Base­ment Foun­da­tion Cracks: Don’t Ignore Them in Evanston 60201, 60202

Sep 9, 2014 • By Matthew Stock.

Evanston, IL is a unique com­mu­ni­ty in many ways.

Home to North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, it’s a col­lege town but lacks the bars, fast food joints and T‑shirt shops that typ­i­fy many such communities.

It’s a sub­urb but is most def­i­nite­ly a city, with an old, estab­lished down­town area that helps it serve as an urban anchor for Chicago’s North Shore.

It’s been around a long time, get­ting its start with the found­ing of North­west­ern and the Gar­rett The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary in 1851. Evanston was first incor­po­rat­ed in 1863 and became a city in 1892.

The hous­ing stock in Evanston varies wide­ly, from frame bun­ga­lows to Vic­to­ri­ans, four- and six-flats and town­homes. Evanston also has a large rental com­mu­ni­ty with its 31,000 homes split almost even­ly between own­er occu­pants and tenants.

Not sur­pris­ing, giv­en the city’s his­to­ry, there are a lot of old­er homes in Evanston. More than half of the city’s homes were built before World War II and more than three-quar­ters are at least 50 years old.

Own­ers of these old­er homes are fac­ing main­te­nance and repair issues that devel­op as hous­es age. Many have devel­oped foun­da­tion prob­lems, includ­ing base­ment seep­age, and a large num­ber of Evanston home­own­ers have dis­cov­ered base­ment foun­da­tion cracks in their homes.

Deal­ing with Base­ment Foun­da­tion Cracks in Evanston

When an Evanston home­own­er finds a base­ment foun­da­tion crack the first thing to be done is to deter­mine if it is struc­tur­al or non-struc­tur­al. A struc­tur­al crack threat­ens the sta­bil­i­ty of the foun­da­tion and is iden­ti­fied by its width (more than 1/8”) and its typ­i­cal appear­ance as part of a pat­tern. A non-struc­tur­al crack, on the oth­er hand, is nar­row­er than 1÷8”, is a threat only of water seep­age and can occur any­where with­out pattern.

Both struc­tur­al and non-struc­tur­al cracks can orig­i­nate from the same caus­es. Over­sat­u­rat­ed soil next to the foun­da­tion can expand and apply sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure against foun­da­tion walls, caus­ing cracks and, in extreme cas­es, inward move­ment of the wall. Con­verse­ly, soil under the foun­da­tion can become des­ic­cat­ed dur­ing times of drought, caus­ing the soil to com­press and the foun­da­tion to drop or sink, caus­ing sig­nif­i­cant crack­ing and destabilization.

Repair­ing a non-struc­tur­al crack to stop or pre­vent seep­age can be done in one of two ways.

The pre­ferred method is to inject the crack from inside the base­ment with expand­ing polyurethane. The polyurethane mate­r­i­al, con­tained by an epoxy seal, expands to fill and seal the crack all the way to the out­side soil and remains flex­i­ble once cured to pre­vent minor foun­da­tion move­ment from re-open­ing the crack.

If the crack is inac­ces­si­ble from the inte­ri­or, it can be repaired on the out­side by cre­at­ing a water­proof bar­ri­er of sodi­um ben­tonite clay against the out­side of the foun­da­tion wall.

The repairs required when struc­tur­al cracks occur are more com­plex because they involve re-sta­bi­liz­ing the foun­da­tion wall itself and not sim­ply address­ing the cracks.

If the struc­tur­al cracks in a foun­da­tion wall indi­cate that the wall has moved or rotat­ed inward 2” or less, the wall can be repaired and sta­bi­lized by apply­ing car­bon fiber strips to the wall with indus­tri­al-strength epoxy. The car­bon fiber can be paint­ed over and cov­ered by a nor­mal stud wall if the base­ment is to be finished.

If the foun­da­tion wall has moved more than 2” low-pro­file steel chan­nels will be used to sta­bi­lize it per­ma­nent­ly. The steel is anchored to the foun­da­tion foot­ing and ten­sioned between floor joists above to lock the wall in posi­tion and pre­vent fur­ther move­ment. The steel is suf­fi­cient­ly low pro­file to be cov­ered by a nor­mal 2 X 4 stud wall.

An Evanston home­own­er who dis­cov­ers base­ment foun­da­tion cracks in his or her home will need the advice and ser­vices of a foun­da­tion repair expert, base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor or both. At U.S. Water­proof­ing, we’ve been seal­ing non-struc­tur­al foun­da­tion cracks since our found­ing in 1957 and our team of foun­da­tion repair experts make use of engi­neer­ing data and the lat­est repair tech­nol­o­gy to ensure that foun­da­tions are per­ma­nent­ly sta­bi­lized. Why not ask for our free advice?

Tags: evanston basement foundation cracks, basement foundation cracks evanston

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