FOUNDATION FAILURE INVESTIGATION AND DESIGN

In this house, the foundation failure of the granite block subwall has reflected into the brick veneer and up to the window.

See our article in Helical Pier World

It's an unfortunate fact that often residential construction is less than perfect.  For a number of reasons, foundation failures are quite common.  Foundations can fail when they are placed on fill dirt that is not compacted, if they are placed on poor soils (such as topsoil), or if they are placed over trash pits.

There are a number of good foundation repair contractors around Atlanta, and a number of very bad ones too.  The bad contractors will often try to oversell you on what is needed, and some of them have very poor products.  In many cases, it's to your advantage to hire us first.  We come out to your house, perform a thorough investigation, give you a recommendation for repair, and we will try to give you the names of at least three foundation repair contractors.  In some cases the damage may be unusual and we may only recommend one or two contractors.  Now, for legal reasons we do have to mention that we don't guarantee the work the foundation repair contractors do on your house, and any dispute with them is a contractual matter strictly between you and them.

How are foundations repaired?  I can break it down into two basic methods.  The first, and most common is to put a steel pier under the foundation.

The above picture was provided to us courtesy of Atlas Piers of Atlanta.  In this case we are looking at a resistance pier.  A resistance pier is jacked into the ground and bolted against the foundation.  The other type of steel pier is a helical pier.  A helical pier has an auger flight at its end, and it is turned into the soil.  Generally, helical piers are used in new construction, or on lighter houses, such as single story ranch houses.  We also have slab piers, which are put under the floor slab.

For information on Resistance Pier installation, please see our presentation we prepared for a rather difficult repair project.

The second way of repairing foundations is by pressure grouting.  If you check out this link you will see some stick figure drawings showing the basics.  It's not the best artwork we've ever done, but it gets to the point.  Generally pressure grouting is useful for concrete slabs.  As the stick figure comic shows, you can get in trouble if the wrong contractor is chosen.


In this photo, a floor is being pressure grouted by Southeastern Pressure Grouting.  The technician has drilled holes in the floor, and driven a pipe down through the holes to the bottom of the soft soil.  The grout is pumped through the rubber hose under high pressure into the pipe.

This is a very short description of foundation repair.  As we built up our website, we'll put in more information.  In the meantime, feel free to call us at 678-225-4900.

The big question everyone has is - how much does foundation repair cost?  For budget purposes, you can figure about $1,100 per pier.  Pressure grouting is harder to quantify because it is by the amount of grout pumped into the ground.  Our fees are done on the basis of time, and a good budget figure for a standard foundation investigation is about $600.00.  If we have to core slabs, or do additional engineering, it can be more.  If it's a fairly simple job and we can cluster other jobs in the area, it can be less.

Often we can save our clients a few thousand dollars in repair costs, although that doesn't always happen.  What we can do in every case is give you an engineered solution to your problem that will help you do the right repair with the right contractor.

For more information, check out this excellent website. Also, check out "Foundation Repair Information" on the menu to the left.

For more information, please fill out the form below and we'll get back to you.