Foundation repairs and drainage. Another thing to check before it's too late.

As much as droughts and dry conditions can negatively affect the stability of the residence's foundations, so can excessive moisture caused by poor drainage around the house's perimeter. Expansive soils, acting like sponges will swell and shrink depending on the ground moisture content, such elastic movement put stress on the house foundation. We inspect quite a few residences during any given week. What we find is that sometime the issues causing the foundation problems are beyond the homeowners control. However, in most cases, some fairly simple steps to address some basic concern, would make a big difference in the health of the residences' foundations. For example, look at the picture below, can you spot one a possible problem with this scenario?

Even the water barrier was no match in this situation. The rest of house had similar drainage issues that had to be addressed before a successful foundation repair could be done.

Draining water from the yard away from the house is just as important as watering the yard. Some solutions include sloping the grounds (grading), french drains, in same cases a pit and a sub pump are necessary to evacuate the water. By far the most important improvement a homeowner can do to the residence is to install gutters and down spouts.

All the roof's square footage is collecting water and, without gutters and downspouts, draining it most of the times, too close to the residence's foundation. Gutters and downspouts have to be designed sufficiently large and frequent to be able to handle the volume of wafer coming off the roof. Additionally, the installation of the  gutters and downspouts should direct the water flow away from the house, preferably to a street or a centralized drainage system.

Depending on the slope and shape of the yard, the downspouts need to be designed to make sure the water is carried away and dispersed as far possible from the foundation. Homeowners should inspect the house to make sure that the downspouts also have splash blocks when necessary and that these splash blocks are large enough and high enough to carry the water away from the foundation of the house.

Give Premier Foundation Repair a call if you suspect having foundation problems or drainage issues that need to be resolved before the foundation repairs can be done.