Cracks in Walls? Sinking Foundation? Olshan can Fix it
Established in 1933, Olshan Foundation Repair has over 90 years of experiencing repairing and protecting foundations. Our goal? To be the absolute best home service provider that ever steps foot in your home.
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Protecting Your Home Foundation in Fort Myers, FL
If you want a luxurious coastal lifestyle, the Fort Myers, Florida area is one of the most desirable locations in the Gulf Coast region. Home ownership in most of Lee County offers a lot of advantages, but it also comes with responsibilities if you want to protect your investment. Constant tide action, heavy storm activity, and relentless soil erosion all put homes at risk for foundation, slab, and seawall damage, even for property that isn’t right on the beach.
According to U.S. Geological Survey research, soils in the Lee County region are far less stable than in other parts of the country. This means that foundations, slabs, and bulkheads require not only special design considerations, but also regular upkeep to protect their structural properties. Here are some of the risks your Fort Myers area property may be exposed to:
- Fort Myers soil is a mix of mucky sand and fragments of shell and limestone. This soil type drains poorly, and high water content may allow slab on grade foundations to shift, settle, and lose their ability to properly support your home.
- These higher ground water levels can stress your foundation with excessive hydrostatic pressure. Ground water movement is a powerful force can gradually push concrete out of alignment or cause premature deterioration and cracks.
- Continuous tide action or frequent storms may wash supporting soil away from your foundation or weaken the land side of protective bulkheads (a smaller kind of seawall).
Depending on where your home sits, when it was built, and how carefully the builders prepared and compacted the soil, your foundation could be at risk of early failure. Issues may be only cosmetic at first, but without intervention these kinds of structural problems only get worse (and more expensive) over time.
Cost-Effective Foundation Repair. Industry Leading Warranty Programs. Proven Results.
For homeowners in the Fort Myers region, it’s important to know that all foundations, no matter how well they’re built, tend to shift and settle naturally over time. If the supporting soil was graded and compacted properly during construction, natural settling will happen slowly and evenly, resulting in only minor or cosmetic changes to the concrete.
Trouble starts when settling is uneven or sudden, straining localized parts of the foundation. This is risky for any foundation type but can be of special concern when supporting soil washes out from under slab foundations (common in Fort Myers) causing them to sink or tilt.
Since 1933, Olshan Foundation Repair has successfully protected residential and commercial properties with complete restoration services. From free expert evaluations, transparent estimates, industry-leading warranty programs, to budget-friendly payment plans, Florida homeowners trust Olshan to get the job done right. Call Olshan when you have questions about foundation repair, slab restoration, bulkhead repair, exterior water management, or concrete leveling (also known as mud jacking or slab jacking).
Slab foundation repair and leveling
Slabs are pads of reinforced concrete that generally follow the footprint of your house. They’re supported by compacted soil and/or gravel and vary in thickness based on careful design calculations that take the weight of the buildings they support and the underlying soil conditions into account. Multiple things that can go wrong with slab foundations, especially in Fort Myers and the greater Lee County area. Here are some of the main ones to watch out for.
- Erosion of supporting soil
- Improper installation or curing
- Faults in reinforcing steel design or placement
- Grading or soil compaction issues
- Extreme tide or weather events
- Small cracks that expand and spread over time
- Runoff from neighboring properties or poor ground water management
- Hydrostatic pressure from seasonal ground water changes
If your property is exposed to one or more of these risks, you might begin to see signs like tilting, sinking, shifting, or expanding cracks and separations. Unlike with even, slow, and natural settling, these kinds of sudden or extreme changes can put excessive strain on other parts of your home. Trouble like this never goes away by itself and tends to get worse over time, leading to cumulative and costly property damage.
The good news is that Olshan can affordably and accurately restore your slab foundation to like-new condition with their modern repair technologies. Olshan’s trained technicians will evaluate your foundation free of charge and let you know where the trouble spots are. They’ll talk through all your repair options with you and help you choose the solution that’s right for your home and budget.
One of the most popular concrete leveling solutions is Olshan’s proprietary PolyLift™ method. This minimally invasive, environmentally safe, and industrial-strength approach injects a stable and long-lasting polyurethane mixture that gently stabilizes the compromised parts of your slab and lifts them back into alignment. PolyLift™ is a much more reliable and affordable alternative to outdated repair methods you may have heard of such as “slab jacking” or “mud jacking.”
Exterior water management
If you’re a Fort Myers area homeowner, it’s likely that you’re all too familiar with the damage that extreme tides and weather events can do to coastal property. The threat can extend well inland, and this makes it especially important to pay attention to exterior water management. In simple terms, it’s all about making sure that unwanted water can easily drain away from your foundation, and there are low- and no-cost things you can do yourself to protect your home.
