Basement, Crawl Space & Foundation Repair in Dover, Delaware
Foundation and basement water-damage is a common issue for homeowners in Dover, due to the area’s year-round rain fall. To combat the storms and guarantee your home stays safe, trust the experts at BQ Basements & Concrete. With our proven waterproofing solutions you won’t have to worry about water entering your home any longer.
Dover Foundation Repair, Basement Waterproofing, Crawl Space Encapsulation and Concrete Lifting
Located on the St. Jones River in the Delaware River coastal plain, Dover experiences a warm temperate climate in the summer, and brief, but heavy thunderstorms are common. Winters are usually moderate, with light snowfall throughout the season. The prominent soil type in the area is Greenwich and is mostly comprised of well-drained clay. Since the summer season can bring heavy rain, this can lead to your foundation, basement, or crawl space getting flooded, resulting in serious structural damage. If you are experiencing problems with your home’s foundation, a wet or leaky basement, or structural problems with your crawl space, let the experts at BQ Basements & Concrete help. Our proven, warrantied solutions can help restore your home back to its original state and bring you peace of mind for years to come.
- Free Inspections
- Certified Structural Technicians
- Personalized Repair Plan
- No Interest Financing (for 12 months)
- Long-Term Warranty
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Solutions Offered in Dover, DE
Foundation Repair
When problems with your home’s foundation arise, it can bring a variety of other issues along with it. Here’s how our specialized solutions can repair your home’s foundation to it’s original stability.
Basement Waterproofing
Waterproofing your basement is key to having a healthy environment in your home, as well as preventing problems in the future. Learn more about the benefits of waterproofing your basement.
Crawl Space Repair
When it comes to the health of your home’s crawl space, there are many factors and problem signs at work. Knowing what the signs are could help you indicate that it’s time for repairs.
Concrete Lifting
The stability and consistency of the concrete around your home is an important factor to it’s overall aesthetic and wellbeing. Here’s what you should know about the concrete lifting options for your home.
BQ Basements and Concrete Services Areas
Foundation Repair:
Sinking/Settling Foundation
Foundation settlement and sinking occurs when the weight of the home becomes too much for the backfilled soil to bear. It is due primarily to problems that arise during the initial construction of your home when contractors repour soil around the foundation that isn’t properly compacted. To solve this issue, our experts will restore your foundation by installing heavy-duty steel piers under the footing of your home’s foundation.
Tilting Chimneys
Walking outside to a tilting chimney can be distressing for any homeowner. For this to happen, your foundation is usually sinking or settling into the soil causing your chimney to break apart from the rest of your home. To restore your chimney back to its original state, we use our helical pier system to lift and stabilize it, so you don’t have to worry about future problems.
Wall Straightening
If you’re noticing walls within your home pushing outwards or buckling, you may be dealing If problems with your home’s foundation. Our SettleStop IntelliBrace™ Wall Repair System will permanently repair and stabilize your failing foundation walls. By putting this in place, it corrects the affects from your foundation to position your walls into their original place overtime.
Basement Waterproofing
Basement Water Damage
A flooded basement and musty, smelly odors can be a sign of ongoing water damage. Since water is able to penetrate through most materials, it can easily find its way into your home. Whether it be from plumbing leaks, heavy rains, hydrostatic pressure, or cracks in the walls. Fortunately, our experts can waterproof your basement by installing interior drainage and sump pumps, as well as covering the walls with a vapor barrier. These combined solutions guarantee you no longer have to worry about water in your basement.
BasementGutter™ Interior Drainage
Installing an interior drainage system is the best way to ensure your home stays water-free. By choosing our BasementGutter™ Interior Drainage solution for your home, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that whenever water comes into your basement, it’s being dealt with. This system intercepts leaking water and directs it to a sump pump to guarantee it stays dry and moisture-free.
Basement Sump Pump
By installing a sump pit and a sump pump within your basement, you no longer have to worry about the damaging effects that water can do to your home. By intercepting the water collected by the interior drainage system and pumping it through a discharge line, it allows the water to flow away from your home.
Crawl Space Repair
Crawl Space Mold
Damp, dark, and wet are the 3 most ideal components that make up the perfect habitat for mold growth. Since your crawl space is all of them, the influx of mold isn’t anything unusual, but it can be detrimental to the health of your loved ones and the stability of your home. To combat this issue, it is imperative to tackle not only the symptoms, but the root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The Stack Effect
The stack effect refers to the process by which warmer, lighter air rises while colder, denser air sinks. This is due to outside air coming into your crawl space and condensation leading to higher levels of humidity and mold growth. To protect your home from the stack effect, our experts will cover your property’s crawl space vents and encapsulate your crawl space from any outside moisture coming in.
Crawl Space Encapsulation
When the vents to your crawl space are open or uncovered, this welcomes in pests, outside moisture, and creates the perfect environment for mold. It was once believed that having vents open to your crawl space allowed the air to circulate and stay dry. Unfortunately, after some time, this was found to be the opposite. As this can create condensation and pooling water and lead to structural issues. By having your crawl space encapsulated, you can prevent these altogether and give yourself peace of mind.
