Foundation Repair Case Studies: Foundation Settlement in Garage
Challenge
The garage had settled 3 inches at the lowest point.
By installing resistance piers, Thrasher corrected the foundation settlement.
The homeowner called Thrasher when several cracks appeared throughout the drywall and foundation. To begin finding out that this home needed resistance piers, otherwise known as helical piers, we sent in one of our local Sioux City System Design Specialists or SDS for short.
Now our SDS needed to complete a thorough inspection to diagnose the problem as being settlement. This process begins with him understanding the home's history and asking the customer some background questions to understand what he is dealing with. Next comes the inspection. During this inspection, Thrasher's SDS will look at almost every inch of the home with one of his many tools. The first tool he will employ is a 360-degree rotating laser that allows him to shoot a beam all-around a customer's home's exterior or basement foundation walls.
This coupled with a tape measure, gives a clear picture of what is happening inside the house regarding the settlement. Thrasher's System Design Specialist will also take a look around the rest of the home and check all doors and windows to see if they all work correctly. If either of these sticks or does not open or close properly, that is a good indicator that settlement may be the problem. They also look for cracks in foundation walls and above doors and windows in the drywall. The SDS will also take his four-foot level and place it on all doors and windows in the home to find out if they are angled one way or another. This is an excellent indicator of settlement trends. After gathering all this data and applying it to a job worksheet drawing of the home, it will be clear what the problem is. In this case, it was settlement in the garage. Specifically, we found the garage's front corner was down 3 inches, and the back corner of the garage was down 2-1/2 inches.
Our customer, who is an engineer, chose Thrasher because we are a professional engineering company – every structural repair is reviewed and approved by a professional engineer. After explaining our products and processes, the homeowner was confident in our expertise and engineering knowledge.
The way that Thrasher fixes Settlement issues is with Piers. We have two main types of piers that can be used to fix settlement. They are push piers and helical or resistance piers. In this case, Thrasher decided that resistance piers would be best because of the amount of weight that is in the garage. Now the number of piers needed needs to be addressed. The good news for all Thrasher customers in or out of Sioux city is that we do not guess how many are required. Our engineers have put countless hours into creating a Thrasher original Load Calculator. Using this Load Calculator, we put in all the measurements of your home, materials it is made from, number of floors, and many other factors. The Load Calculator then gives the exact number of piers needed to stabilize that settling foundation permanently.
Now that we know exactly what is causing the home to be settling and how to fix it, all that's left is to install our solution. Our SDS set this homeowner up with an install date that worked for them before they left home that day and left their card with the homeowner in the event they had any questions.
When the install date comes around, a highly trained crew of Thrasher hired workers show up to get the job done in 1 day! Using a closely monitored hydraulic system, the resistance piers were driven into the ground beneath the garage slab to stabilize and possibly even raise that foundation back to where it needed to be. During this part of the process, the homeowner is present and in total control of when our Thrasher crew should stop lifting. Once the work is done, our crews always leave the home as they found it, which means they clean everything up thoroughly. Just like that, this home has a Thrasher warranty on it for the next 25 years and is guaranteed to be permanently stabilized.
Our customer, an engineer, chose Thrasher because we are a professional engineering company – every structural repair is reviewed and approved by a professional engineer. After explaining our products and processes, the homeowner was confident in our expertise and engineering knowledge.
We installed 10 Atlas resistance piers to stabilize and lift the house back to its original elevation. Thrasher also provided epoxy injection for the cracks when performing the foundation repair.
Thrasher installed resistance piers along the garage side exterior wall and the front of the house. A resistance pier has been installed, and the repair area is being prepped for concrete.
