Year: 2019

Drainage Issues: Learn the Signs Before It’s Too Late

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It certainly doesn’t take an expert to realize that puddles in the basement or a pool of water in your front yard are potential signs of a drainage problem. However, there are many drainage issues that aren’t so easy to see. Detecting drainage problems when they’re small and easier to fix is crucial to protecting your property from extensive repairs in the future. Fortunately, there are a few tell-tale signs to look for if you think you may have a drainage problem.

Drainage Issues: Learn the Signs Before It's Too Late

Notice Cracks

We all know that houses tend to settle over time, which can often cause small cracks in the foundation. Although most small cracks are harmless, you need to know when it’s time to call the experts. Any cracks that are larger than about 1/8th of an inch wide should be closely watched. If you notice these cracks are growing, it’s time to call in the pros.

Watch Those Downspouts

If you notice that your downspouts are dumping too much water from the roof, this could be hazardous to your foundation. Too much water being dumped too close to your home’s foundation can cause flooding in your basement, thus ruining your flooring, walls, and even damaging your personal belongings.

Examine Your Gutters

Designed to keep water away from your home, gutters should be examined on a fairly routine basis. If you notice vertical streaks of dirt on the outside of your gutters, splatters of mud on the siding, or vertically peeling paint on your home’s exterior, it could be a clear sign that your gutters are not functioning as they should. They may simply be clogged with leaves and need to be cleared out by a professional. However, undersized or improperly pitched gutters will need to be reinstalled or completely replaced.

At Steady House Foundation Repair, we want to help you protect your property. That’s why we work with each of our customers across the DFW area to fix what is broken and, more importantly, to help detect potential problems before they arise. The earlier you detect an issue, the more money you save yourself in the end. If you’ve noticed any of the above signs or you suspect that you might have a drainage problem, contact us today!

3 Signs Your Foundation’s Settling Isn’t Serious

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If you think there’s something wrong with your foundation, the first thing you want is confirmation that it’s not serious. There’s nothing like the peace of mind after you find a crack you don’t remember seeing before and realizing it’s not something you need to panic about. Here are three signs that your home’s foundation is simply settling or not moving at all.

3 Signs Your Foundation's Settling Isn't Serious

Your wooden door is sticking.

If your door is harder to open and close then you remember, you might immediately worry about your foundation. But if you have a wooden door, it might just be swelling from humidity. Wooden doors can also expand and contract because of the temperature, so don’t be too concerned if this is the only problem you see. Even wooden door frames can swell against a metal or fiberglass door enough to make it stick. If the problem stays regardless of the season but it doesn’t get worse, the foundation might just be settling.

There are straight cracks in the drywall.

Your home’s walls are made up of smaller sheets of drywall. If you have a grid of paint lines in your garage, that’s approximately how tall and wide the sheetrock is in your home’s interior, too. Over time, heat and foundational settling tug the paint apart. The cracks run over the seams. As long as the cracks are thin and just horizontal or vertical, they’re probably not an emergency. Take a picture so you can measure growth and keep an eye out for more telling diagonal cracks.

A foundation expert signs off on it.

Having a professional inspect your foundation gives the best peace of mind. An inspector can measure the levelness of the floors, inspect the visible damage, and check for signs of problems that are harder to spot. They can tell you more about your foundation, tips for keeping settling in check, and answer your questions.

If you want that peace of mind as soon as possible, schedule an appointment with Steady House Foundation. One of our inspectors will be happy to take a look.

Soil Shift Happens: 2 Things You Need to Know About the Dirt Around Your Foundation

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One of the first things you’ll see online when you type in ‘foundation maintenance’ is a lot of advice about watering your soil. Dry soil contracts and pulls away from the sides of your foundation. The dirt underneath your foundation can also shift and destabilize. Foundation shift happens when the soil isn’t hydrated, but it also depends on the soil itself.

Soil Shift Happens: 2 Things You Need to Know About the Dirt Around Your Foundation

What type of soil is on your property?

If you’re directly in Dallas County, find your neighborhood on this soil map of the area. While knowing the gradient of the property, or how much it slopes, gives you a good indication of how much erosion and drainage might be a problem in the future, it’s an incomplete picture. The type of soil your house sits on can tell you a lot about how likely foundational shift is. The majority of the soil around Dallas has a heavy clay make-up, but that general rule doesn’t apply to the whole metroplex. If you live outside of the Dallas county limits, a quick search can tell you more about your neighborhood’s soil.

