foundation repair
Repair & Services

You Have Problems with the Foundation of Your House, Here Is the Solution

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In a home, we build more floors if our family grows or is doing well financially and want to leave something for posterity.

But just like trees that need strong roots to sustain themselves, a house that wants to project upward needs a good foundation. Have you considered this before starting the vertical expansion of yours?

The foundation is the base on which everything will rest, so the construction’s stability and durability will have for many years will depend on it.

The type of foundation that you should use for your house will depend on some factors that we should consider, such as the sudden changes in temperature in the area where you live and (very important) the type of soil. It is easier to define shallow and deep foundations when the climate is warm than when the cold weather comes down to zero in that area.

The foundation of your home is continually pressured by many factors: from imperfect construction to hydrostatic pressure, from the soil’s natural movements to the entire weight of the house. When external forces are too strong for the foundation, your home faces various problems that can be both superficial and possibly devastating.

When a building’s foundation fails, construction pathologies spread throughout the structure, putting it at risk of structural collapse or economic ruin at best. This should not happen since foundation repair is possible in practically 90% of the cases.

In foundation repair, the most complicated thing is to locate the cause or causes of the pathologies. Most of the time, the problems arise by the accumulation of reasons that prevent exact diagnoses. We advise that the repair solutions are “generous” to assure constructive integrity.

For the foundation repair, usually take any of the following measures:

Injection of epoxy or cementitious resins to fill the soil and recover the bearing capacity of the earth.

Increasing the dimensions of the footings Since the soil’s bearing capacity decreases, increase the dimensions of the foundation, ensuring that the transmission of the loads is distributed over a larger surface area. This is achieved by chopping the old shoe and sewing it to the new structure with iron or epoxy resins.

Injection molding. A cement mortar is injected under pressure. Different additives are added to the battery (cement, sand, and water) under pressure. Other additives can be added to the mixture and help reinforce the foundation. This minimizes and eliminates weaknesses in the foundation. They help support the rendering mortar, minimizing and eliminating the anomaly that causes the foundation’s weakness.

Increase the foundation underneath. With this technique, it is necessary to correctly make the calculations since a new footing is built under the existing one.

Improving the ground on which the foundation is settled.

I am replacing the footings. It is the most drastic technique and more committed by the laborious execution.

Another type of intervention is using deep underpinning, within which there are three types:

  • By wells in continuous foundations.
  • By piles that border the foundation.
  • By micropiles that cross the foundation. This technique is the most used in urban housing rehabilitation to repair cracks and fissures.

These projects require an architect’s work and a series of permits that you must plan before carrying them out, so we encourage you first to obtain the necessary licenses to reform your home.

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