Episode 1503
Foundation 101: How to maintain and repair your foundation
Foundation repairs can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. Most of these issues if they are caught early are an easy repair. The longer you wait the larger the issues. We take a look today at the causes and repairs for foundation issues.
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Transcript
[00:00:21] Eric Goranson: But if you've only got a couple spots that are leaking, there's a better solution that's, uh, less expensive and of course works a lot better. What you can do is that crack that's leaking. You go through. And, uh, you patch the crack like we talked about earlier with, uh, loosen it up and, and put in the cemental.
[:[00:01:01] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. On the radio show, on podcast, if you're catching this on the radio, make sure you catch all, what, 1500 plus episodes. We've only got about a thousand up over there on the, on the podcast player, but, uh, we have a huge catalog. If you're looking for something, you can dive into it on any podcast player.
[:[00:01:39] Eric Goranson: Concrete and block or even rock or brick thing that's holding your house up off the ground. And this is probably, and I think I can safely say one of the most expensive and scary things for a homeowner, even for some contractors that don't work with these things a lot. And, uh, there's a lot of myths.
[:[00:02:17] Eric Goranson: First off, One of the biggest causes of water in the basement or crawlspace is that gutter downspout that drops right next to the foundation. Yes, that should go. Uh, my rule is 10 feet away from the house. So if you have the gutters and the downspouts, if that's hitting the ground, you are causing damage to your foundation.
[:[00:02:56] Eric Goranson: And a lot of cities did this. So in the city of Portland, they designed the [00:03:00] sewer system in the storm drain system way back when to be the same. So in your twenties, thirties, forties, houses the water coming off the roof, went into the gutter, into the downspout and into the sewer system. And then when you have rain like we do in Portland, guess what?
[:[00:03:33] Eric Goranson: And you would get the little stamp and they would, you would have that rebate. The problem is, is the city never allowed or forced them to do something different that just dropped onto the ground. So there are thousands of homes. That have foundation damage directly from removing that from that system and dropping it right next door.
[:[00:04:12] Eric Goranson: If you're sitting there and you've got water that's pulled up against the foundation, that can be another problem, especially when you have freeze thaw cycles. So the concrete gets moist, water soaks in it is porous. It freezes, it blows out. It does it over and over again. What's another issue out there?
[:[00:04:52] Eric Goranson: Well, as soon as you add water to that sponge, what happens? It expands right. Clay does the same thing, and what can happen is that [00:05:00] expansion contraction as the soil is wet and dry, that can actually move that foundation enough to crack it. So that can be a cause of that. Now, what's the way to do that and make sure you keep that soil hydrated around the house all the time?
[:[00:05:32] Eric Goranson: And then there's ones where people took shortcuts. Maybe they put in too much unwashed, river rock or, or sand or gravel. I have seen it here where tr people tried to use beat sand and guess what? Too much salt in there. And then that stuff is falling apart. There are homes that I have gone into. And with a screwdriver, I have been able to dig very easily and quickly through the foundation to the outside of the home.
[:[00:06:17] Eric Goranson: That's another one. So lack of maintenance is another reason this happens. And then here's another one that is really big that I want you to really think about outside forces. I have seen a lot of cracks in foundations from that big tree that's out the front, the side or the back. You know, you've got the roots that are expanding and they put a horizontal crack in the foundation.
[:[00:07:02] Eric Goranson: I've seen 'em where almost pushes in. So these are things that you gotta be careful with. So the next one I've seen, and this is a huge problem, um, excess load. Cars may be driving along the side of it, you know, where you've got a driveway and, um, uptight against the house. It wasn't designed for that. Uh, one of the biggest ones that I've seen, uh, people putting in the big water tanks to collect water from their gutter system, they wanna reuse water.
[:[00:07:50] Eric Goranson: So again, something to be very careful with. And the next one is seismic. I have seen seismic cracks. You get a big earthquake, you know, in California, all of us on the [00:08:00] West coast, anywhere else that you've got earthquakes, that can be another one. And so that's a real key right there to deal with, is to make sure that you've got that tied together.
[:[00:08:30] Eric Goranson: They did not actually tie the house into the foundation. And that's one of the problems that I see out there. You'll see that house maybe in, in Kansas, where it was pushed out in the middle of the road from the tornado. That house wasn't tied down property to the foundation, and so the wind loads were high enough that it moved the house and moved it over there.
