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FOUNDATION REPAIR
What To Look For When You Need Foundation Repair
Brick Veneer Cracks - Foundation Wall Cracks?
Doors Windows Not Closing Right?
Basement Walls Cracking?
Pier Foundation Dropped?
Sheetrock Cracks?
Floors Uneven?
FOUNDATION REPAIR
When you need home foundation repair the biggest need is having adequate concrete for your foundation. Meaning minimum thickness, width, and P.S.I. of concrete for the weight of your home. If you do not have adequate concrete you can not fix the problem without it being a major undertaking. Did you know that there is a difference in the concrete for the foundation of your home? It depends on a home being one, two, or three stories in height. It also depends on your states building codes. If you have a walk in basement, you may need foundation wall repairs. There is a big difference between the veneer on the outside of your home that you see, and the actual foundation walls supporting your home!
CONCRETE PAD REPAIR
When you have spider cracks in your brick veneer zig zagging down your bricks mortar joints or even cracking your brick veneered or stucco, you can bet that you have some type of foundation problem. Remedy, install supports, and jack up your concrete foundation. It typically closes all of those foundations cracks, but it is not guaranteed. If you need garage or porch concrete pads repaired, well let me just say it is not that easy. Get the jackhammer out, tamper and fresh concrete. Yes, my company does this also.
FOUNDATIONS AND WATER
Most of the foundation water problems I see are from the grade of the earth sloping back into the foundation wall. A builder needs to have the slope of the grade dropping away from the home at least six feet to help prevent this kind of situation. If your home is old and no longer has a builders warrantee, I recommend a combination of waterproofing the exterior wall down to the foundation, French drain, and of course when shrubbery is not a concern, adding more slope to the grade to help channel the surface water away from the foundation.
NATURAL SPRING
You may have a water problem that is not seen on the outside of your home. Natural spring or run off from a heavy rain coming through your curtain wall or under your foundation eroding the structural integrity of the outside wall your home is sitting on. Remedy, a sump pump and or a French drain, call me, estimates are FREE. Doors not closing right on the inside of the home? Gaps on the top of your doors are not equal all the way across? The piers your home is sitting on may have settled. I will jack up your floor and brace it off. When you have a foundation that has no thickness to it, basically does not meet minim building code. I will remove the brick and the old foundation, form for a foundation, tamp the dirt when needed, install rebar, but the most important thing I do is pull a building permit. I guarantee all my work, but it’s even more important to have all work inspected that requires a building permit. Look, even if I do not do your job, have your contractor pull a permit. This guarantees that your job is inspected and is done right the first time. If you hire a person who does not show you their license, have workman’s comp. and liability insurance, you deserve what you get. You have to own a valid South Carolina License and have a bond on file to pull a permit.
HOW MUCH?
There are people out there who do the kind of work I show below every day. Shady and caring for nothing other than to take your hard earned money and leave. How do they get away with it? No permit, no inspection? How do they get the jobs? The lowest estimate, and smooth talking for the most part. Price is always a consideration, but do you want to redo all of the work you have paid for? Be careful, you might, and it will cost you double then! You will not be able to find the orginal contractor.
Artisan Specialties can handle any and all of your repair problems with foundations. So if you do not know what is causing that concrete or bricks to crack or interior doors not to close in your home, call me, Patrick Clark and I will give you all the FREE advice you need.
ITEM 034 Looking at this first and second picture, you see the home foundation for the back wall of the kitchen. You can see that the concrete foundation is only two and a half, to three inches thick. With a concrete footing as thin as this you can't help but have foundation and wall cracks. If you do have the correct foundation to your home and still see foundation and wall cracks you could have something else affecting your home entirely. All the old bricks were saved and cleaned to re-lay. Only a small amount of new bricks was needed, most were laid under grade; some were mixed in to the old bricks and matched very closely to that of the original bricks for the foundation wall.
ITEM 034 A close up picture of the one above, just so you can really see what some people do to save a whole lot of time and money. It really did not take long to crack this foundation up. I have undertaken some remodeling jobs where the brick or block was laid on top of the ground with nothing but the mortar you hold the bricks together with. It looks very similar to this. The most places you see things like this are with brick steps, small additions to homes, or just places where the contractor messed up and did not dig out for a footing for the foundation when the blue prints called for it, or the blue prints were wrong. It costs more to bring a small amount of concrete in a mixer to a concrete foundation repair than a large amount for a foundation.
