Before & After Photos

Foundation issues can be some of the scariest issues that we see and deal with here at All-Dry of the Carolinas. This home definitely did not have as bad bowing walls as many of the other homes that we see here, because the homeowner was proactive about the issues with their home. However, these small cracks will continue to grow if not watched and taken care of quickly.

One of the biggest causes of bowing walls is the pressure that is created on the outside of the home by the earth, as was the case with this particular house. The type of cracking that can be seen in these pictures is a "stair-step" crack, which is one of the more common types of cracking. One of the things that a lot of people wonder about is the duct tape that the crew puts over the cracks. As you can see between the two photos, the duct tape shows how much the wall has moved and came together.

Wall anchors are able to really make a difference in basement walls, especially because they can be progressively tightened. This means that after they are installed, just months later they can be tightened to provide even more support and bring the wall closer to its original position. It can sometimes be difficult to notice how much the wall anchors really do, but the duct tape certainly makes it much more obvious how much the cracks were closed.

The All-Dry of the Carolinas team are the masters when it comes to lifting up your home, mentally and physically. Whenever you feel like your floors won’t hold you don’t worry, we will be there for you. In this case in Inman, SC the homeowners were having issues in their house in relation to their foundation. The windows would rattle and the hardwood floors were starting to split. In the before picture you can see that the floor joist is being held up by bricks and cinderblocks. This type of solution doesn’t work well with a home since the bricks can sink into the ground leaving the floor with its original problem.

               In the after pictures you can see that a SmartJack has been added to replace the use of the bricks and cinder blocks. This SmartJack crawl space stabilizer is different from the homemade version that was already under the house. SmartJacks are placed on a precast concrete pad that prevents the jack from sinking, hence giving the issue a permeant solution.

The SmartJacks were placed under the floor joist of the home and then used to push the floors back into place. To install it, we excavate a two-foot cube at each SmartJack location. The hole is then filled with concrete or engineered to create a stable, loadbearing footing. The SmartJack sits on top of it with a custom-engineered base to prevent the support system from sinking when the moister starts to affect the soil. SmartJacks are then adjusted to the perfect position to support the floor joist of the home. This SmartJack technology, is made of steel which will not rust when exposed to moister and it can also hold over 60,000 pounds! This product was able to save this homes sagging floor problem.

Foundation settlement is one of the most common causes of foundation problems that we see. The settlement is caused by the soil under and around the home shifting, because it is not packed down nearly as much as the undisturbed ground around it. The severity of settlement really depends on a couple of factors; one being, how tightly packed the soil was after the foundation of the home was built, and how long the homeowner has gone without addressing the problem.

Unfortunately, this homeowner had been living with this problem for awhile without getting it taken care of. As you can see from the before photo, the crack in this chimney is not just a small crack, but rather a huge gap. This is very dangerous, because you never know when something could happen and the entire chimney could come down. This is definitely something that you do not want to wait on, but rather get taken care of sooner, rather than later.

While the after photo is not the completely finished product, it does show the difference between the chimney before the push piers were installed and afterwards. As you can see, the gap has been almost completely closed through the raising of the piers. You can also see the difference that the piers made in the duct tape on the chimney, especially the piece on the right. 

Many of the projects that we work on aren't just a single problem, such as high humidity in a crawlspace or bowing walls in a basement. There are a lot of jobs that may have a few different problems that we can take of with different products and systems that we have. A great example of this is when there is a home with a sagging floor that needs SmartJacks, but also needs CleanSpace to help with the high humidity levels in the crawlspace.

This project was very similar to that example except the home needed push piers in order stabilize the foundation and CleanSpace liner to keep water and moisture out of the crawlspace. The first photo shows one of the areas that was cracking and where many of the push piers were installed. Here you can see one of our crew members working on the push piers!

The after photo shows the same area, but after the push piers had lifted and stabilized this area. The CleanSpace was laid out after the push pier work had been done in order to encapsulate the area. As you can see, the CleanSpace is laid out extremely tight against the wall of the crawlspace and is sealed extremely well. The CleanSpace liner does an excellent job at preventing moisture from getting into the crawlspace.