In this episode, Adam explains what exactly is laser leveling when it comes to foundations and whether it is necessary to pay the exorbitant cost to do it when you have a crack in your foundation.
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: Is it really necessary to use a laser to level a foundation if I have a foundation crack?
Narrator: So, Adam, exactly what is laser leveling when it comes to foundations, and why would it be necessary to pay the exorbitant cost to do it when you have a crack in your foundation?
Adam: Well, that's a very good question. In fact, we see a lot of customers have a contractor come in based on just a foundation crack in the basement, a normal settling crack that maybe gets a little bit of water, maybe it's just an eyesore and it's something that needs to be looked at or just some general guidance as to how to proceed on what to do with it or not to do with it. And they'll have contractors come in to come and look at it, including us, to evaluate it.
There are some people who come out and will do a laser level measurement of the foundation and come to find out your foundation would be off by maybe quarter inch in one direction, half inch in another direction. And the conclusion there would be, oh, the house is sinking, and this crack is just a symptom of the house sinking. You need to spend $50,000, $80,000, $120,000 on re-supporting the foundation.
The reality is that when you put a laser level on a foundation, you're going on the assumption that it was laser level perfect when it was built. And the reality is that's just not the case. You know, if you think of how a foundation is built, you have the forms, which are imperfect forms that have been sitting on the back of a truck being driven around for years. They are generally leveled off to the best of the ability of the forming contractor, and then they pour the concrete in there. And then that concrete gets troweled off. And it's not always perfectly smooth and flat across the foundation. And usually, it's the work of the home builder installing the rest of the foundation pieces in the house that will have to level things off from there.
Going on the assumption that it's off in one direction or slightly off in different directions doesn't always mean that you have a major settling issue. Most vertical foundation cracks are simple, just settling off less than a sixteenth of an inch. If you think of concrete, concrete is extremely rigid. When it cracks, it cracks like a piece of raw spaghetti. It's hard to really kind of break it.
If that house were to just settle into the soil a little bit, even if it's a sixteenth of an inch or an eighth of an inch, that stress will typically cause a vertical foundation crack, which is what we see in just about every foundation around here. So just because it might be off a little bit doesn't necessarily mean that you have a sinking foundation.
What we always look for is to see, well, what other symptoms are you seeing here? The simple thing you can do is if you see a foundation crack, run your hand across the top of the foundation. If it's off by half inch or, you know, or more, yeah, you have a major settling issue. But that's not going to be the only place that you see this issue. You'll see it in the plaster. You'll see it in windows and doors, and you'll see it on the roof.
Just keep in mind that given the age of the house, you may have just cracks in the plaster anyways just from kids slamming doors or poor paint jobs where they used improper caulking. Or in some cases, you upgrade your HVAC system, and now you're running air conditioning all summer. You're running forced hot air in the winter, and it's actually drying out the home.
The swelling comes down and it pops into different areas. So just because you see a foundation crack or you see cracks in the plaster up top, doesn't always mean that you have a house that's settling in a manner that you need to spend tens of thousands of dollars. My recommendation is that if it's suspected that you have a settling issue, have multiple people come up, send photos. Use the evidence of living in the house as to what you're seeing because an issue that you see in the basement will cascade all the way up to the roof line.
You cannot have just the foundation sink and not have it pull other parts of the house with it. Now I have a house in my neighborhood that has this issue. It was off by nine and a half inches in one direction, so they had a major settling issue. You could physically see it from the street. It wasn't something that you could just maybe do with a laser level.
It's something that you can visibly see, and you'll have visible issues inside the home as well. If somebody's telling you that foundation crack is needed to appear a whole house or support a whole house with underpinning, tick pods because that's a major project. And it could be as simple as repairing the foundation crack, stabilizing what's there, and monitoring it for a period of time.
Those options are always going to be available in the future. But if you leave it alone, it's going to just continue to get worse and can potentially cause that in the future. But a $1,000 repair is a lot easier to manage for most homeowners than a 25, 50, $100,000 repair that may not be needed. So just be very careful on whether the laser level of the foundation is truly an issue or if it's maybe going on false promises that it was maybe never leveled to begin with.
Narrator: Thanks, Adam, for explaining why laser leveling is often an unnecessary extra expense when it comes to fixing foundation cracks.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a crack professional near Concord, NH, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call (866) 929-3171. Or you can email info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.