Foundation Heave
Foundation heave can leave your home splitting at the seams. When your home is suffering from foundation heave, you will find cracking along interior walls, cracking on exterior walls, cracks on your concrete floor slab, or even uneven slab sections.
Fixing foundation heave involves addressing the root cause first. Excess water that builds up in the soil beneath your home is the most common cause of foundation heave.
The experts at Regional Foundation & Crawl Space Repair will investigate the source of this excess water and eliminate it. We’ll look for water line leaks, broken sprinkler lines, clogged drains, and damaged gutter and leader systems. Once these causes are removed, we’ll start repairs. These repairs include:
- Concrete grinding for minor foundation heave
- Soil stabilization via polymer injection
- Mechanical foundation repair using helical piers
Once repairs have been made and your foundation is restored, you won’t have to worry about foundation heave ever again. Our solutions are permanent.
Causes of Foundation Heave
Foundation heave happens when the underlying supporting soils swell or expand to push the foundation upward. When excess moisture fills the soil or freezes while in the ground, the earth will expand dramatically. You’re more likely to encounter heave with slabs than foundations as slabs don’t weigh enough to resist the upward forces. These forces cause slab and foundation heave:
- Expansive soils
- Frost heave
- Plumbing leaks
- Heavy downpours
Expansive soils like clay have a much greater ability to expand when coming into contact with water versus other soils. Frost heave results from water freezing inside the earth, forcing it to grow as the ice takes up more space.
Plumbing leaks deposit water directly into the supporting soil, forcing it to expand. Finally, prolonged precipitation can saturate the ground, soaking it until moisture reaches the supporting soil beneath your foundation.