Clay, loam, or sand — why does it matter?

If you have loamy dirt, or dirt with a good mix of clay, sand, and silt, you hit the jackpot. This soil is more stable than it’s other counterparts. However, it’s much more likely than even loam-heavy regions have too much clay in the soil. Sandy soil is almost as good because of the good drainage, but it’s rare. Unfortunately, sandy soil is also vulnerable to erosion.

Clay is really good at retaining water, which is good for your plants but bad for the foundation. The dirt will swell up with as much water as it can hold onto when it rains, and that can put a lot of pressure on your foundation. During a drought, the dirt will severely shrink as the water disappears. The high level of expansion and contraction is why shift happens so much in the DFW area.

You don’t have to figure out what type of soil your foundation sits on to keep it safe. Call in a foundation inspector to examine potential problems and shift.

Three Testable Ways Your Pier and Beam Foundation Might Not Be Level

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Whether you’re looking for a new home to buy or you’re preparing for some hardcore spring cleaning, the integrity of the foundation. When you have a pier and beam foundation, it’s important to check for problems in the subflooring and the floor’s levelness to catch problems early on. Here are three ways to do it.

Three Testable Ways Your Pier and Beam Foundation Might Not Be Level

1. Look for a gradual incline across the length of the house.

It’s hard to notice a whole house tilt by yourself. If your home is built on a hill, or there’s been a lot of erosion in the last few months, those are signs that shifting is a risk. If the tilt is severe or growing, you might be able to feel it as you walk down a straight hallway. But the best way to discover a tilt across a whole house’s foundation is to call an inspector. They can often confirm a tilt down to the degree as part of a free estimate for repairs.

2. Check rooms from corner to corner.

It’s easier to check individual rooms for a tilt. You may have heard of the marble test, where you place a marble in different sections of the floor and see if it rolls. You can also use a level or other DIY tests. If just one room is at a tilt, that means there’s uneven stress on the foundation, and a more official test can isolate the problems.

3. Look for vertical and horizontal warps.

Even if one corner of the room isn’t higher than the other, there may be warps and warbles across the space. That’s because most rooms are big enough to have several piers and beams under the floors. If one of them settles or starts to crack, you might be able to feel or see valleys or waves in the flooring.

If you want to get your foundation tested so you know for sure, go to Steady House Foundation Repair here.

3 Ways Water Can Damage Your Home’s Foundation

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Texas homes are well-known for their foundation troubles. Every home has a few hairline cracks in the concrete, and soaker hoses running around the edge of a home, even where there aren’t any plants, are a common sight.  Let’s talk about 3 ways water can damage your home’s foundation.

3 Ways Water Can Damage Your Home's Foundation

 

A lot of it has to do with the weather. The are’s multi-year drought, intermixed with heavy torrential rain, is putting stress on everyone’s concrete foundation. Water can cause a lot of damage that’s hard to spot. Here are three ways it might be hurting your foundation behind the scenes:

1. Poor drainage makes water sit against your house.

If your home is at the bottom of an incline, that’s bad news for your foundation. When water pools against the side of your house, eventually it will find its way into the basement. It will also wear any the dirt and slip under the concrete slab. That replaces the semi-stable dirt support around your foundation with flowing water and mud.

2. Droughts change the consistency of the soil around the slab.

Not all of the soil on your property has the same composition. Some of it can be rocky and have easy drainage. Some of your soil might be more like clay. When the soil is frequently, consistently watered, those different types of soil offer relatively equal amounts of foundation support. But when it’s been months since the last good downpour, some dirt will dry out and contract more than the rest. Instead of equally distributing its weight on the soil, then, some parts face more stress and are more likely to crack.

3. Without good gutters, rain will fall against your slab’s seams.

Gutters don’t just redirect water away from your front door. They also make sure water doesn’t free fall from your roof against the concrete. Without them, the pressure would wear down the concrete. It can push the soil around the sides of your foundation away and push more water under the slab. If water falls in front of your garage, it will also work its way between your house and driveway slabs of concrete.

Fix poor drainage and water problems before you have to fix your home’s foundation. Contact us at Steady House Foundation Repair to get started.