Conventional Crawl Space Repair
Pier and beam foundations Pier and beam foundations, as the name suggests, are a concrete footing and pier which supports wood beams and floor joists. These foundations usually have crawl spaces underneath the home.
In order to understand why your home tends to heave and settle, cracks opening and closing, doors working only half the year. You must understand how soil affects the foundation of your home and how expansive it can be under the wrong conditions. Expansive soils are very similar to a sponge. As they absorb water they swell and as they lose water they shrink. Soils dry out and shrink during summer, and absorb water and swell during winter and spring.
Sources of Pier and Beam foundation problems:
- Broken or cracked floor joists and/or beams
- Warped or distorted joists and /or beams
- Wood rot or insect damage
- Improper drainage under the house
- Inadequate crawl space ventilation
- Decayed wooden beams and floor joists
- Defective shimming - typically soft wood rather than steel
- Pad and block piers undermined by water
- Standing water
- Rotten Sill Plates
- Shifting piers that no longer provide beam support
- Inadequate number of piers for the house
- Addition of second story without additional pier supports
- Insufficient beams spaced too far apart
- Shallow piers that sink over time
- Pier movement upward and downward with seasonal soil moisture changes
Make your Crawl Space a Safe One
We offer a real solution to dirt crawl spaces - The American Structure Repair Crawl Space Solution. This system completely isolates your home from the earth. Our vapor barrier liner is thick. The crawl space is graded to eliminate any low spots, a trench is dug around the perimeter leading any moisture that may get in to feed into a discharge system. This will dramatically reduce the humidity level in the air, reduce mold growth, rot and critters from your crawlspace and help to make the whole house healthier.
The Encapsulation is a 20-mil-thick liner is used to isolate the home from the earth completely and permanently.
The durable liner is manufactured in seven layers – a blend of high density polyethylene, low density polyethylene and two layers of polyester cord reinforcement. With its blue coating on the bottom side and white on top – the liner brightens a crawl space and increases visibility to a new and useful space.
The Encapsulation liner is tough enough to crawl on and use for storage. Servicemen can crawl on the liner surface without worry of puncture or tears. The patented liner completely stops moisture penetration.
With the Encapsulation System, crawl space vents are sealed to prevent moisture-rich summer air and cold uncomfortable winter air from entering the crawlspace cavity.
