How Much Does it Cost to Repair a Foundation?

Apr 26, 2014 • By Matthew Stock.

Most home­own­ers have expe­ri­enced some prob­lems with their hous­es – leaky pipes, peel­ing paint and cracked side­walks – small stuff.

Some, per­haps own­ers of old­er homes or those who are just plain unlucky, have expe­ri­enced major prob­lems – leaky roof, per­haps, or a dead fur­nace or an over­taxed elec­tri­cal panel.

Even these big­ger prob­lems are to be expect­ed, of course. Homes need main­te­nance and repair and every home, big or small, will need some fix­ing from time to time.

One prob­lem, though, strikes dread into the hearts of home­own­ers every time – foun­da­tion dam­age. The foun­da­tion is the base on which a house sits and dam­age there can spread through­out the rest of the struc­ture and cre­ate prob­lems above­ground to match the ones below.

The good news is that just about every foun­da­tion can be fixed, no mat­ter how big the prob­lem. Both struc­tur­al and non­struc­tur­al dam­age can be repaired per­ma­nent­ly and usu­al­ly with­out a major dis­rup­tion but one ques­tion still remains: how much does it cost?

The Cost of Repair­ing a Foundation

Foun­da­tion dam­age is clas­si­fied in two ways, struc­tur­al and non-struc­tur­al. Non­struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age typ­i­cal­ly means cracks in foun­da­tion walls that can allow water to seep into the base­ment. This type of dam­age can be repaired by base­ment water­proof­ing meth­ods, such as crack injec­tion, exte­ri­or water­proof­ing mem­branes and inte­ri­or or exte­ri­or drain tile.

Although base­ment water­proof­ing work can be exten­sive it typ­i­cal­ly does not rise to the lev­el of a major repair and can be done at rea­son­able cost. Specifics about the cost of base­ment water­proof­ing are best left for anoth­er day.

Struc­tur­al dam­age to a foun­da­tion also involves cracks but they are typ­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant, wide cracks that are caused by lat­er­al pres­sure from over-sat­u­rat­ed soil. These cracks indi­cate that foun­da­tion walls have moved inward, usu­al­ly rotat­ing in from the bot­tom (held in place by the base­ment floor) and sep­a­rat­ing from the base of the above­ground structure.

Foun­da­tion dam­age is also caused by the foun­da­tion drop­ping or sink­ing, usu­al­ly due to soil des­ic­ca­tion. When this occurs, cracks are found all over, inside and out­side, above- and below ground, and indi­cate that the home’s ver­ti­cal sta­bil­i­ty has been compromised.

The cost of fix­ing an inward-rotat­ing wall may depend on how quick­ly the prob­lem is diag­nosed. If the wall has moved less than 2 inch­es, it can be repaired by apply­ing car­bon fiber strips to the wall with indus­tri­al-strength epoxy. If the move­ment has exceed­ed 2 inch­es, low-pro­file steel must be used instead and will be anchored and tight­ened to the floor joists above.

Although the engi­neer­ing and plan­ning that goes into either job will cost approx­i­mate­ly the same, the mate­r­i­al cost for steel is sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than that of car­bon fiber and the instal­la­tion more com­pli­cat­ed so the over­all cost of the repair may be as much as dou­ble. For exam­ple, a dam­aged 30-foot foun­da­tion wall could costs as lit­tle as 5,000 dol­lars to repair with car­bon fiber or as much as 15,000 dol­lars for a major repair job done with steel.

Fix­ing a dropped or sunken foun­da­tion requires that the foun­da­tion and above­ground struc­ture be raised to their orig­i­nal lev­el and sta­bi­lized to pre­vent fur­ther move­ment. The best method for doing so is the instal­la­tion of hydraulic push piers under the house.

Installing push, or resis­tance, piers starts with engi­neer­ing work to deter­mine the num­ber and place­ment of piers that will guar­an­tee sta­bil­i­ty. Each pier requires the place­ment of a steel brack­et on the foun­da­tion foot­ings through which the pier is dri­ven. Once all piers hit a load-bear­ing stra­tum under­ground, a hydraulic pump is attached to the piers and the house is lift­ed back into posi­tion. The piers are then attached per­ma­nent­ly to the brack­ets and the house is stabilized.

The cost of fix­ing a dropped foun­da­tion can usu­al­ly be expressed in a cost per pier that includes engi­neer­ing, exca­va­tion and oth­er work, and will nor­mal­ly run between 1500 and 2500 dol­lars per pier, depend­ing on type, size and local require­ments. Once again, a dropped foun­da­tion that has gone undi­ag­nosed for some time will like­ly require more piers than one spot­ted ear­ly on so an obser­vant home­own­er should be able to keep costs down by doing repairs early.

Regard­less of the type of dam­age or repair, a home­own­er with a dam­aged foun­da­tion will require the advice and assis­tance of a foun­da­tion repair con­trac­tor with the resources to per­form per­ma­nent repairs costs-effec­tive­ly. At U.S. Water­proof­ing, our foun­da­tion repair experts employ engi­neer­ing data to rec­om­mend the lat­est and most cost-effec­tive tech­niques and home­own­ers all over the Chica­go area now enjoy sta­ble homes as a result. Why not ask for our free advice?

Do you have ques­tions about the cost of foun­da­tion repairs? Please ask them in the Com­ments box below.

Tags: foundation repair cost, cost to repair foundation

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