Repair My Foundation-A Homeowner's Look at the Options

Nothing says summer vacation like lounging by the pool or the beach with a tall frosty adult beverage and a sturdy book on concrete foundation repair. I found a few and and you can browse them here. Arm yourself with knowledge. Don’t forget the sunscreen.

The other day I was reading what I could find on steel piers vs. concrete piers for foundation repair and ran across the term “skin friction.” With my heart beating a little faster, I read on.
It turns out that “skin friction” is an engineering term that describes the drag soil has on a pier or [...]

There is a woman two doors down from me who wants to sell her house and also needs foundation repair. I’ve not been inside her house but all the signs are there on the outside. She’s got the tell-tale zig-zag cracks in the brick and a widening crack by the garage door. Word is that [...]

Calling up a concrete foundation repair contractor and asking how much it would cost is like lurching your smoking car into the mechanic’s parking lot and asking him how may dollars it will take to fix it without even popping the hood. Both are going to say “it depends on what’s wrong.”
A major factor in [...]

Texas is a big state with a huge population whose houses sit largely on suspect soil. There are a lot of reasons why a concrete foundation in Texas might need repair although most of the time it has to do with expansive clay soils. But that is not always the case and I’ve put a [...]

Given the amount of concrete foundation repair that happens in the Lone Star State, the Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers has published a set of guidelines for the evaluation and repair of residential foundations. The document includes a couple of paragraphs regarding the effects of trees and shrubs near the foundation:
7.3.2 [...]

While some Texas concrete foundation repair companies tell us that trees living too close to the house can cause major foundation problems there is a pretty famous garden and landscape expert in the Dallas area who begs to differ. I’ve heard him say as much on his radio show and the following represents a typical [...]

It doesn’t take a genius to see that tree roots can do bad things to sidewalks. Like turn a section of one into a skateboard ramp. These are photos of oak tree vs. sidewalks in my neighborhood.
In some cases, the tree roots are winning. In other stretches of the sidewalks you can see slumping as [...]

It’s that time of year again in Texas where the heat becomes relentless and the sun sucks moisture out of the soil faster than I can drain a Shiner Bock. It’s not a bad idea to have the soaker hoses running around your concrete foundation if it sits on elastic clay soil like mine does.
Twenty [...]

The Army Corps of Engineers chimes in with a mention of concrete foundation problems related to soil conditions and other factors. The military deals with a wide variety of buildings and structures and has different needs for exterior concrete slabs than does Joe Homeowner. There are no pads for artillery pieces or helicopters at my [...]