Floor Crack
Is your concrete slab floor sinking, sagging, or settling? If so, you might notice your concrete floor slabs cracking or that the walls are separating from the floor or ceiling.
Settling concrete floor slabs cause several symptoms that you might notice.
Your concrete floors may appear to be dropping away from the walls. Gaps can form between the floor and the walls or between the walls and the ceiling. Your interior walls might start cracking, especially at the corners of interior doors. Walls can appear to be moving away from adjacent walls, too.
If you notice any of these symptoms, you may be dealing with a serious foundation slab settlement issue. In that case, call the foundation experts at Regional Foundation & Crawl Space Repair.
We can install a slab pier system that will connect your floor slab to load-bearing soil or bedrock far below your home. After installation, our slab pier system allows us to restore your settled slab to its original position.
Causes of Concrete Floor Slab Settlement
The soil beneath your home can cause a wide variety of structural damage. Concrete floor slab settlement is just one of the ways supporting soil can affect your home. If the supporting soil beneath your home is weak or unable to support the weight of your concrete slabs, gravity will bring your slabs down.
If the soil underneath your slab shifts, pockets of empty space can be created. When this happens, nothing is supporting your slabs. Inevitably, your slab will settle to fill the void.
The most common causes of settling concrete floor slabs include:
- Drying or shrinking soils
- Soil washout
- Poorly compacted fill soil
During long, dry periods, or when nearby trees are beginning to mature, the moisture in the supporting soil can dry up. This drying causes the earth to shrink and shift, creating empty pockets underneath your slabs.
When the soil beneath your slab erodes, there’s nothing left to support it. If the fill soil was poorly compacted when contractors first built your home, it won’t be strong enough to support your concrete slabs.
