The Signs
There are several ways you may come to realize you have foundation failure. You can see the signs and symptoms – cracked walls, sloping floors, sticking doors. When you see any of those signs, it’s a good idea to call a professional foundation repair contractor who has expertise in the field to help you know if you really have a problem.
Another way you might discover an issue is when you decide to sell your house and the inspector has uncovered some problems. The inspector may recommend a report from a structural engineer. This type of engineer can diagnose a number of structural failures, which can be quite different from a foundation failure. A foundation repair contractor will only be addressing the foundation. Other contractors would help with any structural problems an engineer had found. Needless to say, hearing you have a foundation issue would not be great news when you add it to all the other concerns you have when moving.
Now What?
Foundation failure has a pretty scary ring to it. We’ve all seen photos of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s not a look that inspires confidence in the long-term viability of a structure. Yet, that’s actually an important point as to what comes next. The Leaning Tower of Pisa looks pretty compromised, and it definitely has had some ingenious repairs. But, The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not in any danger of collapsing any time soon.
A reputable foundation repair contractor will
not tell you that your house will be collapsing from foundation failure. That just doesn’t happen very often. And there’s no way to predict what will happen in the future. They don’t carry crystal balls in their tool kits. So, know that if you get the bad news that you have foundation failure, you can sleep in your house tonight. It won’t collapse by morning. The one thing the foundation expert CAN promise is that your foundation will NOT get better by itself. They might suggest monitoring it for a while. Every situation is unique. And just to make sure you can sleep at night; it can’t hurt to get more than one expert opinion.
