We got a frantic call about 2 weeks ago during the heavy rain. It came in at about 6:00am or 7:00am. The homeowner heard what he described as a “sonic boom.” He ran into the basement and found a floor crack that he had never seen before. It ran right off the Lally Column. The Lally Column was not placed on a footing, which is a deep piece of poured concrete that it is supposed...

We got a call by a customer who has a house in Quincy, MA. He wanted us to replace lally columns. Because he said there were about 15 that needed replacing, we went out there to look at it. The floor of the basement had caved in in certain areas. What had happened was, there was a pipe leaking under the basement floor. It must have flooded beneath the floor and washed the soil away....

This is a common problem. We have been getting a lot of calls from all over New England where homeowners have a gap between a concrete walkway and a stone or block foundation. They try to put caulking or concrete skirts but the gap keeps reappearing. This is a problem because when they pour a concrete walkway, even if they do a great job pouring it right near the foundation, there is water in the...

At A1 Foundation Crack Repair we do all types of concrete work, both big and small. All over New England we are getting a lot of calls for people who are trying to repair concrete steps or repair concrete walkways, and they have attempted to do it and they are having problems. The concrete is pushing out, the patch is gone or its falling off. It’s the prep work that really has to be taken...

Home inspectors in New England see all types of lally columns. They see temporary lally collumns, those are the types with the jacks on the top, they are seeing actual tree trunks, bricks stacked on top of each other and the mortar is falling out because of age, and they are seeing non-existent lally columns, meaning no lally columns where there should be one. Home inspectors are identifying all kinds of problems with lally columns...

Some homeowners have needed to seal a basement opening like bulkheads, basement windows, and walk-outs, but we have been running in to some serious issues where the DIY homeowners have had some pretty large leaks with novice work. But it hasn’t been only homeowners doing it, we’ve seen contractors who have been doing it as well. They may do an lovely looking job, but they may be filling it up with concrete or blocks and...

Let’s create a scenario. You have a quote from a crack repair company, but it seems a little high, so you are thinking of doing the job yourself. You can try. The percentage of success is very very low. We get all kinds of calls from homeowners and contractors about hydraulic cement, which is the “preferred” method of repair. What they are doing is chiseling out that foundation crack and creating V. Then they are...

Imagine walking down to your basement and finding a lake. You need to take care of this problem. First you need to find out where the water is coming in and either stop it permanently or temporarily. Within 24 hours, mold can start. Once the water coming into the basement is stopped, you want to remove the water that has entered the basement. You can do this with shop vacs, pumps, or heavy duty extractor...

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...