Doors sticking, a stair-step crack in the basement wall, water sitting on the floor after every storm.
A concrete foundation is the part of the house nobody thinks about until the kitchen floor starts leaning toward the sink. We pour and rebuild footings and walls all over Providence, and a good share of our contractor foundation repair work is old block foundation wall that let go at the mortar joints long before the concrete gave up. Nobody here is going to bolt a tidy patch onto a wall that is still moving.
Size, dig depth, whether a truck can get to the back of the house and how far it has gone are what move your concrete foundation cost. Keep reading for what the rebuild involves, the money side, when this is the wrong fix, and the questions that come up most. Call (401) 394-6425 and we will come look.
Foundation Crack Repair
Foundation crack repair starts with working out whether the crack is still moving or has settled and stopped. A hairline in a poured concrete foundation, under a quarter inch, gets low-pressure urethane or epoxy injection: ports set along the crack, a surface cap, resin pushed through until it wets the full thickness of the wall instead of the face of it.
A block foundation cracks a different way. On cinder block foundation walls, stair-step lines through the mortar joints mean pressure from outside, and resin alone won't hold that. Carbon fiber straps or anchors, and often drainage work first.
Most of the contractor foundation repair people call the Providence Concrete Company in to redo is hydraulic cement smeared over a crumbling edge. It lets go in a season and brings a chunk of wall with it.
Length of the crack, wall depth, whether we dig outside, and what concrete slabs cost to cut through all move the number.
What the job involves
A concrete foundation is mostly digging and layout before any mud shows up on site. We stake the lines, take the hole down to firm ground, and set footings wide enough to spread the load. Then forms, rebar tied and chaired up off the dirt, sleeves and anchor bolts, and the pour. After that, damp-proofing, a perimeter drain bedded in stone, and backfill in lifts. Dumping soil against a green wall is how foundation contractors crack something they just built.
What moves the price is depth, access for the excavator, and whether we hit ledge, which this city hands out generously. A slab foundation over prepped stone moves faster than a full basement. Underpinning foundation work beneath a settling house is slowest, done in alternating bays, and commercial concrete usually means a pump truck and a bigger crew.
What it costs
What a concrete foundation costs comes down to four things: the footprint, how deep we have to dig, what we hit on the way down, and whether a truck can reach the pour. Ledge moves a number faster than anything else on that list. Access is close behind, since a pump truck over the roof costs more than chuting straight off the mixer, and plenty of tight lots here leave no choice.
Underpinning foundation work under a house that's already standing runs above new construction, because it goes in short sections and a lot of it is hand dug. Want white concrete slabs? White portland is a dearer bag than gray. Like most foundation contractors, we'd rather stand on the site than guess at cement slab cost over the phone, so call (401) 394-6425 with the dimensions and the depth you're after.
When concrete foundation is the wrong fix
A new concrete foundation is the wrong answer more often than people expect, and pouring one you don't need is an expensive way to fix nothing. Cracks under a quarter inch that open and close a little with the weather are foundation crack repair work, not underpinning foundation work. A slab that's solid underneath but spalled and gray on top wants resurfacing.
A patio pulling away from the house is a concrete patio problem, and concrete flatwork settling by the garage door is slab foundation repair, not structural surgery.
If the real trouble is a bank of soil shoving at your wall, no amount of concrete foundation repair holds that back. You want a concrete retaining wall taking the load off it. Same story on commercial concrete: I've seen loading pads written off when the failing part was the pour sitting on top of them.
Why choose us for this
You have a concrete foundation doing something it shouldn't, and what you actually want is to hire somebody once and stop thinking about it. Water in the cellar after every heavy rain. A concrete block foundation bowing where the soil leans on it. A concrete slab for shed footings you'd like poured right the first time.
I do not pour against a wet hole and call it done. If the excavation shows water, we handle foundation drainage first, pipe and washed stone carried to a point that actually sheds, then foundation waterproofing on the outside of the wall where it does some good.
I am not the cheapest number you will hear. Digging by hand around ledge, barrowing spoil out when no truck fits the back yard, that is time other bids leave off and add back later.
The estimate costs nothing, and booking is up to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is a crack in foundation always a structural problem?
No. A crack in foundation walls that stays tight and dry, under a quarter inch, is usually shrinkage from the original pour, and we log it and watch it. The ones that get our attention are wider at one end, damp after a heavy October rain, or noticeably longer than when you first spotted them. That pattern means movement, and movement means concrete foundation repair rather than filler.
Can you do slab foundation repair without ripping up my floor?
Usually. Piers and injection work from outside or below, so your finished floor stays put. We only saw the slab when a leak has washed the fill out underneath, and then the opening sits exposed a few days while the ground dries and gets tamped tight again.
What if the repair moves again?
There is a warranty on our concrete foundation work, and we go through what it covers when we come out to look.
Contact The Providence Concrete Company now
Contact the Providence concrete company you actually want under your house now, while that crack in the foundation is still a hairline and not a stair-step running through the block.
When you call, tell me where the water shows up, whether a door upstairs has started sticking, and how long that line has been there. A photo with a tape measure held next to it tells me more than ten minutes of description.
Most of it comes down to what the concrete foundation was sitting on to begin with, and that's usually enough for me to say whether you're looking at basement foundation repair with drainage work behind it, or slab foundation repair where the floor has pulled away from the wall.
We're on the phone weekdays, nine to five, and messages get called back. Ring (401) 394-6425 and we'll pick a time to look at it.