Crawl space and foundation problems
You might not have given much thought to crawl spaces. These small areas underneath your house can often be left to their own devices; but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own fair share of problems, they do, and they only get worse over time. If you’re in Michigan then Drymich can help, we offer a complete foundation and crawl space repair service, carried out professionally and to a high standard by our team of experts.
Crawl spaces can harbour dampness, leading to mould that can spread to other parts of your house. One of the best ways to avoid this is to use a moisture barrier installed in the crawl space to stop damp from creeping into your house. This can help make your crawl space dry, clean and healthy, help stop musty smells, and improve the air quality of your home.
When your crawl space does become damp, it can create a whole heap of new problems, giving way to rot and allowing household pests to move in. Termites can attack the wooden structure of your crawl space and cause serious damage to its strength. Sometimes it’s just surface mould, this is a less serious problem, but it still needs to be removed to protect the wood and prevent further deterioration.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the integrity of your home rests on its foundations, if they are damaged then it can have serious implications for the rest of your house, causing damage to interior walls, altering the fit of doors and windows, and more.
Problem signs that there may be issues with your home’s foundations include any signs of cracking to both interior and exterior walls in your basement and other parts of your house, or bulging inwards of basement walls; any cracking to concrete floors and distortion or unevenness to your other floors; one or more of your doors and windows proving difficult to close or not sitting comfortably in their frames. If you have noticed one or more of these signs in your house, then it could be worthwhile getting it checked out by a professional.
If there are problems with subsidence of your home’s foundations than a common way to fix this is by installing foundation piers. These are steel pillars that are screwed into the weak ground beneath your house and into the good soil further down, they are then fixed to the building’s foundations. They can help to prevent any further deterioration and sometimes rectify any movement of the building that’s occurred.
As with most things, it’s crucial that you identify and fix these problems early, before they grow. Fast, proactive action can help to save you time, money and inconvenience in the future.