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Bowed basement walls

Posted Mar 17, 2021 in Waterproofing, Bowing Walls

Bowed base­ment walls in a home are a seri­ous issue. They often affect the struc­tur­al strength of the foun­da­tion and low­er the pos­si­ble over­all resale val­ue of the home. Bow­ing or buck­ling of the base­ment walls indi­cates a mois­ture prob­lem around the home’s perime­ter. The wet con­di­tions may be due to inad­e­quate yard drainage, nat­ur­al cli­mat­ic changes, flood­ing or chron­ic leaky pipes.

All hous­es under­go a cer­tain amount of set­tling dur­ing the home’s lifes­pan but bowed walls indi­cate more than a sim­ple set­ting. They are usu­al­ly a symp­tom of a mois­ture prob­lem in and around the home’s foun­da­tion and base­ment walls. Moist soil press­es lat­er­al­ly and shifts around the base­ment walls and foun­da­tion. Even­tu­al­ly, the weight of the wet and fre­quent­ly shift­ing soil exceeds the wall’s capac­i­ty to with­stand the pres­sure which caus­es the wall to bow, crack or buck­le from the force. This sit­u­a­tion occurs when the sur­round­ing soil con­tains exces­sive amounts of clay that become water laden or from typ­i­cal Chicagoland sea­son­al frost expan­sion cycles that are a part of the mid­west weath­er changes.

Any dam­age that a base­ment wall or foun­da­tion expe­ri­ences should always be fixed prompt­ly to pre­vent any com­pro­mise to the home’s over­all struc­tur­al sta­bil­i­ty. Once the sit­u­a­tion is rec­ti­fied, it is time to address the under­ly­ing cause of the bowed walls — which is moisture.

At Fam­i­ly Water­proof­ing Solu­tions, we will eval­u­ate the mois­ture in your base­ment, crawl­space and the sur­round­ing area. Our pro­fes­sion­als will work with you to cre­ate a dry envi­ron­ment in and around your home. Con­tact us today for your free estimate.