Repairing The Foundation – Mid-Century Home
A properly built and maintained house can easily last a lifetime. It’s a place where you and your loved ones create memories and build wealth – to pass on to future generations. One secret to a house’s longevity is a solid home foundation, the slab of concrete or series of posts and beams that supports the weight of the home. Since your house is only as strong as the foundation under it, it’s important that you address any foundation problems immediately.
That’s exactly how we ended up helping the owner of a classic mid-century home that desperately needed some new life. It’s a beautiful home that has served the family for many years. But In fact, the house’s greatest threat was invisible to the casual eye. It was the soil underneath it.
If you’ve noticed cracks like this in and around your home, you’re not alone. There are thousands of homes in North Central Texas impacted by overactive clay soil. While subtle in nature, foundation shifts can lead to costly and dangerous conditions in and around your home. Here you can see the home literally pulling away from the concrete patio of the front porch.
Foundation Problems Caused By Texas Soil
It’s no surprise to anyone who’s lived in north central Texas for a while that our soil can wreak havoc on building foundations. Thanks to its high clay content, the expansive soil soaks up considerable amounts of water in a short period of time. Then it shrinks as it dries. Over time, the shifts from wet to dry soil can form voids under your house that damage the foundation. This puts your home at risk.
Of course, excessive amounts of rain increase the moisture content in the soil, but that’s not the only risk. The soil around and under your house may absorb and hold on to water from leaks and poor drainage. Even seasonal weather patterns can pose a problem, especially when we have cool, wet winter weather followed by a dry, hot summer.
Unfortunately, the earliest signs of foundation trouble are easy to miss, especially if you chalk them up to foundation settling. In fact, many homeowners don’t even realize their houses need foundation repair until they decide to start a home remodeling project or see cracks forming and expanding along the wall.
Cracks like this can exist on the surface and in the sub-terrain. Oftentimes, they go unnoticed until they become large enough to see from a few feet away. Our Foundation Repair division can follow the breadcrumbs to identify the source of shifting a take action to prevent future movement.
Spotting Trouble Early On
Signs of foundation problems include:
- Hairline cracks in the walls or floors
- Doors and windows that don’t shut properly
- Sloping floors
- Bowed walls or walls with protruding nail heads
- Plumbing leaks
- Pooled water near the slab
- Creaking windows or doors
These problems do not go away on their own. In fact, if you ignore a stressed foundation, you risk causing even more damage that leads to even greater repair costs. By addressing the underlying issue sooner, you give yourself time to stop the problem before it gets worse, and you save yourself money and stress.
Our Foundation Repair division can get beneath the beam of your home and literally lift it back into place. We use high quality machinery to identify the severity of the movement and lift the home until it’s back at level.
Mid-Century Home – Foundation Repair
Our latest completed project is the perfect example of what can happen to a foundation after years of sitting on shifting soil. Since it’s construction, this stone house has seen its fair share of wet and dry weather. It was visibly separating from its slab foundation. Previous attempts to deal with the damage included patching the cracks in the concrete, but this did not address the real issue: a damaged foundation. The foundation continued to slip. The cracks continued to grow. The problem continued to get worse.
The house has both sentimental and historical value to the owner. He wanted to preserve as much of the original house as possible. We spent time leveling the foundation by digging under it to create room for a piers and beam system that raised the low sections.
The house is now a place where the past meets the present. Its owner can enjoy the contemporary, open layout and modern appliances for years to come.
Alas, now that we’ve elevated this home back to level and patched it with new concrete, the effect of the foundation shifts is nearly invisible (aside from the wet concrete). Our client now has a foundation that is protects their home and property value.
A Foundation You Can Rely On
At Advocate Construction, LLC we know the value of a home. That’s why our full-service construction company is dedicated to giving you individualized quality service. We take the time to understand what your property needs and what’s important to you.
We’ve developed a streamlined system for detecting and repairing foundations that disrupts your life as little as possible. This all starts with a complete inspection and free analysis of your house’s foundation. Then we create a game plan for correcting the underlying issue and reinforcing the structure to prevent further shifting. It’s a simple process that we’ve broken down into three steps:
- Identify the void under the house and figure out what caused it.
- Determine the size of the void and the extent of the damage.
- Fill in the void, lift the foundation using specialized tools, and add supports keep the newly level foundation in place.
If you’re concerned about a crack in the garage floor or a window that suddenly stops closing smoothly, stop worrying and give us a call. Our foundation specialists are ready to talk to you about how we can help. You have nothing to lose. If we find no signs of trouble, you have the peace of mind that you’re sleeping on a solid foundation. And if we find something that needs repair, we’ll take care of it with the same attention to detail we use on our own homes.
That’s the Advocate difference.