Whether it’s runoff from your neighbor’s lot, standing water left over from a heavy storm, or groundwater seeping into voids around your concrete slab, water needs somewhere to go to prevent damage to your property. Even small amounts of unwanted water can begin to compromise parts of your foundation. Here are some remedies you can take care of yourself:
- Inspect all gutters and down spouts. Make sure they’re in good repair, free of debris, and that they’re directing water out and away from your foundation.
- Inspect the grading on your property and make sure the ground gradually slopes away from your foundation, especially in areas where water might collect.
- Consider installing gravel drain channels or perforated pipe in spots where standing water collects. This will minimize soil erosion and ensure proper drainage.
- Check your sprinkler system parts and settings frequently. Overwatering and sprinkler faults (like missing emitters, broken heads, or leaky pipes) are common causes of hidden water damage.
For bigger jobs, Olshan is ready to help with advanced water management products and drainage solutions like gravity discharge systems and Olshan Pipe and Rock to move unwanted water away from your house and off your property. Many of Olshan’s water management remedies can be installed almost invisibly so that you can improve curb appeal while protecting your home for years of worry-free living.
Bulkhead repair
For homes that sit along interstitial waterways, bulkheads are an effective way to prevent soil erosion where the edges of the property contact a body of water. These are vertical structures built in segments and made from various materials including concrete, stone, or timber, plus a combination of screens, drains, and connectors. The point of a bulkhead is not to keep water out, but to hold soil in and keep it from being washed away from the land side of the wall.
The impacts of watercraft wakes, waves, and tides push water through small voids in the bulkhead. Water is drawn back out of the voids when the swells subside. Unless the right preventive measures are in place, the receding water will carry more soil with it over time. Without regular inspections and maintenance, this gradual erosion will eventually hollow out your property and create sinkholes.
These same natural forces can also attack the “toe” of your bulkhead, where the vertical sections contact the bottom of the waterway. These are usually anchored by a combination of an earthen berm various kinds of reinforcing materials, but constant water pressure will eventually loosen the toe and cause it to slip outward. This can destabilize the bulkhead, causing it to buckle and separate and create even larger voids where soil can escape.
Reputable companies like Olshan Foundation Repair recommend regular bulkhead inspections by qualified technicians. They have the skill and experience to spot trouble before it leads to expensive major repairs. Olshan offers complete bulkhead preventive maintenance and repair methods that are reliable and environmentally safe. One of the most popular repair methods is high-density closed-cell polyurethane foam (combined with other proprietary polymer resins. This advanced restoration material can be injected directly into problem areas for a durable and effective seal.
Crawl space repair and encapsulation
Crawl spaces aren’t common along the Gulf Coast, but if you have one, as some inland homeowners do in the Fort Myers region, your foundation is likely a “pier and beam” foundation rather than the slab-on-grade type that’s more typical for coastal homes. Over time, the supporting piers can shift as supporting soil settles or washes away. When this happens, beams and joists can get overloaded, leading to sticky doors and windows, sagging floors, and cracks or separations in your interior finish materials. Crawl spaces are also exposed to structural damage from pests, mold, and other symptoms of excess moisture.
If you suspect that you have crawl space problems, Olshan’s trained technicians will be happy to come to your home for a no-cost and no-obligation evaluation. They have the foundation repair experience to recommend the repair options that are best for your individual situation. Decayed wood can be replaced. Piers can be leveled and reinforced. Drainage and pest issues can be affordably corrected. Olshan’s crawl space repair options include:
- Structural repair with SafeAdjust™ support columns
- Pipe and rock drainage or sump pumps to remove unwanted water
- Interior waterproofing with EZ Drain Plus
- Crawl space encapsulation with dehumidification equipment and water-resistant liners
- Lumberkote spray-on polymer seal to protect subflooring, joists, and beams
How to choose the right foundation repair partner
Olshan Foundation Repair has been an industry leader for over 90 years, and we uphold the same principles of integrity and professionalism that made us successful from our very first day in business. We offer the most innovative slab leveling and bulkhead restoration technology available, but we also provide personalized service and stand behind our work on every project. That’s our promise to you, our customers, and we intend to keep it.
When you call on a foundation repair and restoration expert, ask them if they offer:
- Free, no-obligation evaluations
- A fully transparent estimate of your repair options
- Fair pricing and reasonable warranty protection
- Affordable payment plan alternatives
- Qualified technicians and crew members who stay with the company
- Trustworthy customer service after the job
- A positive reputation in your local community
Call our Fort Myers regional office today to schedule a free evaluation that will put your foundation repair worries to rest.
Foundation Repair Quotes in Fort Myers, Florida
Schedule a free assessment today for your Fort Myers home of for any of these Florida cities:
- Orlando foundation repair
- Gainesville foundation repair
- Williston
- Jacksonville
- Ocala
- Fort Myers
- Palatka
- Lake City
- Kissimmee
- St Petersburg
- Sarasota
- Tampa
- Palm Bay
- And many more! Contact us today
