Three Myths About Struc­tur­al Foun­da­tion Dam­age in Chica­go Homes

Nov 15, 2012 • By Matthew Stock with Barry Schilling.

When we were kids, we read and heard all sorts of sto­ries, myths and leg­ends and they were great, weren’t they? Those sto­ries helped us devel­op imag­i­na­tions and cre­ativ­i­ty and many of us still enjoy them as adults.

How­ev­er, when we become home­own­ers it’s best to leave the sto­ries on the book­shelf when it comes to main­tain­ing our hous­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly when you hear myths about struc­tur­al foun­da­tion damage.

What are Three Com­mon Myths Among Chica­go Home­own­ers about Struc­tur­al Foun­da­tion Damage?

The House has Set­tled Now; I Don’t Have to Fix Any­thing – Well, you’re right about one thing: the house has def­i­nite­ly set­tled. How­ev­er, the word ​“set­tled” has a false sense of secu­ri­ty about it, imply­ing that it’s a one-time event in which your house has nes­tled con­tent­ed­ly down into its cozy bed of soil. Bet­ter words are those used by foun­da­tion repair experts, like ​“sink­ing” or ​“dropped.” Not as warm and fuzzy but a lot more descrip­tive of what is actu­al­ly happening.

As long as water is present in the soil around your foun­da­tion, the clay soil in the Chica­go area can swell and your house can con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence struc­tur­al dam­age. When a drought occurs, as in 2012, exces­sive amounts of water are drawn from the soil, which allows it to shrink and com­pact. When this occurs under your foun­da­tion foot­ings, down goes the house again.

I Can Just ​“Water my Foun­da­tion” to Keep the Soil Sta­ble – In many parts of the coun­try affect­ed by drought, home­own­ers have come up with a tem­po­rary fix for dam­age done by soil des­ic­ca­tion by reg­u­lar­ly soak­ing down the soil around their foun­da­tions. This can keep mois­ture in the soil that would oth­er­wise have been removed by deep-root­ed trees and shrubs and main­tains the soil in its expand­ed state.

How­ev­er, water­ing the foun­da­tion is strict­ly a pre­ven­ta­tive step and it runs the very real risk of over-sat­u­rat­ing the soil, which will do more harm than good. If you’re lucky, it may keep your foun­da­tion from drop­ping but it cer­tain­ly won’t raise it back to its orig­i­nal posi­tion once it has. If you’re see­ing the signs of struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age, put the hose away. It’s too late.

All I Need to Do is to Fix the Cracks – Which cracks do you mean? The wide ones in your foun­da­tion walls? The nar­row ones in the dry­wall in the liv­ing room? The ones that stair-stepped through the mor­tar joints on the out­side brick? If you start look­ing for cracks, you’ll see the wide­spread effect that struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age has on your Chica­go home. 

To be fair, you prob­a­bly mean the cracks in your foun­da­tion wall and you can repair them by injec­tion so that water no longer seeps in but even those base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tors that still use epoxy as a crack repair mate­r­i­al don’t war­ran­ty it as a struc­tur­al repair. It may stop leaks but it won’t pre­vent your foun­da­tion from suf­fer­ing fur­ther damage.

So, leave the myths for Sto­ry Hour and face facts: if you’re a Chica­go home­own­er expe­ri­enc­ing cracks, uneven floors, stuck doors and win­dows or oth­er signs of struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age, you need struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair. The experts at U.S. Water­proof­ing have the knowl­edge, the expe­ri­ence and the tech­nol­o­gy to repair your home’s foun­da­tion the right way so why not sched­ule a free con­sul­ta­tion?

Tags: foundation damage, foundation repairs, structural foundation damage, house foundation repair, structural foundation repair

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