Who Can Repair a Cracked Foun­da­tion in Chicago?

Feb 14, 2013 • By Matthew Stock with Barry Schilling.

So, you’ve spot­ted a crack, or maybe a few cracks in your base­ment walls. You’re not sure how long they’ve been there and they don’t look too seri­ous, so you stash them in your men­tal ​“to wor­ry about lat­er” file.

Fast for­ward a month or so and you wan­der into the base­ment again, except that it’s been rain­ing on and off for a week and now there’s water on the floor below those cracks. Or maybe it’s anoth­er hot, dry sum­mer like 2012 and you’d swear those cracks have got­ten wider.

Lat­er just became now, but where do you get help? You need a pro­fes­sion­al, but what kind of pro is best to fix a cracked foun­da­tion in Chicago?

Your Chica­go Cracked Foun­da­tion is Seep­ing Water

So, the cracks in your foun­da­tion haven’t got­ten any wider but they are allow­ing water to seep into your base­ment, which had always been dry up until now. At first, you’re tempt­ed to try to fix it your­self, maybe with hydraulic cement or caulk, but you real­ize your track record as a do-it-your­selfer isn’t so good. (Remem­ber the leak under the sink?)

So, you need to call ​“the guy.” Maybe that handy­man who rebuilt your porch stairs last sum­mer – or maybe not. Most handy­men, skilled though they may be, aren’t equipped to do base­ment water­proof­ing the right way.

OK, what about the con­trac­tor who put the addi­tion on the neighbor’s house or – wait, it’s water, right? I’ll call the plumber! Not so fast. Gen­er­al con­trac­tors build things; that’s their job. Plumbers install and repair pipe and fix­tures; that’s their job. Nei­ther of these pro­fes­sion­als has the skills, equip­ment and mate­ri­als to per­ma­nent­ly repair seep­ing cracks in your foundation.

So, who ya gonna call? A base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor! Only a base­ment water­proof­ing pro­fes­sion­al has the skills and expe­ri­ence to prop­er­ly diag­nose a prob­lem with base­ment seep­age and the exper­tise, tools and mate­ri­als to repair it per­ma­nent­ly and cost-effec­tive­ly. A full-ser­vice base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny will be able to diag­nose and repair any seep­age prob­lem, regard­less of whether your foun­da­tion is poured con­crete, con­crete block, brick, stone or tile.

Your Cracked Foun­da­tion in Chica­go is Dry but the Cracks are Widening

Hey, the base­ment is dry! Great, but doesn’t it look like those cracks have got­ten big­ger since you first spot­ted them? And aren’t there a few more of them? This is start­ing to look like struc­tur­al foun­da­tion dam­age and there’s no putting it off any longer. But, once again, where do you turn for help?

It’s struc­tur­al, right, so you can call that gen­er­al con­trac­tor! Nope. Again, a gen­er­al contractor’s job is con­struc­tion and, typ­i­cal­ly, they don’t even build foun­da­tions them­selves, let alone repair them. They might take a whack at it but is that real­ly what you want?

OK, so it’s the base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, right? Well, maybe. Some base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies, typ­i­cal­ly the larg­er ones, may also do struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair. How­ev­er, a lot of base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies are small, maybe one- or two-per­son busi­ness­es, and they may do only seep­ing crack repair or drain tile. Struc­tur­al work is way beyond them.

Even some of the larg­er and more estab­lished base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­nies don’t do foun­da­tion repair because it requires a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment in train­ing and equip­ment. They may have nei­ther the skilled per­son­nel nor access to the engi­neer­ing ser­vices required to plan and design a suc­cess­ful per­ma­nent repair.

So, who’s it going to be? A foun­da­tion repair com­pa­ny or base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor with a track record in struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair. These experts will be able to diag­nose the prob­lem accu­rate­ly and rec­om­mend the best, most cost-effec­tive per­ma­nent repair that will sta­bi­lize your cracked foun­da­tion in Chica­go. They will have skilled installers who can han­dle car­bon fiber or steel repairs to a cracked, bowed or tipped foun­da­tion wall and any oth­er struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair your home needs.

At U.S. Water­proof­ing, struc­tur­al foun­da­tion repair is, and has been, a big part of the ser­vices we pro­vide to home­own­ers in Chica­go. Our trained advi­sors will inspect your foun­da­tion and make a time­ly rec­om­men­da­tion of a cost-effec­tive per­ma­nent repair, no mat­ter how exten­sive the dam­age; our expe­ri­enced installers will com­plete the repairs with a min­i­mum of dis­rup­tion. Why not ask us for a free con­sul­ta­tion?

Tags: cracks in basement walls, foundation repairs, house foundation repair, structural foundation repair, cracked foundation chicago, chicago cracked foundation

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