Foundation Repair
Damage to your home or building’s foundation can create major problems today and in the future.
If the foundation shows extensive damage, it may be unsafe to have residents or guests inside. Also, if your property has a damaged foundation, it will likely decrease in value.
Whether you’re seeing settling or cracked foundations, bowed basement walls, uneven floors, an uneven pool deck or any other damage, SR&R has a solution for you. Whether the damage is caused by changes in soil moisture content, weak native clay, or poorly compacted backfill, our team gets your home back on solid ground.
SR&R is prominent foundation repair company in servicing Northern VA, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. clients with many years of foundation repair experiences.
Foundation Settlement
Typical signs of foundation settlement are stair-step cracks and vertically sheared bricks or blocks. We see this frequently in the DMV region.
The most common and typically most economical method of repairing failed foundations that have settled is to install a series of steel underpinning piers below the affected foundation area. The load-bearing steel shafts are installed independent of the structure and their bearing or holding capacity is verified as each pier is installed. Adjustable brackets are then attached to the base of your foundation walls, connecting the anchors to the foundation. The weight of your home is then shifted to the anchors. In the process, foundations, walls, and floors are repositioned and retained (i.e., “jacked”) from further movement.
Bowing or Leaning Foundation Walls
Ground water exerts a huge amount of pressure on a home or other building. When the soil around your house, for example, becomes saturated with water from heavy rains or water leaks, the water exerts additional force against the walls.
Foundation walls can be damaged by soil pressure. In some cases, the soil’s weight is simply too great to be held back by the foundation wall. In other cases, soil with high clay content expands during wet weather, exerting additional pressure against foundation walls. Whatever the cause, there are several telltale signs of foundation wall damage.
When it’s cold, frost can put pressure on a wall and cause it to fail, especially if the basement is unheated. Frost forces can be powerful and can even lift shallow foundations up out of the ground, causing significant damage to the home.
Damaged Framing
Framing is the backbone of any construction project and any failures here will ripple across the rest of the structure. The most common types of damaged framing are: cracked roof trusses, bowing or other distortion of joists and beams, column bowing and/or inadequate connections between framing members.
SR&R engineers are experienced in identifying problems with existing framing systems and can design solutions for any type of damaged framing. Our teams make the proper modifications to the framing system to support the existing loads.
We’re often contacted for some preventative medicine on framing. For example, when people want to install pull-down attic stairs, attic flooring or other modification to the framing. An inexperienced contractor or homeowner can unintentionally weaken the roof truss and framing system, which ultimately can lead to roof failure.
Floor Repair
Common problems that we fix include:
- Sagging floor sections
- Warping
- Rotted floor joints
- Squeaky floors
- Buckling and/or crowning
- Fading / discoloration
Slab Repair
Other signs of slab failure include:
- External brick cracking
- Internal sheet rock cracking
- Sticking doors and windows