Your foundation is one of the essential
components of your home that you need to review periodically to ensure that
everything is in great condition. Like your roof and other parts of your house,
a visual inspection can help you get ahead of issues. If you find any issues
with your foundation, it is best to call a local general contractor that can help you
determine the severity of the issue.
When you complete a visual inspection of your foundation, unless your home was built in the last
year, you are most likely looking for long term damage. This is important
because the root causes of short term damage, such as improperly placed
concrete leading to honeycombing, can’t be remedied, but their effects can be.
On the other hand, the causes of long term damage may still be present and
should be mitigated. Short term damage is generally related to how the concrete
is mixed and placed but could also be caused by freezing before the concrete
hardened.
Honeycombing is when concrete is not
consolidated properly, and you see a recessed area that exposed the aggregate
instead of a flat surface. Other types of short term damage include settlement
and shrinking cracks that can be aligned with steel reinforcement, creating a
transverse crack across the face of a slab or pattern cracking, known as
crazing, that creates a random network of very shallow cracks. Premature
freezing leads to various issues including spalling where flakes of the
concrete may fall off. Regardless, these cracks all will be present within a
few days of placing the concrete so you will have seen them as soon as you moved
in.
Long term damage
When inspecting your concrete for foundation problems, you are looking for changes in your concrete. As
discussed, the look of your concrete when you move in is your baseline, and may
not be perfect. What is important is to identify if there are current changes
in your concrete caused by existing issues. There are two major causes of long
term foundation issues: water damage and soil loading.
Water damage can result in steel
corrosion which causes the rebar to expand as it rusts, resulting in spalling,
where the concrete will flake off in a line or discolor above the
reinforcement. It can also cause an alkali-aggregate reaction where the water
reacts with the aggregate in the concrete over time, creating cracks parallel
to joints or edges.
Soil loading is the most serious
foundation issue and will cause long cracks where the stress is greatest and
will grow over time. Think of a sidewalk that cracks as the soil or a nearby
tree moves beneath it. The same can happen to your foundation where the soil
around your home shifts and places too much stress on your foundation. These
long cracks along stress areas are the tell tale signs that your foundation
could be in trouble.
If your home’s foundation is in need of an inspection or a total
overhaul, contact the general contractors
at Mares & Dow Construction today.
Our experts have been serving the Bay Area since 1983, and will help get
your home ready for the next generation.
