Tag Archives: repairs

Which Piers Should Be Used For Foundation Damage Repair? Steel Piers or Concrete Piers?

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Steel piering and concrete piering are two different approaches for piering or underpinning of a building. Before talking about steel piers and concrete piers, you should know what underpinning is.

 

What is piering or underpinning?

There are different approaches to go for when the foundation of a building weakens. One of them is underpinning. 

If the inspection team feels that the soil below the house is losing grip, they construct the service team to use the soil underneath. As the deeper soil still has the strength to grip the piers, steel or concrete piers are dug deep up to the hard soil. The piers are then made to support the building.

 

Steel Piers Vs. Concrete Piers

If you are planning to improve the support of your weakened foundation, you should get underpinning. Here is the comparison between steel piers and concrete piers, so that you can choose the one most suitable for your house.

 

Steel Piers 

Steel piers are long rods made up of steel. They are pilled up under the required strength is gained.

They should be used when the required depth of the soil is deeper because they have the ability to pass into thick soil. Steel piers can be made to dig as deep as 70 feet.

 

They can lose strength or deviate at higher temperatures. The process to install steel piers is considerably simple and easy. There is no need to dig huge holes, or to use heavy machinery.

If your house is built over a rocky area, or if the soil under your house is hard, you should use steel piers for the underpinning of your house. It is because the steel piers are able to penetrate rock and thick clay.

 

Steel piers are further available either as straight steel piers or helical steel piers. The effects are long-lasting.They are preferred by most experts when talking about building stabilization.

 

Concrete Piers

Concrete piers are actually pressurized cylinders of concrete. These pressurized concrete cylinders provide exceptional strength to the foundation of your house.

Concrete piers should not be used for deeper underpinning. The longer the concrete piers are, the more will be the danger of their breakage. Still, you can go as deep as 50 feet.They can withstand high temperatures.

Large holes and heavy machinery are required to install concrete piers under the foundation of your house.Though concrete piers can pass through small rocks, you should not use them if you are living in a rocky area. Any large rock can break the whole pier.Always hire experts from Richmond foundation repair company.

Pressurized concrete piers are not used for stabilizing buildings but for bridges also. Concrete piers are cost-effective. Though concrete piers provide higher load capacity and water resistance, other factors render them less preferable for building. But they are the only option for bridges and other structures.

Conclusion

Both steel piers and concrete piers have their own plus points. But if you are looking forward to underpinning your house, you should use steel piers. 

 

Why You Should Never Put Off Foundation Repairs

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The foundation of your home is what provides it with stability, and if any damage occurs it can create many difficult issues. Some people never expect their foundation to become damaged, and when this happens it leaves them wondering what to do. A lot of people are concerned about the expense of getting the damage repaired, and as a result, they often push the issue onto the back burner and fail to get it addressed.

However, this is something that can prove to be a serious and costly mistake, as foundation issues can have a huge impact on your home. It is important to ensure you get foundation repairs carried out as soon as you can and you must ensure they are completed by a professional with the right experience and expertise. In this article, we will look at some of the reasons you should never put off foundation repairs at your home.

Top Reasons to Get These Repairs Completed

There are many reasons why you need to ensure these repairs are carried out both professionally and quickly. Some of the top reasons you need to act are:

Avoid Serious Damage to Your Home

One of the top reasons to get these repairs carried out in a timely manner is to avoid serious damage to your home. When you have foundation problems, all sorts of serious issues can arise at your home including damage to walls and floors, sinking areas of concrete, and a drop in safety levels at your home. So, you need to get the repairs done quickly to try and avoid these issues or at least to minimize the impact.

Reduce the Cost of Repair

Another major reason you need to act quickly to get the repairs on your foundation sorted out is to keep the cost of the repair work down. While you may think that getting the foundation repaired is going to be expensive, it will cost you a whole lot more if you leave the problem to get worse. The more damage to the foundation, the more difficult it will be to repair and the most it will cost you to put right. In addition, the impact on other areas of your home will also be worse, and this will also then cost more to sort out.

