Cinder Block Foundation Repair Methods in Gardner, Kansas

A block wall bowing in along one row of mortar will keep moving as long as the soil outside keeps pushing on it.

We brace it with steel restraints fastened to the basement floor and the framing above, then push it back out a little at a time. The longer a wall has leaned, the harder it is to get perfectly straight, and we tell you what to expect before we start.

Stair-step cracks running down toward one corner usually mean the footing under that corner has dropped.

We drive steel piers down through the soil beside the footing until they reach bedrock. It is rarely just one pier at the corner: we space several along the footing that settled, often a little past the worst spot, so the weight of the house is spread across all of them.

Then we attach the top of each pier to the footing, so that whole stretch of wall rests on the piers instead of the soil.

Because the blocks are hollow, water that gets into a block wall can travel inside it before it shows up in the basement.

We waterproof block walls from the outside with a membrane, from the inside with drain tile along the base of the wall, or both, depending on where the water is getting in and how severe the leak is.

Rebuilding is the last option, for a block wall pushed in so far or slid so badly out of line that bracing would not hold it.

We dig the soil away from the outside, take the damaged section down to solid block and rebuild it with new block and mortar. The outside gets waterproofed before the soil goes back against it.