[:[00:09:05] Eric Goranson: That is gonna be one of those things that really helps you out in, uh, you know, anything from a wind load or, you know, like tornadoes, things like that to seismic. That's a really big deal. But you don't wanna just cheat and tie the, if you have only. The seal plate to the foundation, and you don't have brackets holding the rest of that system together.
[:[00:09:46] Eric Goranson: should I be loud? Be so hot?[00:10:00]
[:[00:10:28] Eric Goranson: You can also go over to the Fox 12 YouTube page, or if you wanna be able to catch it, just go over to, uh, around the house online.com and we're gonna have all the recent episodes over there for you to take a look. Well, today we're talking about foundation issues and these are the repairs and damage. How do you navigate this as a homeowner?
[:[00:11:03] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna have to lift the house. And unless you're trying to raise the house for flood or something like that, these days, it's really not necessary anymore. That jacking the house up. Is, is just something that's, that's not needed in almost every situation. And here's why. You know, um, when we talk about jacking that house up, unless you're trying to, it's, it's, you wanna raise it up to make it higher in the neighborhood or you want to add space, usually it's cheaper to dig down to get more head room downstairs than it is to jack it up.
[:[00:11:54] Eric Goranson: But guess what? You don't have to jack the house up. It's something you can do while you live in it. , and that's [00:12:00] the the thing there. You don't have to move out, move your stuff out while they lift the house up and deal with the chimney or whatever else you have to mess with. That's the key right there. So lifting the house up, that's kind of just the old school way of doing it unless you're trying to lift it for, for flood reasons or things like that.
[:[00:12:33] Eric Goranson: So many times it's not that much more to do that that way. So something to think about. So here's the thing, if you've got cracks in your foundation, so many people will say the first thing you do is call a foundation repair company. And I'll be honest. If you wanna do that, knock yourself out. Is it the smartest thing to do?
[:[00:13:17] Eric Goranson: Resolution to your problems. That way you know that you're getting the right repair. And this is one of the things that, I was working with a foundation company here years ago that I noticed. There are companies out there that work in the foundation repair business that are franchises, and there's nothing against franchises.
[:[00:14:00] Eric Goranson: And then more importantly, what I don't like is when they come in and tell you that your house is gonna fall down and, uh, they're gonna give you 20% off if you sign up today. And they basically twist your arm into signing up and signing a contract, which to me is always a huge mistake. So get your, you know, get your expert over to do it, and then you can put out bids for the repair.
[:[00:14:41] Eric Goranson: They know what they're talking about. You've got that licensed structural engineer. Make sure you've got the right person. So here's the thing, you know, that's the first one. Use a structural engineer before getting quotes. That new internal foundation is something to take a look at if you have that crumbly wall or if you've got, [00:15:00] you know, one of those things.
[:[00:15:23] Eric Goranson: But you can come in there with strips of carbon fiber and there's, you know, rhino carbon fiber makes it Simpson Strong Time makes it, but you can do those strips of carbon fiber to tie those pieces back together. You're never gonna push that in. So it's flat. But that's where you can use those strips of carbon fiber to hold it together and keep it from moving anymore.
[:[00:16:03] Eric Goranson: Usually what happens is they'll tell you to go down there, get all the stuff outta the way, and then they're gonna go through and you're gonna, they're gonna go through and chip out that whole crack and get that all cleaned up and. Dialed in, so there's no loose material in there. And then what they'll do is typically then they'll wet that area where the crack is and they'll mix up a product like Cemental or one of those products, and then they'll make that and trel that in there and get that to fill that space.
[:[00:16:58] Eric Goranson: And then [00:17:00] once that fills up, they'll put the structural. Material across there, which is gonna be your carbon fiber. And then after that you can, uh, either skim code it or you can actually go across that and paint it, uh, with a, uh, you know, foundation paint. And it looks pretty good. Now, some of the other things that you can do here is steel.
[:[00:17:39] Eric Goranson: And I've used steel that way. There's also steel systems out there that you can use that of course have a really cool, um, They're a interior wall system that actually goes in and they actually go in there. And what happens with that interior wall system is they go in and build a structural steel wall on the inside of that foundation.
[:[00:18:24] Eric Goranson: So that needs to be pushing on there. We come back, I've got so much more to talk about with foundations just as soon as around the house returns.[00:19:00]
[:[00:19:21] Eric Goranson: And I pull up a floor register vent and their standing water in the duck system where their fan was trying to push it through and the humidity was just horrible. That house needed a lot of work just to get rescued. And so these are things you gotta really worry about. Now. I had a crawlspace one time.
