Foundation Repair Services in Cincinnati, Ohio
Challenge
This house was experiencing foundation settlement issues. Their doors and windows were sticking and the framing on the outside of the house had become warped. Unfortunately, all sides of the house were sinking and at different rates, accelerating the warping process for the house.
Solution
We planned to install five helical piers on the left side of the house, eight on the back of the house, six on the right side of the house, and three on the front-right side of the house. Using calculated mathematics and expertise, we were able to spread out the piers just right, with the goal of eliminating the need to dig up the concrete porch and driveway to place piers. It also helped that this house had their garage on a seperate slab foundation. We also had the benefit of knowing how far down the footers were on all sides of the house. The footers were six inches into the ground on the left side of the home near the garage, and 30 inches deep everywhere else we planned to install the piers. Piers need to be hooked up to the footers of the home, and you can only reach the footers by having to do some digging. In the planning process, we also learned there was an exterior waterproofing system on top of the footers that we did not want to tear up. We also figured out all of the service lines coming from the house, making sure to not dig those up either. We started excavating with an excavator where we were able to, and then hand dug everywhere else. When we got closer to the exterior waterproofing system, we took extra care digging, as we did not want to mess up the drainage tiles. After we exposed the footers, we then attached the helical piers to them. We then drove the piers down into the most stable parts of the soil, this way the house won't settle down any further. We know when we hit stable soil when the pressure gauges used to drive the piers down reach a certain level of resistance. We then are able to raise parts of the footers using a hydraulic hand device. This way, the footer is on a level plane across all parts of the house. Sometimes, this process is able to fix all the windows, doors, and warped sides of the house. We then ended by backfilling the piers with the soil we dug up earlier. We make sure to try and keep the backfilled soil looking nice and compact.