ITEM 035 When you have a tree root of this magnitude under any concrete foundation I can guarantee that sooner or later Mother Nature will have her way. You can see to the left one of the 4x6 I used to hold up the entire kitchen floor, walls, ceiling, and roof. I had no room to dig or swing a shovel with the home on top of the foundation I was repairing. Most of what you see was literally hand removed.
ITEM 035 A close up view of the long blue chisels I used to help pry apart these two sections of tree roots that were underneath the concrete foundation, and foundation wall. As you can see from this close-up I used a chain saw to cut this massive tree root system in half, and before you ask, yes, I used about four or five chain saw blades also.
ITEM 036 You can see how this foundation wall was behind the homeowners bushes to the left. I like my foundations to have uniformed depth and width, not to mention rebar for that added structural integrity. I have been known to add fiber for additional interlocking of the concrete for the foundations in some cases. I used two x yellow pine to form my foundations. You can see how I stepped this concrete foundation up for the slope of the ground. You can also see the 4 x 6 I used to support the home while undertaking the foundation repairs. I used 8 x 8 x 16 for pilasters and piers, (solid filled) with brick ties and straps for the outside sill and piers. So are you shaking your head in disbelief? Wondering why I'm so extreme with my foundations? That’s easy, I build and repair all homes like I would want mine done. Anything else is unacceptable. I plan on doing it right the first time and not having to come back to do it all over again.
FOUNDATIONS FOR ADDITIONS
I ran an appointment the other day in a section of Columbia that has on a very expensive home in an uptown neighborhood.
This is what happened:
The homeowner wanted to turn a porch into a master bedroom. It measured around twenty three feet by twenty three feet. The left side was under a foot from the ground. The right side was around four feet from the ground. The porch had treated boards on top for decking, a vaulted ceiling that was staying. Here is the problem. The outside brick walls of his home had structural cracks starting to show on the outside corners of the brick veneer from a foundation problem. The owner wanted me to use the original brick structure to build the master bedroom in. I could not do it without reworking his foundation, and at the very least digging out under the sloped floor with a possibility of reworking the floor joist and outside sills. Will I get the job, of course not. There are too many people that will tell you what you want to hear so you think you're saving some money, not what you need to hear, because it will cost some more money!
Another scenario. A homeowner wants to enclose his open deck on the back of his home using the existing four x four posts that are set in the ground, (on top of a brick if he is lucky enough) with concrete around them. This will not work without coming up with a secure foundation to support the weight of the room, walls, ceiling, floor, and what ever and whoever you have on it. You may also need to upgrade the floor joist and outside sills of your future project for building codes! You don't want to bounce on your new floor when you walk in, do you?
I have been repairing homes for over thirty years. What I give out on a daily basis is tolerance when a homeowner calls in wanting me to fix another contractors mess because they were cutting corners to bring the job cost down to their budget level, with a side order of patience and understanding when I meet with homeowners having problems like this and telling them it will cost more money to fix their mess.
What I do not like is being summoned to court to represent homeowners I have given a proposal to for the repairs, who are suing the original contractor for the money they lost when the contractor, (if they used a real licensed contractor) took a short cut or underbid the job. The only reason I may give a proposal in a case like this is if I receive payment for the proposal and all time waiting for and testifying in court. Surprise subpoenas for representing a would be client, do not make me a happy man. To this date I have never been called back after representing a prospective client who received a proposal from my company! Just so you know, everyone I have represented won their case! All the time it takes to get prices and type everything up. Can you see now how a man may be unhappy when subpoenaed? Would be clients win, and you never get the job?
PROFESSIONAL CONSULTING
I value my knowledge and thirty years of experience at $600.00, per court date, per day no matter if the defense or prosecution does not show, or the court date is rescheduled when I show up in court for the hearing. This is for being in court, ready to testifying on how I came up with my proposal, and why the repairs are needed. I represent my client’s needs accurately and professionally. Any further documentation will be supplied at an additional cost of $75.00 per hour, plus professional expenses of engineers, testing firms, and or whoever may be deemed necessary to verify my oral or written testimony.
