In this episode, the Crackman explains a picture of the backside of a garage that obviously has a stone foundation with concrete blocks above it but wow! It looks like a mess! Rich explains what happens when you dig too close to a stone foundation.
Narrator: The topic of today’s podcast: Epic fail! Why digging too close to a stone foundation is a bad idea in Shrewsbury, MA. So Rich, you sent over a picture of the backside of a garage that obviously has a stone foundation with concrete blocks above it. But wow, it looks like a mess! What happened here?
Rich: Well, I have gotten a call from a woman that was in Shrewsbury, MA, and she was referred to us by a realtor friend of hers. And what it is, it’s an old structure, and it is a stone foundation and then they put the old decorative blocks on top of that. And they got the idea that they wanted a nice level yard, so they dug out below the blocks that were showing, to where the stones were. And they’re lucky it didn’t cave in all the way, it will cave in, but not all the way. And they’re calling me up and saying, could you fix it? First when I saw that, I said, this is not a pretty one, you never want to dig on a stone foundation because your lot will cave in because the soil that’s been there for 80 to well over 100 years, has been compacted and is helping to hold it up, so don’t dig on a stone foundation. So, a solution that I gave to this woman is to put what’s called a buttress wall up. So we have to dig about 6 ft. away from the structure, dig down where that wall is not anymore, put a footing in, big pour of concrete, then put a wall up there and then fill in with concrete to buttress, to hold that back, and that wall has to be filled with rebar and concrete. So that’s how we’re going to solve that problem, otherwise, that’s going to collapse. Now the inextensive fix in order to get a level yard, my advice is hold off on digging out any structure that may have a stone foundation to it.
Narrator: Wow, unbelievable Rich. I bet they feel fortunate that there’s a company like A1 Foundation Crack Repair that can fix a mistake like this.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call Rich at (866) 929-3171. Or you can email Rich at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.