While getting home repairs or renovations done, you will most likely hire different types of professionals to complete the work. A professional you hire, a plumber for example, may need to go beneath your house to complete his or her job, and could unknowingly do things that may affect the integrity of your home’s foundation. Before anyone (and we mean anyone) starts poking around in your crawlspace or tampering with your concrete foundation, here are three things to keep in mind.
1. Your foundation carries a heavy load.
The average single-family home in the U.S. can weigh between 150,000 to 350,000 pounds, including its foundation. How the weight load of your house is transferred to the ground beneath it is often referred to as its “load path.” Anything altering this relationship of house-to-ground can create effects in the form of “activity” in the structure.
2. Your foundation support system has elements that are quite fragile.
In the photo below, a homeowner has unknowingly allowed key support under the house to be excavated close to and partially under it, weakening its ability to support the home’s weight. Ouch.
3. There's a safe (and unsafe) amount of digging that can be done.
When an expert understands how a home’s foundation support system works, he or she can then fairly easily determine what amount of digging can safely be done, versus what point one starts to undermine the foundation by disturbing the load path.
Simply put, don’t allow anybody to dig around under your home (plumbers are a prime culprit…) unless you know that they understand these basic concepts.
Need an expert to take a look? Contact us to schedule an inspection.