Maintain Your Property Value

One other key consideration is the value of your home, which can be heavily impacted by the state of your foundation. If your foundation is damaged and repairs are not carried out, it can have a serious negative effect on your property value. In addition, the problems stemming from the foundation damage can also further impact the value of your home. If you decide you want to sell in the future, the foundation issues can make this far more difficult, and you will get far less for your home if you do sell.

These are some of the reasons you should never put off foundation work at your home. 
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Homeowners Can Only Afford 66% of Their Annual Home Repairs

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Homeowners are expected to save on average £2,158.47 per year for home repairs
58% of first time buyers would prefer to buy a new build over an older building

Over a quarter of Brits said that fixing a roof was their most concerning home repair
Infographic map included showing the average maintenance shortfall (per year) across the UK
Unexpected disasters are the worst – they catch us by surprise, and mean we have to search frantically for a solution. If an unexpected disaster happens in our home, that usually means the solution will involve money – and probably lots of it – to fix what’s gone wrong. In an ideal world, we’d have a little pot of cash stored away for exactly these kinds of problems. Housing experts agree that sensible homeowners should budget 1% of the value of their property every year to maintenance and property repair. And with the average house price in the UK being £215,847, that means we should have a home improvement and repair account to the tune of £2,158.47 per year. But how many of us do that? Not enough, apparently. Rubber roofing specialists Rubber4Roofs surveyed 3,000 UK homeowners to find out what their home-fixing slush fund was worth. Taken on average, they found that Brits only budget £1,438.98; that’s a national shortfall of £719 (or 33% less than what they should be budgeting). Not ideal if your boiler suddenly breaks down over the winter, or your washing machine suddenly springs a leak.
But while that’s the UK average, some regions are doing even worse, as the infographic below illustrates:

As you would expect with such high property prices, Greater London comes out on top (well, bottom) with an average budget shortfall of £3,288. That’s a big gap, particularly if something major goes wrong with your house. That could also be because the cost of living is substantially higher here, so that people don’t manage to save that much (plus all those metropolitan cappuccinos and avocados on toast don’t come cheap…). Close on their heels is the South East of England, with a gap of £1,947.

The money-savviest region, in contrast, is the North East – they’re only short by £800, not that much more than the national average. They know the value of a penny or two up there! But regardless of how much you do or don’t have saved, many of us are likely to put the cost of any repairs straight onto a credit card, thus delaying the pain of parting with actual cash – nearly a fifth of us do this.

Rubber4Roofs also asked first time buyers whether they preferred new builds, or older buildings; over half of them (58%) said new builds, presumably because fewer things were likely to go wrong – well, not in the first few years at any rate! But when asked which type of repair worried homeowners the most, due to the cost, the majority of them said roof repairs. Over a quarter of us (27.5%) know that this is usually a substantial cost, due to the nature of the work needing to be done, from the risk of sending workers onto the roof, to the heavy graft needed to fix any holes or leaks. Though you might want to avoid any future issues by installing rubber roofing instead: it’s a single-ply synthetic membrane you can use on low-sloping or flat roofs because it’s durable, pliable and waterproof; the benefit is that, although the cost difference to traditional flat roofing materials is negligible, rubber roofing has a life expectancy of 50 years which is up to 5 times as long.

This was closely followed by plumbing issues (26.5%); again, when something goes wrong and you’re left with indoor flooding, caused by anything from a blocked loo to overflowing drains, it’s not going to come cheap. Fixing foundations (18.5%) and removing mould (17.5%) were also concerns, due to the amount of work and associated costs involved. Few of us worry about electrical issues (7%) as that usually seems pretty straightforward, usually involving a change of wiring or a fuse, and the least problematic repair is repairing the drain pipe (3%).
‘It looks like Brits might have to start putting a little bit more away each month to ensure they’re covered for unforeseen repairs,’ says Tom Cullingford, owner at Rubber4Roofs. ‘There’s nothing worse than the headache of a major housing issue, coupled with the headache of trying to find the money to pay for it. But putting precautions in place, such as installing rubber roofing, can save time and money in the long run.’