[:[00:20:09] Eric Goranson: Nobody caught it, and I mean, nobody caught it. So the problem that you have here now with that is that you've got all of this water running on there. It had undermined. Kitchen sink area. Cause the kitchen sink was sitting there and this went in and basically let loose under the kitchen sink where it connected in there.
[:[00:20:56] Eric Goranson: So it was the. You had to jack the house up to get the [00:21:00] refrigerator out to level it. That's how bound up it was between the cabinets and the, and the wall of the kitchen. So it was absolutely brutal. Well, I open up, it was a winter day, I opened up the crawlspace to go down and take a look and steam comes out and I'm like, oh, we have a problem.
[:[00:21:36] Eric Goranson: So it was something where they were gonna need to really tie in and, and do a full foundation repair. So that was just from a, uh, a drain line that got ignored. And so that was really rough. But, uh, in most cases when you've got water in the basement, it's a couple things, 60% of the time of my experience, That is coming from the gutters and downspouts outside or outside water management, that you've got something wrong out there.
[:[00:22:19] Eric Goranson: really, there's not much you can do on the outside to stop that. That is something that is below grade where that is using hydrostatic pressure. It's pushing up and it is finding the, the low point, and that's gonna always put in there, push water in there. The best solution that I've found with that. Is to actually put a French drain system around the inside of that foundation wall.
[:[00:22:58] Eric Goranson: And it collects it and goes into a sump [00:23:00] pump. I'll be honest, I wanna stop the water from going in. And if you're a longtime listener of the show, you'll, you've heard this story before, so bear with me as I tell it real quick. But I had a house that had this gutter system installed and they called me out about three years later to come take a look at it.
[:[00:23:36] Eric Goranson: Under the whole foundation and the surface tension between the foundation and the dirt on the side is what was holding the house up. So all the water had been pushing out through that crack and going into the gutter system. The gutter system was filling up a dirt. They were digging it out, cleaning it out, and then, uh, it was getting in the sum pump and that was burning up.
[:[00:24:16] Eric Goranson: So what you do is you go around and, you know, dig out about a nine inch, 12 inch trench and you're gonna have to cut the concrete around it, and you're gonna put a grid system of serrated. Plastic pipe down there. So it's that drain pipe that's got the holes in it. So what you're gonna do is, is dig that out.
[:[00:24:51] Eric Goranson: So you don't wanna have a circular pump there. So that's really what this is, is to, you want to dig that up and do it. That's kind of the foolproof way of doing it. You put it [00:25:00] down, you have gravel, there's a plastic tube with a sock over it so you don't get dirt into it. More gravel and then concrete back over the top.
[:[00:25:26] Eric Goranson: Now, water through the foundation, if you've got a crack, there's two schools of thought. One of them, you'll see people go around in the little mini excavator and they will dig up the entire perimeter of the foundation and put on a new bra membrane around the outside. Yes, that works. But if you've only got a couple spots that are leaking, there's a better solution that's, um, less expensive and of course works a lot better.
[:[00:26:22] Eric Goranson: And so that creates a waterproof barrier right there. Anytime that hits that. So when it hits that moist soil, boom, it's good. Now it seals it up and you've got a sealed up solution right there. And then of course you can watch any more leaks downstairs, but that's really the solution for that. The only time it works really good to do the dig out and the membrane is if you have a concrete block or a C M U block Foundation.
[:[00:27:10] Eric Goranson: That's really the best way to do it because sometimes if you use the um, The urethane, you're gonna poke that, you're gonna fix that hole there, but it'll pop up 10 feet away and you're just chasing a hundred holes. And sometimes it's just easier to go ahead and go out there and and do that around the perimeter.
[:[00:27:47] Eric Goranson: And when they removed that slab, what happened is, is they came in and they took that slab out. The problem was that that bottom slab is what keyed in the bottom. And where the cracks are pushed in the section that was broken and then you have a, a [00:28:00] collapse and you've gotta lot of dirt in the basement.
[:[00:28:25] Eric Goranson: Alrighty, when we come back, I've got some more solutions for you inclu, including how to keep that air safe just as soon as around the house returns.
[:[00:29:07] Eric Goranson: And we're talking about really, um, you know, how to fix it, how to repair it, how to, uh, what are the big causes of it. And uh, right now we're gonna dive into a little bit more about making sure that you've got that foundation in 110% so you don't have to worry about it. So one of the things about water in the basement as well is that you could have grading around the outside of your home that water is coming toward.
