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Your Leading Foundation Repair Contractor in Rapid City, SD & Nearby Areas
Rapid Foundation Repair is your trusted contractor for foundation repair in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska. Unfortunately, foundation failure can strike anyone at any time. Your home relies on your foundation, so if your foundation is failing, the rest of your home is bound to have problems, too.
What Can Cause Foundation Failure?
To some degree it depends on the type of foundation, and the type of foundation failure, but the answer will almost always be found in the soil beneath the building.
If the foundation is experiencing uneven settlement, there are several potential causes. First, the soil might not have been properly compacted before construction. The weight of the house would then be too much for the soil to properly support.
Erosion could also weaken the soil beneath a building, and soils with extreme shrink-swell cycles can also cause foundation settlement or heaving. Regardless, if the soil can’t properly support the weight of the home, foundation settlement will occur, and it is unlikely the foundation settles evenly. Uneven foundation settlement places stresses upon the entirety of the structure, from the foundation itself to the chimney.
If the issue is basement foundation walls cracking and bowing inward, the soil next to them is exerting more inward pressure than the walls can stand. Often this is caused by hydrostatic pressure from water in the soil around the base of your foundation.
If you have a pier and beam or crawl space foundation, the problem could be with the foundation components themselves. If individual piers are settling or deteriorating, they could need to be replaced or otherwise reinforced. Similarly, if wood rot has weakened any of the beams or floor joists, they will likely need to either be replaced or given additional support.
Common Problems to Look Out For:
- Basement Wall Cracks: Any cracks, horizontal or vertical, are dangerous and will only grow over time. Horizontal cracks are often caused by hydrostatic pressure applied on the walls from the soil adjacent to them. Vertical or diagonal cracks, or stair-step cracks in masonry walls, are often caused by foundation settlement.
- Leaning Chimney: Foundation problems can throw your entire home out of alignment. Those issues can extend all the way to your chimney, which can begin leaning because of problems stemming from foundation settlement.
- Stoop and Porch Problems: A sinking stoop or one that is pulling away from your home may be the result of foundation problems.
- Wet Basements: While not directly the result of foundation problems, basement wall cracks can present a pathway for water to enter your basement.
- Leaning or Bowing Walls: Leaning or bowing walls, often accompanied by horizontal cracks, are a sign that pressure from the soil outside has become too great for the walls to bear. The earlier you have bowing walls fixed, the better. Not only could they in time fail and collapse, but the worse the bowing gets, the more limited your repair options become. The necessary repairs also get more invasive as the bowing gets worse.
- Garage Column Cracks: Garage column cracks indicate a sinking foundation in your garage. These cracks should be fixed immediately, especially if the columns are supporting the rest of the structure.
Solutions for Foundation Repair
Rapid Foundation Repair offers multiple solutions for foundation repair in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska. At Rapid Foundation Repair, our well-trained staff has the experience necessary to correctly repair your foundation failure. We have multiple fixes for each of the main types of foundation problems so we can match the solution to your particular home.
Foundation Settlement
To combat foundation settlement, you must provide the home with something that can provide what the soil underneath it cannot: a solid base. To do this, we use a piering system composed of either helical piers and push piers.
The general philosophy behind both is the same, the piers are drilled down into the ground to reach a sturdier level of soil or, in the case of push piers, bedrock. The building is then hydraulically raised back to its pre-settlement height so it is level before the load of the building is transferred onto the piers.
Whether push piers or helical piers make the most sense for a building comes down to several factors, including in some cases bedrock depth. With either one, however, you are getting the strength of steel and a system that is load tested before the weight of the house is transferred onto it.
Bowing Walls
At Rapid Foundation Repair, we offer three different solutions for bowing basement walls: carbon fiber straps, helical tiebacks and plate anchors.
Carbon fiber repair offers several advantages. Its installation takes place entirely within the basement, removing the need for any exterior excavations. It also is low profile, sitting relatively flush with the wall so you can either paint or drywall over it.
Carbon fiber’s specialty, however, is in stabilizing walls, similar to the older method of installing I-beams along the wall. If the wall is bowing enough that it needs to be straightened, a different repair option might be recommended.
Helical tiebacks both work on the principal of anchoring the wall in the soil outside, providing a counter force to the hydrostatic pressure pushing in on the wall. In both cases, a metal rod is sunk or drilled from the inside of the wall out into the ground. One end of the rod is attached to a plate on the inside of the basement wall.
With a plate anchor, the plate that anchors the end in the ground is installed by excavating where the steel rod ends. With helical tiebacks, excavations along the foundation wall allow for the attaching of helical plates, which are screwed into the ground to anchor it. Each of these methods allows for more straightening of the wall than carbon fiber can.
Crawl Space Repair
Crawl space repair comes down to what the problem is. If it is simply a sunken or deteriorating pier, that pier or piers can be replaced.
If, however, it is the result of wood rot stemming from crawl space moisture problems, a two-step approach is usually needed. First, any affected beams or floor joists likely will need to be replaced. Second, the crawl space should be encapsulated, using a vapor barrier and other elements to prevent moisture problems from recurring.
No matter what the problem is with your foundation, basement, or crawlspace, Rapid Foundation Repair offers a solution to fit your needs.
Looking for a Foundation Repair Contractor in Rapid City, Pierre, Casper or the Surrounding Areas?
Rapid Foundation Repair offers professional foundation repair and other services throughout much of South Dakota, Eastern Wyoming and Northern Nebraska. If your home or business is experiencing foundation problems, contact us today and one of foundation specialists will give you a free estimate.