Concrete Lifting
Driveway Repair
If you find that entering your driveway has gotten increasingly more difficult or are worried about tripping on the cracked concrete slabs, it may be time for a repair. Our specialists can quickly and effectively repair your driveway by lifting the concrete, using our proven solution process called Poly Renewal™. With this, we’re able to raise the existing concrete slab back to its original position. Preventing any tipping hazards and restoring your driveway to its original aesthetic.
Interior Slab Lifting
Over time, the concrete slabs within your home can sink and settle due to a variety of factors, all of which can lead to severe damage to its structural stability. If you notice unevenness or sloping in your floors, this may be the cause. To restore your floor back to normal, our PolyRenewal™ foam injection solution is a non-invasive way to lift your concrete slab back to its original position.
Sidewalk Repair
As you may know, the sidewalks and walkways around your home experience more wear and tear than any other concrete structure. When the soil underneath the concrete slabs starts to shift or settle, it can result in cracking and sinking, leading to uneven slabs, and tripping hazards. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be torn out and re-poured again to fix the problem. Our experts can fill and lift your cracked and sinking sidewalk to ensure it doesn’t sink any further.
Common Issues in Your Home
Common Foundation Solutions
Common Solutions in Dover, DE
Mold in Crawl Space
Mold can be a huge problem in a crawl space. If you have mold in your crawl space, how can you make the situation better for your home?
Basement Sump Pump
Water leaking into your basement can be a real pain to deal with. What is the most effective solution for keeping your basement clean and dry?
Dehumidifier
Preserve indoor air quality and prevent mold and wood rot with our basement air systems.
Wall Anchors
Wall anchors can help strengthen your foundation so it doesn’t fail. What can you get out of wall anchors in your home overall?
Protecting your home the right way, the first time around.
At BQ Basements & Concrete, we know that your home is your sanctuary and that’s why we’re committed to providing you with the best foundation & basement repair solutions on the market.
Frequently Asked Questions
The soil immediately surrounding your foundation is a lot looser than the soil farther away. This is because when your home was built, a bowl-like hole was excavated, and the foundation was built in this space. After the foundation was built, the gaps were backfilled with the soil that was previously removed. The problem with this is that the soil used as backfill is a lot more porous that the densely packed soil the foundation sits on. This porous soil is able to absorb a lot of water, making it a dangerous threat to your foundation. The clay bowl effect is something many homeowners in Dover have to worry about. This problem is incredibly persistent in areas where the soil is primarily made of clay. These soils already have a high expansion capacity, but in a state like Delaware, the soil is capable of getting saturated quite easily. When it rains, not only does the rainwater directly affect the soil, it also raises the water table. Because of the soil, the weather, and the clay bowl effect, foundations in Dover are in constant need of repairs.
A good way to determine whether your basement or crawl space has high humidity levels is to check if the concrete has efflorescence stains. Efflorescence is a white, powdery substance on the surface of concrete. If you touch it or scrape it, it feels grainy and some of it flakes off. At times, homeowners will confuse efflorescence for mold, but this is incorrect. Efflorescence is salt, which you can feel the texture of if you scrape it off the concrete.
Efflorescence appears on your concrete either due to primary efflorescence or secondary efflorescence. Primary efflorescence usually occurs 48 to 72 hours after the concrete is poured and it’s a result of an excess amount of water in the cement mixture. As the cement cures, the water evaporates and rises to the surface of the concrete but brings along with it all the salts and minerals from the cement. Even professionals get a bad mixture from time to time, but an experienced contractor is less likely to make cement that produces efflorescence.
If you’re looking for the best way to lift your settled concrete slab, look no further than polyurethane injections. This concrete lifting system utilizes polyurethane foam to lift concrete back into place. Small holes are drilled into the concrete in order to inject the polyurethane foam until there’s enough under the slab to lift and support it. This is a modern, innovative approach to concrete lifting that solves every problem associated with traditional methods. What makes this method so great is all about what the material is made with. Mudjacking, the traditional method of concrete lifting, consists of pumping a cement slurry under the concrete to lift the slab. However, because of how heavy and rough the cement is, it puts pressure on the soil below, increasing the chances of displacement and settling. The cement is also too rough to properly fill the gap under the slab, so some parts remain unsupported after the job is done. Mudjacking is also rather tedious because it can take hours for the work to be completed and you still need to wait hours more for the cement to cure before putting any pressure on the slab. Polyurethane foam eliminates all those inconveniences.
Having a beautiful, healthy tree growing on your property makes your yard look interesting and visually pleasing. However, there’s a good chance that your tree is ruining your foundation and causing those pesky leaks in your basement or crawl space. Many homeowners misunderstand how a tree is able to do so much damage and believe that the tree roots themselves are the issue when it’s actually the soil. Like most problems pertaining to foundation damage, expansive soils are the culprits, not the tree roots. The characteristics of clay soils make it so trees encourage shrink-swell capacities and soil displacement.