[:[00:29:48] Eric Goranson: You gotta come in from the, the, the rain or it's coming up to the groundwater and many times it's that gutter system or just a tight space that's ruining that. So things to do. About [00:30:00] drainage is just to make sure it's sloped correctly and nothing is aimed back towards the house. Now I've seen people, uh, where they've got that tight house to the neighbors.
[:[00:30:28] Eric Goranson: Still you want to cut that concrete, put in the the drain system there so you know where it's going and you can get it at least 10 feet away from the house. And those downspouts, make sure you're scoping those things every four or five years. I got a guy coming here in a couple hours to do mine cuz uh, my house has never been done that I know of.
[:[00:31:04] Eric Goranson: Now one of the things, one of the grand debates of crawl spaces is do you put ventilation in. And ventilate it all and make sure you've got great vent and a good vapor barrier down there. That many times is a good situation depending on what you've got going on, and this is really on a house to house basis where you need to have a professional, take a look at it.
[:[00:31:43] Eric Goranson: Well, what I mean by that is they put. Plastic that is glued and taped all the way up against the foundation. So there's no way, almost like that was a swimming pool liner down there and there's no way for water to get down there. You wanna make sure and have a dehumidifier down there and not like one of the little [00:32:00] portable ones.
[:[00:32:23] Eric Goranson: And, uh, here's another thing too. Make sure when you're dealing with foundations, you have that, uh, that radon test. Because a rayon test is really important to make sure that you've got it, and if you have seismic activity in your area, you want to get that rayon test done again, because when cracks and fissures move around, I have seen it where a house didn't have radon and then the, the ground moved a little bit and then it did.
[:[00:33:11] Eric Goranson: And then making sure that things are off the wall down there. If you have. Books, boxes, things like that, up against that foundation wall that is not insulated or conditioned. Um, you're just asking to get mold growth down there and make sure that you're monitoring that humidity. You never really wanna see that humidity ever get above 60% down there.
[:[00:33:47] Eric Goranson: Testing that air, making sure you don't have a mold issue in the rest of the house and on that foundation. It's good, you know? Do the foundation coatings work out there to stop water from coming in. Not really. They make those waterproof foundation [00:34:00] coatings that you paint on the inside, they'll keep some moisture from coming in.
[:[00:34:21] Eric Goranson: And depending on your climate, I'm not gonna give you the, the be all, end all here because somebody in California is gonna be doing it completely different than in Minnesota or vice versa. So those are things that you really need to be careful with. Now, if you're in California, I want to talk to you guys cuz it's mostly.
[:[00:35:01] Eric Goranson: But now that you're catching up on this rain, and it could be something that's happening over a number of years, you need to make sure you get it dialed in if you have water in that basement. You've got 48 hours to get it cleaned up before you grow mold. You wanna make sure and talk to your insurance company if you've got a flood in the basement from that.
[:[00:35:42] Eric Goranson: Unless it was water that was outside that was so high, it entered your home. That would be a flood. You had a pipe break, you had a gutter system, direct water into your basement. Those are all things that are not floods, but could cause you [00:36:00] issues before you file that claim. And like anything, um, especially California guys, make sure that you check your, I.
[:[00:36:31] Eric Goranson: Deal with the issue, report it. But he had a pipe break, which, um, was unknown in his, in his house. That was his, uh, His vacation home and, uh, little beach cottage and a pipe broke and the neighbor caught it water out there and they turned the water off. Never do that because now they're gonna give you issues.
[:[00:37:21] Eric Goranson: If you send that in over there, I will actually answer it on the show and tell you the right answer, what to do with it. So if you've got a specific video, take a video of it, send it in. And I'll use it on, uh, uh, upcoming episode of the show if it's a good one, which means we can use it. Uh, it has to be fit for broadcast if you do that right there.
[:[00:37:56] Eric Goranson: We're gonna be talking with Jeff, Tracy, jt, the cowboy [00:38:00] cook. We're gonna be talking everything. Barbecue, beef, and I think he's even got a beef sale for us here. Where you can online direct from the cattle rancher and get beef and save some serious money over the grocery store. Anytime we can save money, guess what?
[:[00:38:35] Eric Goranson: If I was gonna just give you two bits of advice out of all this, Juan, if you've got a cracker, a structural issue, consult that structural engineer. Let them go with that and get your cords based off of that. And two, control that water, control that humidity, and make sure that you've got the right amount of moisture in that space.
[:[00:39:10] Eric Goranson: All right everybody. Thanks for listening around the house. We'll see you next time.
