I’ve been doing quite a bit of cosmetic fix-up inside the house over the last 10 months or so since I had root barriers installed. At the same time I had large shrubs removed from the west side of the slab foundation.
In the meantime I’ve been fixing drywall and painting. There were some small wall cracks that needed filling and some areas where sheet rock tape had popped, things to be expected of a thirty year old house that has a concrete slab foundation sitting on shrink-swell heavy clay soil. So far things have stayed fixed.
The was one crack in the ceiling near the patio door that was always kind of an indicator of foundation movement for me. It would open and close ever so slightly depending how much rain we had gotten or how faithful I had been with running the soaker hoses.
Well sir, that crack has stayed closed for several months now. I don’t know if it’s because of all the rain we’ve had this year, the root barriers, the soaker hoses or a combination of all three. It’s probably the latter. At any rate, it’s nice to give the drywall mud knife a rest.
This is a very well done blog. I wish the foundation repair companies and engineers that came to my house and told me to first get a root barrier and then wait a year or two to determine if piers would be needed. Even the owner of a tree service company recommended against the root barrier, just like the arborist had told you. I now believe they are the main cause and I could have avoided pier work altogethor. Companies that do root barrier work should advertise on the radio, Internet, newspaper, and TV just like the foundation companies do. Keep us updated with your progress.