Your foundation is made of concrete right? With concrete, you are guaranteed two (2) things… one, the concrete will get hard and two, the concrete will crack.

Concrete is one of the best building materials ever devised by man. Concrete is a building material made from mixing cement, sand and water. After you mix the concrete two things will happen. It will get hard and it will crack. When it’s done right concrete will last a long time. But it will crack; it is just a matter of when.

There are cracks in concrete everywhere; look at the floors in the stores around your city. If the walls, floors and sidewalks are made of concrete, they probably have cracks in them too.

Foundations crack because:

1.) Shrinkage – As the concrete cures the moisture evaporates out. This evaporation can cause the concrete to shrink. Shrinkage is a common factor in all concrete and oftentimes causes cracking.

2.) Settlement – The soil that is placed around the foundation after construction is called back fill. This soil is filled back into the hole after the foundation is built. As time passes the back fill compacts and settles and this settlement can affect the foundation as well as the earth under the house settling from the weight of the house.

3.) Stress – Foundations are stressed when pressure is applied. This pressure is either in the form of water pressure or soil pressure. The pressure is unbalanced because it  is from one side of the foundation only.