Foundation Repair in Murfreesboro, TN

Murfreesboro sits on limestone with clay soil on top. Clay swells when it’s wet and shrinks in a dry summer, so a foundation resting on it moves a little every season. Limestone dissolves slowly underground, which is why this part of Rutherford County has so many sinkholes, and why a corner of a house can drop when the soil under it washes into a void.

Water is usually what sets it off. Gutters that dump at the corner of the house, downspouts without extensions, and yards that slope toward the foundation keep the soil on one side wetter than the other. That uneven moisture is behind a lot of the cracking we see, which is why we look at drainage on every inspection, not only the cracks.

A slab foundation usually shows movement as cracked floor tile, a corner that drops, or cracks running from the corners of doors and windows. A crawl space (pier and beam) house usually sags between its supports: the floor gets bouncy or slopes toward the middle as beams, girders or piers lose support or the wood softens from damp air.

The fix is different for each, so we inspect from inside, outside and, on crawl space homes, from underneath. Sagging floors over a wet crawl space often need the crawl space dried and sealed as well, or the new supports end up sitting in the same damp conditions that caused the problem.

Not every crack means the foundation is failing. Concrete shrinks as it cures, so thin vertical cracks in a poured wall or slab are common and often harmless. What matters is width, direction and whether the crack is growing. We measure and mark cracks so movement can be tracked.

Non-moving cracks that leak are sealed, typically with an epoxy or polyurethane injection that fills the crack through the wall. Cracks that are still moving get the cause fixed first; sealing a crack on a settling wall only hides the problem for a season.

When part of a foundation has settled, piers carry the load down past the soft soil to something firmer. Two kinds do most of the work:

With limestone close to the surface in much of the area, pier depth varies a lot from one corner of a house to the next. Each pier is installed to its own refusal or torque reading, not a fixed length.

Basement and block walls bow inward when wet soil pushes against them. Horizontal cracks along the middle of a block wall, or a wall leaning in at the top, are the signs. Depending on how far it has moved, a wall is braced with steel beams, anchored with wall anchors into the yard, or, if it’s moved too far, rebuilt. Reducing the water against the wall is part of every fix, which is where basement waterproofing comes in.