crack is now probably somewhere in the order of an inch to an inch and a quarter. That movement, caused not necessarily by shifting the house but by the weight of the soil pulling on the foundation and dragging it down the slope a little bit, has turned into a serious issue.
This could have easily been avoided early on. What is now a much larger project, a bigger repair, and a matter of structural capacity could have been dealt with at a fraction of the cost. What was once less than a thousand-dollar repair has now become much more expensive, including having to take down and redo the entire wall. So, a simple miscalculation by the previous homeowner caused major damage to the foundation. All of this could have been avoided with a simple repair done early on. If you see foundation cracks early in their stages, or if you’re not sure if they’ll have future impacts, call us, email us, or send us photos. We can give you a sense of what is happening and what things to look out for. Sometimes we just monitor it. Sometimes repair is recommended. But each case is unique.
Just don’t ignore cracks simply because they’re not leaking—because they can cause future structural issues down the line.
Narrator: Well, thanks, Adam, for sharing this cautionary tale that warns of the ramifications of not addressing a foundation crack while it's still relatively easy to fix.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit n or call (866) 929-3171. Or you can email info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.