A1 Foundation Crack Repair gets a lot of pictures of feet. How does that relate to concrete floor cracks in your basement? Adam shares some unique insight.
Narrator: It’s time once again for the “Crack Man Podcast” hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I’m Darren Kincaid here with the Crack Daddy himself, Adam Tracy. Adam and The Crack Man Rich have over 30 years’ experience in the construction industry. Rich as over two5 years as the president and founder of A1 Foundation Crack Repair. This podcast provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair, and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation’s valuable insight will help avert a disastrous flood within the basement, health problems associated with water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment….your home. The topic of today’s podcast: I have cracks in my concrete floor. Should I be worried?
Narrator: So, Adam, I understand you get a lot of pictures of feet. How does that relate to concrete floor cracks in your basement?
Adam: Well, I do know that feet pics are a very popular Internet thing these days. Not for me, but we do get a lot of pictures of feet when we're looking at floor cracks because a lot of people are worried about their floor cracks. And what should you be worried about with them? Now a lot of times we get, hey, I got these cracks in my floor. Should I be concerned? Are they structural? You know, what's going on here? And the answer is it could be anything. Right?
Just like most concrete issues. For the most part, concrete floor cracks are considered nonstructural issues. The concrete floor is a separate floating piece of concrete that is not structurally tied into any part of the foundation. Sometimes it is, but more often than not, it's really just there as a continuous slab to help prevent any sort of water coming up, etcetera. The advantage of having a clean floor without any sort of cracks in there is that you really provide a nice barrier to the earth underneath. And so, when you have floor cracks, why should you be concerned about them? If they're not structural in general, why should you be concerned about them? Well, they do allow things to come from under.
Obviously, water can come up from underneath if you have a water table issue. We always see cracks that are spitting water during high water table issues. We have radon gases that come up. So, if you have, live in an area with high radon, which is pretty much all of New England for the most part, which is why we test it in the state of Massachusetts as part of a wholesale, any cracks in the foundation floor is going to be a prime area for radon gases to come in and elevated radon levels. And why is that a concern? Well, radon is directly linked with cancer.
We need to make sure that those levels are appropriate. And then other things like termites and bugs, ants, we see a lot of those issues coming up and through. Sometimes we'll see photos of people where there's actually sand all around them, and there are actually ants kind of coming up from underneath as well as termites, which are obviously wood boring insects, which you don't want in your house.
The other thing that we have is that musty basement smell, that breakdown of organic debris, which should be underneath the house. That smell comes up through cracks. Even if there's no water coming through, you can have that damp, musty basement smell coming through there. And if you're ever to refinish a basement, the floor cracks, whatever you put on there, whether it's a tile or a carpet or a laminate flooring, that area where the crack is going to bring up moisture relative to the warm basement.
You'll get kind of a path along these foundation cracks that actually will cause moisture, which will then cause that smell, that mustiness, and also can delaminate flooring and tile. When they are structural, usually there's heaving. Usually, they're associated with displacement. You might see them tied into directly into a wall crack where you have one crawl crack on one side of the house, one crack on the other side of the house, and there's a line that chases across the floor by itself, the crack is not structural, but it's usually part of a structural issue.
These are things that can be rectified and strengthened. So is it hairline ones that you couldn't even stick your fingernail in? There's products that we use to be able to spray apply on there to help bridge the gap, to help keep any sort of moisture transmission down. When you get above a sixteenth of an inch, usually, that's where we can actually get into repairing. When you're above a half an inch, now you're looking at cutting out and replacing, or it's tied into a much larger structural issue.
It's really important to know sometimes you get this spider web cracking. You see it right, just surface level. A lot of that's just due to poor finishing of the concrete. I mean, they're very superficial. But when you're seeing something that's a sixteenth of an inch or larger, usually, these are ones that can be repaired. And they should be repaired as part of the plan to kind of keep the basement as an isolated space from the environment around it, which should be all below ground.
Even though they're not structural, it is usually advisable to repair them. The other area where we see a lot of foundation floor cracks is in the garage, and this usually deteriorates very quickly for two reasons. One, we usually bringing heavy equipment into garages. Even if it's not a car, you're bringing lawn mowers and snow blowers and storage and everything like that. And then if you are bringing a vehicle into the garage, it's usually carrying in a lot of salts and debris from the roads, especially during the wintertime, and that will very quickly deteriorate the concrete. And when you have a crack in there, it usually makes it deteriorate even faster.
What can be a very simple and easy repair can very quickly escalate into a full garage floor repair or removal and replacement, which can be tens of thousands of dollars and really can be avoidable if you get ahead of it earlier. So not something to ignore, not something to lose sleep over because there's usually solutions for everything. Just a matter about identifying it and figuring out what the right path is for that particular crack.
Narrator: Thanks, Adam, for explaining why so many people are sending you pictures of their feet. All kidding aside, it's very important to fix those concrete floor cracks. Give A1 a call today if you have them.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a crack professional near Massachusetts, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call (866) 929-3171. Or you can email info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.