The walls of your home keep you safe and secure all year round. If they start to fall victim to damage, you may find yourself contending not only with a home that is less secure than it once was but also an increased energy bill, unwanted pests, and higher levels of humidity.
If your walls start to bow, slide, tilt, or otherwise show signs of substantial damage, you’ll want to reach out to the professionals serving North Dakota, eastern Montana, and Minnesota to discuss wall anchor installation. Wall anchors can help repair damaged walls and keep your home structurally sound.
Using Wall Anchors to Your Advantage
The Wall Anchor System permanently stabilizes your basement walls, offering the best opportunity to straighten the walls without Wall Anchor Systems have made a significant contribution to the housing industry. The ability to reinforce or repair a foundation wall without completely starting over again has revolutionized how damage is halted.
The first wall anchor system was installed in the 1970s. Since its introduction, these systems have successfully been stabilizing and straightening foundation walls. The Chief Appraiser for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development identified these systems as the best way to stabilize a bowing foundation wall in 1992.
Wall anchors and wall anchor systems are small but effective tools that you can install throughout your home. These anchors, made out of galvanized steel, help shore up your walls after they’ve started to pull away from their supports. These supports tend to push your walls back into place by giving them the support they need where the wall damage has been the most severe. For example, channel anchor systems, which are used in cases of extreme wall failure, can move your walls back into place by pushing said walls in from the bottom. Installation can take less than a day, and you’ll immediately start to see the benefits.
Wall Anchor Systems
Wall anchors work by extending out and digging into stable, more substantial soil beyond the home’s foundation. They will anchor there and add integrity by bracing the foundational walls of the house. The application of a wall anchor system will prevent any inward movement of the walls.
These anchors can also be tightened to help realign any walls that have moved. An anchor system uses the undisturbed soil outside of the foundation of your home to improve the stability of the walls in your basement. With the use of this soil, the wall’s integrity is far superior and less likely to bend, tilt, crack, or collapse.
The type of wall anchor system utilized and installed by Innovative Basement Authority is excellent for repairing any foundation. Our method is proven to reinforce walls and also correct any that have been damaged.
As a plus, the use of a wall anchor system is far more affordable than a full foundation repair. It’s not even disruptive to the home and surrounding area. A galvanized steel anchor is placed into the ground in the stable soil away from the foundation walls. These are then attached to steel plates with anchoring rods. This will provide reinforcement in the event of everyday wear and tear, as well as more severe events.
Innovative Basement Authority Can Stabilize Your Walls
It might seem like there is not much you can do to prevent your basement walls from bowing in. Fortunately, Innovative Basement Authority has just the wall repair solution for your home! Our wall anchors not only stabilize your walls for good, but they can also help straighten out your tilted or bowed walls over time.
- What are Wall Anchors?
Wall anchors do not just prop up your walls to prevent them from collapsing. Essentially, they are anchors installed into the soil of your yard that simultaneously repair your foundation and brace it against any further potential damage it may face.
Wall anchors are often used by foundation contractors all throughout the U.S. and Canada. It is an effective, warrantied solution that will slowly repair your basement or foundation walls back to their original position over time.
- Excavating the Perimeter of Your Foundation for Installation
This step is not typically needed during regular wall anchor installation. However, if your foundation has received substantial damage or your basement’s construction is not yet finished, Innovative Basement Authority’s foundation experts will first excavate the soil around your foundation. Experts may also implement this step when your walls must be straightened out as soon as possible.
- Positioning the Earth Anchor
Experts will first dig small holes within the soil around your foundation to install each wall anchor. Each anchor is made of high-quality galvanized steel that will not corrode or rust. This system also comes with a guaranteed warranty against manufacturing defects and an in-house quality and performance warranty.
- Preparing the Foundation Wall
They will then drill tiny holes about one inch in diameter into your foundation wall. These holes fit the steel anchor rod that connects the anchor to your foundation. Each anchor rod is driven straight through the soil to its respective anchor. Doing so does not damage your foundation in any way, so you will not have to worry about these holes leading to flooding in the future.
- Mounting Wall Plates
After installing each anchor rod to each anchor, steel wall plates are mounted to affix each rod to the inside of your foundation. This stabilizes the anchor system enough to permanently halt any inward movement that would threaten to make your foundation walls bow in even more. The wall plates will be tightened now and again to continue to straighten out and brace your foundation wall over time.
- Straightening Out Basement Walls
After that, they will then tighten and adjust each wall anchor accordingly. This will result in a slow but steady restoration of your foundation walls back to their original position. Our wall anchors will provide your basement and foundation walls with long-term support for years to come.
