Introduction:
Thousands of homeowners in the Charlotte area deal with foundation issues every year. We shudder to imagine how many homeowners have been led down the wrong path by contractors who didn’t truly understand soil subsidence. Unfortunately, almost all the foundation repair companies in our area are either intentionally deceptive in their sales practices or woefully incompetent due to their sales practices. In either case, the homeowner becomes the unwitting victim of these sales organizations parading around as contractors. In this article, we are going to discuss signs of soil subsidence and a wonderful testing solution called Dynamic Cone Penetration.
What are the Symptoms of Subsidence?
It’s a story that plays out over and over again in our area. A family buys a beautiful home with the vision of living the American dream. One day during a family barbecue, they notice a crack on the side of their all-brick home. Luckily, the proverbial Uncle Billy is there to assure the homeowners that it is normal for homes to settle and that there is nothing to worry about. Years go by, and they keep moving faster and faster. Before they realize it, the crack has gotten substantially worse, and now it is cracking the drywall on the inside of the home. They reach out to their realtor who sold them the house, who sends them the contact information for their “contractor”. After a few no-shows, the contractor echoes the same thing that Uncle Billy said and fills the crack outside with some mismatched mortar after patching the crack in the drywall. A year later, the crack is opened up again, and somehow the “contractor” just can’t seem to answer the phone.
The most common symptoms that people see are cracks in your mortar joints, drywall cracks, windows and doors sticking, uneven floors, and cracks in your slab. Usually, homeowners spend years fixing these symptoms, only to have them come back again and again and again… All the while, no one is telling them the truth; the problem is not the house, it is the soil under the house.
How To Craft A Solution With Proper Testing
There are two options for coming up with a repair plan. Unfortunately, the first one is very popular. Most foundation repair companies jump to helical piers right away. Most don’t even take the time to inspect the home’s foundation with specialty tools. Helical Piers are a wonderful solution when warranted and properly installed. However, the process is extremely expensive and often not needed. We recommend slowing down and performing proper soil examinations to identify where the subsidence issues are actually taking place. Then based on that information, we would either recommend a helical pier installer or craft a customized soil injection plan with our Deep Lock Injection process.
The testing method that we use is Dynamic Cone Penetration. With this method, we use a hydraulic hammer to drive a one-meter rod into the ground with a sacrificial cone on the bottom. We measure how many hammer blows it takes to drive the rods into the ground every ten centimeters. These tests usually go about 20’-30’ deep into the ground, which is the higher-end depth of most helical piers. During this testing, we can easily identify weak layers of soils or even large and obvious voids in the soil layers. With this information, we can now craft a custom injection plan to remediate the proper soil levels under the home. These testing rods are expensive, so we remove them with a hydraulic rod puller and use them over again.
In the worst-case scenario, we confirm that the homeowner truly does need helical piers. In the best-case scenario, we end up finding pretty solid soils under the home and recommend tuck pointings and gutter downspout extensions. Typically, we would find that helical piers are not needed, but we can save the homeowner a substantial amount of money by chemically grouting the soils beneath.
Conclusion:
When it comes to foundation repair, going in blind is the worst option. We believe that your home deserves a customized solution driven by real data, not guesswork. Dynamic Cone Penetration testing is the best solution for residential repairs due to its relatively low cost and effectiveness. The testing is minimally invasive and completed in just one day. The data from our testing is made available to you to help with any contractor, not just us. We would be happy to be your advocate when dealing with foundation settlement.
TruLift Concrete Repair is here for you. Contact us today for a free estimate. Visit our website at www.truliftconcrete.com or give us a call at (803) 200-2296. Connect with us on social media @truliftconcrete on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to stay updated on our projects and learn more about our many solutions we have to offer.
