The most common basement cracks we see all over New England are the cracks off of a corner of a basement window, or one off the "step down". This is where the concrete goes from about 8' to about 6' and the concrete steps down. These cracks are common because this is the weakest part of the concrete. In residential construction, they don't put re-bar going horizontal in the concrete for additional strength. And, these...

We got a call from a person who wanted pricing on putting in a new lally column. We explained what we do with a lally column is break the floor, dig down, pour concrete--that's called a footing,  and put the lally column on top of it. The reason we do a footing is so it is stable. This man was a DIY type of a guy, and he called us back to say he would...

There are two types of concrete floor cracks, shrinkage and settlement. Shrinkage cracks are from when they pour concrete, which has water in it and the water evaporates too quickly. This happens just like it did to the mud pies you played with as a kid. You put those mud pies on the patio to dry and cracks resulted. You can tell you have shrinkage cracks if the floor cracks are discontinuous, meaning the crack...

We had a customer with a problem we see almost everyday. She had a crack in the basement wall off the corner of the window. Then we looked at window also. It was improperly installed and the basement window was leaking too. The prior owner had a sump pump put in and they placed a 4" concrete berm that went around the window area and over to the sump pump, hoping the water would go...

What does it mean if you have a horizontal foundation crack? With a horizontal crack you want to do a little more discovery to see what the problem is. They are more severe than a crack that goes up and down so you want to bring somebody in that knows something about them. A horizontal crack initially means that there has been compromise in your home's foundation. It doesn't mean your home is going to...

Let’s say you have a large crack in a basement wall but only the bottom half is leaking, is that the only part you need to fix? Of course you need to fix the leaking part. But water will always find a “door” to come in. So, once you fix the leak on the bottom of the crack, odds are you’ll start  to see leaking above or below where you fixed. In order to say...

Let's start with the first way to identify a potential foundation problem. Without even going into the basement we can identify problems or potential problems. First, if the doors don't open properly or if they don't open the way they used to, if there are problems with the jam working properly. You can also look at the molding around the doors to see if they have pulled away or buckled at all. The next way...

We got a call from a man who was taking care of his elderly father’s home while they got it ready for sale. He told us that his father had been fighting water coming in the basement through tie rods in the walls. These tie-rods are little metal rods that stick out of the foundation or are embedded in the foundation during the construction phase which you can see. They look like little dimples and...

 

A basement window well is right up against the basement window on the outside of the house. It is a hole outside the window that is dug away, to create light and air movement in your basement. Having a big hole in the ground, the soil has to be prevented from eroding or from coming back in towards the window. So there is a galvanized metal half circle around the base of the window that...