Why Is My Foundation Cracking and Leaking?

Your foundation can start to crack and leak for a myriad of reasons. The most common include: 

• Shifting Soil 

Tree roots and pests alike can cause the soil beneath your home to shift. These outside forces can leave gaps in your soil in their wake, and gravity, in turn, can force your foundation to begin to settle prematurely. 

That kind of settling, especially if it is uneven, can cause cracks to form in your foundation. It can also damage any accessory structures you have attached to your home, including your garage, front porch, or patio. 

• Hydrostatic Pressure 

More often than not, moisture in the soil around your foundation can inflict stress upon the materials keeping your home in place. This hydrostatic pressure causes the molecules of your home’s structural supports to rapidly expand and contract. To compensate for those changes in size, your structural supports will develop cracks, thus allowing more water into your home and causing your walls to bow, your floor to buckle, and other forms of damage to appear throughout your basement or crawl space. 

Compensating for hydrostatic pressure isn’t an easy task, but that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. If you install waterproofing measures around your home, you can prevent unwanted moisture from having as much as an impact on your home’s structural supports.