Foundation Repair Bladensburg

Bladensburg may be a small town, but it is surprisingly rich in history. The one and only time an American president participated in a battle occurred here. Over the decades in earlier centuries, many duels took place in this area. Today, it’s more well known for the Bladensburg port and marina, and is a safe, wholesome place for families to live and grow up in, but its rich historical legacy will never be forgotten.

There is, unfortunately, one thing that many residents in Bladensburg do forget. It’s an easy mistake to make because it’s not an immediate, tangible thing like current events or a broken window, but there are many homes in the area that have a problem with their foundation. The only way to fix this is with professional foundation repair in Bladensburg.

Fundamental Problems

Despite the fact that it’s everywhere, soil is not an ideal base on which to build an entire building. Soil is made up of billions of tiny, shifting particles, which means it can move. That’s a far cry from reliability that most people want when putting up a home or some other kind of building, so that’s where foundations come in. In modern homes, a foundation is usually part of the basement. It’s an excavation made to pour out a solid layer of concrete, then reinforced with walls, pillars and other load bearing structures. With this solid base constructed, a home can then be built over this framework with an ideal, even distribution of weight, that makes for a safe, stable living environment.

Of course, while that’s the theory, and it often plays out in exactly this way, things may not necessarily remain this way forever. There are a great many reasons behind why a foundation starts to fail and become damaged. The important thing to understand is that when something as basic as a foundation stops working properly this affects the entire home. It can affect the structural integrity of the home bringing down its value at best, posing an actual structural danger to residents at worst. And when it becomes this problematic, a good team focused on foundation repair in Bladensburg is the best solution.

Slow Acting Misalignment

The real secret of damage to a foundation is that it takes place so slowly that most people aren’t even going to notice. In the same way that people aren’t aware of their own hair or nails growing until they take a close look one day, the same is true with a foundation. This is compounded by the fact that the foundation itself, being at the bottom of a home, isn’t something that is normally even seen on a daily basis. So for the months and years that damage is being inflicted to the foundation of a home, the residents will go about their daily lives, unaware of how the structural integrity is being slowly, minutely chipped over a span of years.

An expert in foundation repair in Bladensburg will tell you that damage to a foundation occurs in two major ways. The first and most common is the incorrect application of weight. When a foundation is initially built, it is designed to bear the weight of a home at certain spots, and then distribute the remainder of that load throughout. However, if the soil under a foundation shifts, or erodes, what was once a solid base helping the foundation to bear weight is no longer there, meaning that extra force has to be redistributed to other parts of the foundation to compensate. Fortunately, most homes are built in such a way that they can actually do this, but not forever. When that happens, the foundation can tilt, floors can become uneven, and even door frames and windows can shift out of alignment, causing doors and windows themselves to no longer neatly fit their frames, which are now slightly out of shape.

The other type of damage affects the foundation directly. Cracks may form in the foundation itself, either in the walls, or on the floor. This can have an accelerative effect on the soil around the foundation, hastening the process. Water can erode the foundation or walls, and this also contributes to speeding up degeneration. While sometimes the cause of this is poor construction work, other times, it may be due to changes in the environment thanks to extreme weather conditions, or other factors. For an unfinished basement, this can lead to unsightly cracks, and potentially the infestation of mold, which can affect the health of the entire household. For finished basements, this means substantial damage to carpeting, drywall, wiring and other renovation features will need to be repaired over and over again until experts in foundation repair in Bladensburg solve the problem.

Fixing The Problem

A team experienced in foundation repair in Bladensburg should be your first consideration when addressing any foundation problem. This is a structural element of your home that no store-bought DIY solution is likely to permanently solve. An experienced company like AA Action Waterproofing has the knowledge and years of quality work behind it to deal with your foundation problem.

A foundation solution begins with the initial consultation. This is where the experts come to your home, discuss the problems you’re experiencing, and then examine it themselves. This gives them a better idea of the true extent of the problem, but will also their experienced eye the opportunity to see how the problem is being caused and where it starts.

From there, a recommendation will be made about the best solution. Sometimes, superficial damage to the foundation itself will only require sealing cracks with hydraulic cement because the structural integrity is still intact. Other times, techniques such as “mudjacking” may be involved, which pump cement under the foundation to replace that soil that has shifted and caused parts of the foundation to be unsupported.

Whatever the scope of the work, it requires the full application of knowledge, experience, proper tools and teamwork for successful foundation repair in Bladensburg. AA Action Waterproofing brings all of this into your home when you work with us.