Foundation Repair Case Studies: Foundation Wall Repair in Highlands, NC

Challenge

This home had a foundation wall that turned into more of a retaining wall, that was separating from the rest of the foundation. This was a serious issue that the homeowner noticed after seeing some cracks appear around the wall. He knew that this was not normal and needed to be looked at by a professional. Which is why he called us out to see what the problem was and what could be done to fix it.

The challenge in this home was that the objective of the job was not to pull the wall outwards (as most wall anchor jobs are) but rather to pull the wall back towards the home. This is an even bigger problem when the wall has a room behind it, which luckily for this project, was not the case. Our Systems Design Specialist knew that with a few wall anchors, this job would be able to be done with relative ease.

Solution

The solution was one that we have done before but is definitely not a very regular occurrence. We call this solution reverse wall anchors, for a very simple reason. A normal wall anchor project involves wall anchors being installed on the inside wall of a basement, having a rod that goes into the yard that is attached to another anchor plate. Therefore, a reverse wall anchor would be having a plate installed on an outside wall with a rod going inside "the house" (really the dirt under the house/driveway) with another anchor plate under this area.

Now that the solution is described, we'll go through how it worked on this home. It was a pretty simple installation of eight total wall anchors installed on this wall. The most difficult part of the installation was the cutting out and digging through the garage floor for three of the eight anchors. Our crew started by figuring out exactly where on the wall each one of the wall anchors needed to be installed.

Once the location for installation was chosen, our crew began digging the holes for the anchor plates that go in the ground. There were five holes that needed to be dug outside the garage, and three where the garage floor had to be removed for the anchor plates to be installed. After the plates are installed, the large rod was driven through the wall and into the hole. Once both anchor plates were secured onto the rod, each anchor was tightened.

The great thing about wall anchors is that they are able to be tightened after their installation, meaning that they can progressively fix the wall. So while they may not be able to immediately correct the problem, after a year of gradual tightening the wall may be back to its original position.

Project Summary

Installing Contractor: All-Dry of the Carolinas

Systems Design Specialist: Stephen Payne

Project Foreman: Francisco Gamez

Products Installed: Wall Anchors