Repairing Your Leaning Foundation Wall
Leaning foundation walls are a significant problem for a number of reasons, including weakening a key support for your home’s structure, creating gaps for moisture and infestation and potentially causing growing, widening cracks that could indicate coming wall failure.
Leaning basement walls affect your home’s structural integrity, possibly causing floor shifts, windows and doors to start sticking, tilting chimneys or other issues.
Foundation walls normally start leaning due to lateral forces from hydrostatic pressure. The three most common causes are wet clay soil, soil expanding due to moisture, or frost heaving when cold temperatures cause soil to contract. In masonry basement walls, this pressure normally causes cracks in the mortar joints between blocks or bricks, oftentimes creating a stair-step pattern. In poured concrete walls, the lean is normally at the top where soil is looser, and diagonal cracks can start to form in the corners.
There are a number of solutions for repairing a leaning foundation wall, including wall anchor, brace or carbon fiber repair systems, depending on underlying cause of the issue, the extent of the lean and your home’s unique circumstances.