Have you wondered about how rodents mysterious enter your home? Some builders mistakenly leave gaps in your house foundation to make room for such incidents. However, we have instances when foundations become prone to cracking and leave gaps everywhere. Failure to fill these gaps may cause structural problems if left unattended for a long time.
Large cracks and gaps around the house foundation need immediate filling. Since the foundation supports the entire house’s weight, you must learn how to fill gaps around the house foundation. Additionally, foundations function as barriers that stop water, rodents, and other things from entering the internal parts of homes.
So how do homeowners fill the external gaps in their properties’ foundation?
The Reason for Gaps in House Foundation
While we have to fill these gaps, we must understand why gaps can lead to severe problems in your property. These gaps in the foundation can expand or contract depending on the weather. Therefore, you should know when to seal these gaps before they grow bigger.
Types of Gaps in Different House Foundation Types
When you find a small fissure or gap in your foundation, you may not have to worry about it. However, you should consider the growth pattern, pattern, shape, and other factors leading to the crack in the foundation.
That way, you can find the right solution to handle the foundation’s expanding gaps. For example, temperature changes can contract and expand these gaps. With time, they become voids and reduce your home stability. When this happens, your home can experience internal flooding during the rainy season.
Moreover, not all gaps should bother you, especially the minor cracks. On the other hand, you should ensure that you maintain and repair some gaps in your house foundation. We have listed some of the gaps that can affect your foundation’s structural integrity below:
- Vertical Gaps: Most homeowners often deal with this type of gap in vertical orientations. You can find this gap in a straight line or at a varying vertical angle of 30 degrees. Furthermore, you can find these vertical gaps unsettling on your foundation and repair them with epoxy seals or other DIY solutions.
- Horizontal Gaps: You must consider horizontal gaps serious because they need urgent repair. When you find gaps in your foundation moving in a sideway direction, it could harm your home. As a result, you should not waste time filling or sealing them. Excessive water pressure, external soil pressure, and other factors can cause horizontal gaps. Moreover, if you have a foundation built with poured concrete or brick, you can experience this gap.
- Diagonal Gaps: Some people refer to this as a hairline gap because it has a varying size at its opening. You can find it as thick as your hair strand. Nevertheless, you can find these gaps unsettling when they start growing, especially if you live on hilly terrain. However, you can quickly stop diagonal gaps than horizontal gaps. With gutters, you can move the water away from your foundation house.
Take note: You can find gaps in different parts of your home, like your basement ceiling. Therefore, you must find out why you have such gaps in such areas.
How to Close Your House Foundation’s Gaps
Whether you call them fissures, cracks, or gaps, they can cause challenges like basement flooding, which can cost you more to repair. In foundation house problems like this, you can consider faulty walls and windows or plumbing issues as the causative agent. You can hire foundation experts like Foundation Maestro to inspect your house’s structural integrity and the damage caused.
Meanwhile, filling the gaps around your house foundation can cost you money. Thus, when you experience house issues like basement flooding, you must check the foundation for gaps or fissures. In addition, check for plumbing issues or faulty walls and windows as culprits. When it comes to house foundation repair costs, you should ensure you find the cause of these gaps before doing repairs.
However, such issues often come from your foundations, and if you confirm that you have gaps around your foundation, you should do the following:
- You should excavate your wall surrounding the foundation’s exterior. Ensure you remove the roots associated with trees that can cause unwanted foundation pressure.
For example, homeowners with trees around their homes often suffer foundation gaps. You should check if roots have affected your house’s foundation walls. In addition, check your utility lines during this excavation.
- Clear and clean your footer by eliminating debris and dirt affecting your work. You should clear the sounding soil to help you clean the footer. With the support of a leaf blower or vacuum cleaner, you can achieve this cleaning.
- You should check for wall deformities and gaps in your foundation.
- Fill your exterior wall with sealant. We have different types of sealants on the market, but you should only purchase the right product. For instance, homeowners with cement foundations can work with a concrete slabs sealer or their preferred product.
- At this point, you should apply your sealant to fill the gaps around your foundation. We have wood sealants for people with wooden foundations, concrete slab foundation and concrete block sealants if you have a cement foundation.
- Furthermore, you must ensure that the perforated pipe stays intact because of your utility lines and plumbing works. Use a gravel bed to keep the perforated pipe safe during your work.
- You should ensure that the gravel bed allows the free flow of water.
- Finally, use a soil separator to envelope your gravel bed.
In addition, you may have to carry out some other repairs on your plumbing system to keep things intact. For example, you may decide to change the drainage associated with your sump pump and keep water away from your property.
When You Need an Expert
Some homeowners may not have the time to carry out the listed steps in this article, while others need help. If you fall under any of these groups, you need to hire a professional company like Foundation Maestro to help you with your house foundations gaps.
With the help of professionals, you can prevent basement flooding and expanding gaps or cracks in your basement foundation.
Conclusion
You can avoid creating more problems for your house’s crawl space foundation problem by doing a bad sealing job. We recommend hiring professional services from Foundation Maestro or other licensed building companies or contractors, they will help you in your home remodeling and in making your living space look more beautiful.
Since not everyone has the patience or skills to carry out such house repairs, professionals can save us from messy jobs or time consumption. Finally, you enjoy a lower house basement foundations and slab foundations repair cost when you use these professionals.
