If a homeowner notices a puddle on the basement floor they need to take some action. What is the puddle being caused from? It could be condensation. When warm air hits a cold surface, the cold surface being the concrete floor, wall or cold water pipe, condensation happens. Or it could be from a void in the concrete, like a crack or from water wicking through the porous concrete. How do we diagnose which is...

Real estate agents and homeowners come to us with concerns about the look of their exterior foundation. Their concern is that the exterior foundation, above grade, is showing signs of pitting, cracking and breaking. Concrete is a porous material, and if there are small micro cracks in the foundation water can get in there and it freezes in the winter which makes it  start to pop the surface of the foundation. To stop this, we...

This is a common problem this time of year and it can cause big health problems and problems if you are trying to sell your home. What is the cause of a damp and humid basement? There are four basic reasons. The first is water infiltration. You may wonder that how can this be because it has been hot and dry. It can still come in because of the water table, irrigation systems, or rain....

There are many things a homeowner can do to prevent water in the basement. First, you have to deal with the hydrostatic pressure of water. Hydrostatic pressure is the water wanting to push in on things, so we have to get water away from the house. Take a look at the downspouts and gutters. If they are broken, split, or leak at the seams or undersides you want to address those and you want to...

If you walk downstairs only to find water in the basement, you need to call a pro to solve the problem. But you also need to find out how the water got there. The first thing you should do is look up and then look down. You want to see if there are any pipes leaking or if there is any condensation on the ceiling. The pipes are cold and the temperature is warm, this...

We got a frantic call about 2 weeks ago during the heavy rain. It came in at about 6:00am or 7:00am. The homeowner heard what he described as a “sonic boom.” He ran into the basement and found a floor crack that he had never seen before. It ran right off the Lally Column. The Lally Column was not placed on a footing, which is a deep piece of poured concrete that it is supposed...

We got a call by a customer who has a house in Quincy, MA. He wanted us to replace lally columns. Because he said there were about 15 that needed replacing, we went out there to look at it. The floor of the basement had caved in in certain areas. What had happened was, there was a pipe leaking under the basement floor. It must have flooded beneath the floor and washed the soil away....

This is a common problem. We have been getting a lot of calls from all over New England where homeowners have a gap between a concrete walkway and a stone or block foundation. They try to put caulking or concrete skirts but the gap keeps reappearing. This is a problem because when they pour a concrete walkway, even if they do a great job pouring it right near the foundation, there is water in the...

At A1 Foundation Crack Repair we do all types of concrete work, both big and small. All over New England we are getting a lot of calls for people who are trying to repair concrete steps or repair concrete walkways, and they have attempted to do it and they are having problems. The concrete is pushing out, the patch is gone or its falling off. It’s the prep work that really has to be taken...

Home inspectors in New England see all types of lally columns. They see temporary lally collumns, those are the types with the jacks on the top, they are seeing actual tree trunks, bricks stacked on top of each other and the mortar is falling out because of age, and they are seeing non-existent lally columns, meaning no lally columns where there should be one. Home inspectors are identifying all kinds of problems with lally columns...