Foundation Repair Westminster

Westminster occupies a unique space in Maryland. It’s a small city, with its roots in one man, that the city gets its original name from. It’s been a place of history, with controversial political incidents, that resulted trials at the Westminster Court house that are still debated to this day, and yet despite the small size of the city, it was also one of the first places in the country to enjoy free rural delivery from the post office, and, in the 21st century, Westminster became the first city in the region to enjoy a gigabit fiber connection, putting this little urban center at the forefront of the online and digital era.

But for all the unique distinctions that Westminster enjoys, there’s still something that puts its residents at risk, the same as any other place in Maryland. It may not seem like it on the surface, but some homes may be in trouble and need the help of a team that specializes in foundation repair in Westminster to help them out.

Your Foundation Holds You Up

A foundation is built to do one thing; bear the weight of an entire home and distribute it evenly throughout the space and the ground so as to make the building as stable as possible. Because of that, it’s easy to forget about your foundation or even what it’s doing for you, since it’s primarily built to just “sit there” with your home on top of it. In the case of most modern homes, this is usually a large concrete slab that sits directly on the soil, making up the floor of your basement and supported by concrete “beams” to help distribute the weight.

But even though your foundation may seem like a massive, immobile thing that takes care of itself, this isn’t always true. There are many factors can affect the “health” of a foundation once the work is done. Some problems may crop up simply as a result of poor workmanship when the foundation was being built. Other problems may have nothing to do with the quality of the work, and everything to do with the behavior of the soil the foundation was built on. Still other problems may arise over the years as changing weather conditions, or unforeseen increases in rain or soil erosion play out, and create situations the original builders never envisioned when your home was first built.

If any of these things happen a team for foundation repair in Westminster should be called in.

What Can Happen To Your Foundation

The most dangerous aspect of foundation damage is how slowly it happens. Unless you’re in an earthquake zone and suffer a tremor that visibly cracks your walls in the blink of an eye, most of the time you won’t notice the damage happening because it occurs over years, an inch or less at a time. With foundations, this kind of slow damage can happen in a number of ways.

For example, you may not realize it, but winter itself can actually shift your entire foundation over a period of time through a phenomenon known as “frost heaving.” The way this works is that water accumulates in soil, but doesn’t evaporate, remaining in liquid form. As Maryland’s colder winter arrives, freezing temperatures settle in, and they start to work on that water in the soil. As with water in an ice cube tray, water in soil, when it freezes, expands, causing everything around it to swell. This means that the swelling, icy soil can, with the right conditions, actually “heave” or lift up your foundation. When the ice melts in spring, the foundation settles back down. Over the course of this heaving and dropping over several years, this can misalign your foundation so there may be parts that are no longer sitting on solid earth, and if that happens, you can experience anything from floors becoming uneven to cracks in the foundation itself.

On the other hand, excessive amounts of moisture may seep through the foundation itself. In this case, you might suffer from a leaky basement as rain, snow, and even vapor penetrate your basement, and start to collect there. If you have a finished basement with carpeting, drywall, or even sensitive electronics, this can cause a lot of damage and costly repair that will have to be done again and again as the water continues to collect.

How To Fix The Problem: Foundation Repair Westminster

Only a seasoned team for foundation repair in Westminster can help with a situation like this. Unsurprisingly, a foundation problem is an extensive, very fundamental problem that a quick DIY solution will not be able to handle. You should call an expert, like AA Action Waterproofing, with decades of experience in foundation problems to come to your home for an initial assessment. It’s very important to look at the problem, and even more important to understand what’s causing it. Once the extent of the situation has been laid out, then the expert will make a recommendation for the best way to solve the problem.

In some cases, there may be some relatively simple solutions to a problem, like cracks in the foundation due to age being repaired with the injection of hydraulic cement. On the other hand, the entire foundation may be tilting, and require more extensive techniques such as “mudjacking” which injects concrete back under the foundation in order to restore it to its intended angle and level. There is simply no way to know exactly what needs to be done without an expert inspection.

If you’d like to know what state your foundation is in to proactively prevent these problems, or already think you may need this help, get the foundation repair in Westminster help you need, and contact us at AA Action Waterproofing. We’re always happy to help.