Why fixing your house foundation is only part of the puzzle
As experts in the field of house foundation repairs, we visit an immense amount of residential structures. Something we’ve found common amongst almost all homeowners we meet is the belief that if a house foundation is re-levelled and stabilised, their home will be fixed too.
The truth is, re-levelling and stabilising house foundations will fix a great deal of your problems, but overall, it’s only a part of the puzzle. It’s a significant part, but it’s still only a part.
It’s not enough to only inspect, diagnose and fix the ground. Because what sits on top of the ground — your house — will also need to be fixed too.
Your house foundations affect everything else
When house foundations, for whatever reason, take on a ton of pressure, stress and even damage so does the rest of the house — from the ground up. This means structural challenges above ground will also need to be diagnosed and repaired to ensure stability.
Challenges in your foundation can cause interior and exterior walls to crack, arches and lintels to fail or walls to lean and even bulge. Roofing can crack too and this is just for starters.
Repairing structural problems to ensure optimal safety properly requires an approach that analyses these problems from multiple angles. In turn, a variety of solutions need to be applied to fix these problems in such a way further structural problems won’t occur again.
Consider an example
Reactive clay soils expand and contract throughout the year as the weather heats up or cools off. If your home happens to have been built on reactive clay soil, various areas of your house foundations may have experienced uneven up and down movement.
In a case such as this, we’d need to find out where the reactive clay expands and contracts most in order to stabilise the ground correctly. Then we’d need to make allowances for this expansion and contraction to stop any further structural damage or pressure in the future.
On top of this, we also need to consider how downward pressure and loads will need to be re-distributed evenly. This is so your house can sit comfortably on the ground and not take on more damage.
And if your walls have already taken on damage, crack stitches may need to be implemented to make sure further structural damage doesn’t occur.
GeoPoly™, a significant part of the repair puzzle
If you’re looking to repair your home’s structural problems, true stability and safety begins with our proprietary resin underpinning solution, GeoPoly™.
Just keep in mind that when it comes to holistic solutions, GeoPoly™ is only the beginning. There are many other considerations to make.
Our specialist structural engineers can help you with these considerations by diagnosing your house foundation challenges and everything else above.
If you’re in any doubt about your home, we’d love to help you out with a FREE inspection.
Just give us a call on 1300 854 115 or book a FREE inspection today.
