You Can Inspect Your Home’s Foundation
Taking care of your house means more than merely painting and cleaning. Your home is perhaps the most expensive personal purchase you have made. It is truly an investment, an investment you can directly impact by taking care of it as best you can. And here’s the good news – You can inspect your home’s foundation.
Dawson Foundation Repair wants you to have the tools of knowledge to be able to tend to and maintain the value of your home. The following information is influenced by a home inspection foundation guide prepared by a structural engineering committee of the Foundation Performance Association in Houston. It is intended for use by homeowners, builders, tenants, realtors, architects, engineers, inspectors and repair contractors for external inspection in Southeast Texas. (Information for internal inspection will be addressed later.)
The guide addresses four areas of inspection: cracks and separation, drainage, vegetation and water leaks. In this Part One of the blog, we want to share the information on cracks/separation and drainage. Here’s what you can do to find out if your home needs foundation repair:
Cracks and Separation
The concrete of your home’s foundation will crack with age. So, if you have an older home, don’t be alarm to see small, narrow cracks. But here’s how the guide recommends you determine whether to act. If your home is new, there should not be any cracks, certainly no separation in the walls. That’s for new homes. For homes up to 10 years of age, cracks and/or separations in the walls you might see should be no more than a hairline in width. If your home is more than 10 years old, the cracks/separations should be no more than 1/8” wide. Finally, all vertical expansion joints should be uniform in width.
Drainage
This inspection is slightly more difficult to make because large amounts of water might be needed for some of the steps. But, generally speaking, you can visually determine whether drainage patterns around your home help or support maintenance of your foundation. So, let’s talk about the easy visual ones, first. Make sure you have gutters and drain spouts in place and that they are cleaned out. Remove all the debris that slows water flow. The drain spouts need to direct water away from your foundation. If the water is “ponding” at the bottom of the drain spout that is a condition for potential foundation damage. If that happens either put in underground drain systems or attach flexible plastic pipe or concrete splash blocks that will divert the draining water.
The slope of your lawn is also a factor in foundation maintenance. For the best drainage the ground around your foundation should slope downward (away). Dawson Foundation Repair recommends the ground slope at the rate of at least six (6) inches for 10 feet of slope around the slab. If you have paving, like a patio or a driveway connecting to your house then you probably do not need to worry about the slope, unless you have consistent pooling of water on that pavement. Again, it might be necessary to install a drain into the ground away from the foundation, or to repave. If you want to change the grade use sandy clay to revise.
Many homes have drainage systems that provide good foundation maintenance conditions. Dawson Foundation Repair does offer free inspection of your foundation if any of the above guides present issues. A phone call could help you increase the long-term maintenance and upkeep of your beautiful home. The soils in southeast Texas are known to move up (upheaval) and down (settlement). This shifting soil can cause serious damage to a home’s foundation. So do what you can to provide your primary support structure, the foundation under your house, the best care you can.
Dawson Foundation Repair installs only Bell Bottom Piers for homeowners and commercial property owners. Bell Bottom Piers have far more advantages over any other method of foundation repair and we feel the homeowner should receive the best option available. Dawson Foundation Repair services homes and commercial businesses all over Texas including Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and other smaller cities. Call us for a free inspection and assessment of your home’s foundation security.