Foundation Settlement Repair

Foundation Settlement Repair by Piering

The first signs of foundation settlement starts when you noticed that the brick walls are cracking, the door won’t shut like it used to, or you have to forcibly open your windows.

At this point, you’re eager to find out the root cause and inspect more around the house. You then narrowed down your concerns to foundation settlement. As you look for a suitable repair option, you’ve stumbled upon numerous options that you can barely even understand.

What exactly is Foundation Settlement Repair?

Basically, foundation repair are almost all connected to soil issues. When the soil starts to settle due to erosion or water saturation, the foundation members such as the footings or mat footings starts to shift or sink. As such, your house are subjected to new and different stresses they’re not designed to resist which leads to cracked walls and more.

Foundation repair is any procedure that can bring back the original orientation of the foundation members. In the next section, we’ll be sharing with you one of our foundation repair methodology called piering or underpinning.

What is Foundation Piering?

Foundation piering is a repair methodology used to lift the foundation members back to its original position using structural steel piers. Though there are many piering methods available to prevent continued settling, Structural Builders use steel pier technology.

Steel piers use the high load-bearing capacity of a stable soil strata like bedrock. Basically, the steel piers will be anchored to the foundation members and transfer the load from the surface to the bedrock. The house can also be lifted back to its original elevation using hydraulic jacks.

Moreover, piering or underpinning provides consistent and reliable results because the steel piers are driven through the bedrock and not supported by friction of the existing soil.

Steel Piering Procedure Guide:

Step 1: Expose the foundation.

Using excavators, expose the foundation only from the sides. Never attempt to remove soil underneath where it’s sitting.

Step 2: Install steel bracket

Set the brackets with anchors attached from the side of the footing. It’s here where the hydraulic ram and drive stand will receive the pier sections during pile driving.

Step 3: Drive the pier sections until it reaches the bedrock or any load-bearing strata.

Continue feeding pier sections until the refusal point is reached. Refusal point is when the hydraulic ram can’t drive the pier section further.

Step 4: Install additional piers around the foundation if necessary.

Repeat steps 1 to 3 until all additional piers are in place.

Step 5: Setup the hydraulic jacks.

The hydraulic jacks are mounted atop the steel brackets and piers.

Step 6: Using the hydraulic jacks, lift the house back to its original position.

Step 7: Fix the steel piers around the bracket.

Prior to transferring the weight of the whole house from the hydraulic jacks, the steel piers should be fixed permanently to the bracket. Refer to structural drawings for details.

Step 8: Backfilling works.

Contact Us For More!

For more information about foundation piering or underpinning, Affordable Structural Builders is more than willing to talk with you about the process. If you’re experiencing persistent cracks around the house even right after patching it up, this may be the cause of soil settlement. Allow us to schedule a home visit for you to assess the situation for a free foundation repair quote.

All Structural Builders staff and management is more than willing to talk with you about the process. We can schedule a home visit for you for a free foundation repair quote.