- Clean Up
You might assume that installing wall anchors will be a messy process that will ruin your landscaping. Rest assured that once these anchors are installed, our foundation experts carefully backfill the soil in these holes again. This soil is then mechanically compressed to ensure it does not wash out. This soil is then raked over to better blend in with your surrounding landscaping.
It’s Time to Install a Wall Anchor
It’s best to look at a wall anchor system as a must in the home, rather than an option. These systems provide your walls with the stability every homeowner wants. They also ensure you have fewer issues–especially costly ones–in the future.
- Prevent Bowing Now, Rather Than Later
The best time for a wall anchor is right now, not later. These stabilizers will ensure that your home can better resist rainfall, natural disasters, deteriorating materials, and other issues that can result in massive amounts of damage.
However, if you already have damage to your walls, wall anchors can also help. The damage can be repaired and wall anchors can help reverse any tilting or bowing that’s already happened.
- The Issue with Delaying
If you decide to hold off on getting an anchor system installed, you could run the risk of severe damage to the foundation of your home. The longer the walls are allowed to bow or tip, the greater the risk is of collapse. At this point, a full replacement may be needed, not just repairs. This can cost an extreme amount of money.
Beyond that, installing anchors now gives the Innovative Basement Authority professional a chance to assess your walls’ integrity. There may be an issue with your foundation long before the signs start to appear. The majority of the problems occur in the soil surrounding the foundation rather than in the wall. The danger of waiting is that there could be more damage than expected to the foundation.
The Problems with Your Walls
If you suspect something may be wrong in your home, you’ll want to take a closer look not only at the walls in your living areas but the ones in your basement or crawl space, as well. If you notice any signs of damage, you can reach out to area professionals for a more comprehensive inspection.
- Cracks: Any cracks that appear in your walls tend to form after your home undergoes structural stress. They are often signs that the foundation itself might have shifted, settled, or cracked.
- Bowing and Tilting: When your wall’s internal supports are exposed to some manner of external pressure, the walls themselves can begin either to bow inward or tilt in one direction or another.
- Wall Slides: Sometimes, the drywall installed in between your home’s wooden wall supports can physically begin to separate from those supports. This kind of damage is known as a wall slide.
- Hydrostatic Pressure: While a little bit of rain or snow won’t do damage to your home, too much can put a lot of pressure on your foundation. This is known as hydrostatic pressure and it can force your concrete foundation to change sizes on a molecular level. As your concrete expands and contracts in response to exposure to moisture, your foundation may start to crack.
- Street Creep: Come the hottest months of the year, any concrete structures you have around your home can begin to change size. This then puts pressure on your foundation and walls, which will push inward in an attempt to compensate for the concrete’s growth.
Wall Anchor System
FAQs
Cracks are almost often signs of foundational damage. Even the shape of a particular crack you find may have different impacts on your foundation.
- Horizontal Cracks and Diagonal Cracks
Your wall may suffer from horizontal cracks if the exterior or internal supports have come into contact with higher-than-average humidity or floods. Excess water pressure can also cause horizontal cracks to sprout along your basement walls as well.
Diagonal cracks tend to form for much the same reason horizontal cracks do. However, these cracks will be larger on one side than the other, indicating that unwanted moisture may be having a greater influence on one part of your home.
- Vertical Cracks and Stair-Step Cracks
Vertical wall cracks tend to indicate that something may be wrong with your foundation. Vertical cracks are also referred to as shrinkage cracks due to the fact that the most common cause of these cracks is concrete shrinkage.
Stair-step cracks tend to form in brick and mortar walls. You’ll be able to track these cracks by following your mortar lines. Again, these cracks tend to appear around your home when moisture has made itself present in your wall’s molding or other supports.
A wall anchor system is an effective way to solve problems related to wall bowing, which might arise in your foundation due to hydrostatic pressure. Here’s how a wall anchor system really works.
- Wall Plate
The first main portion of the wall anchor system is the plate that goes on the inside of the wall. This is typically a square or rectangular metal plate that is fairly thick, but can go relatively unnoticed once it’s installed. Especially if you install the plate before you finish the basement, it can be very easy to add the finishing over the plate.
This plate allows the wall anchor system to dissipate its energy over a much larger area, which means it can utilize more force overall. It also makes it much less likely that the anchor system will fail. Lastly, it helps to ensure that the wall anchor system itself won’t cause cracks in the wall, as there isn’t a single spot where cracks might otherwise form.
- Anchor
The other component of the wall anchor system is the anchor itself. The anchor is typically a metal rod that sits 6-10 feet into the ground outside of the wall. This is why you need at least 6-10 feet available on the outside of your basement; if you don’t, the anchor itself won’t have enough space to have an impact on the wall anchors.
The anchor is attached to a rod, which ties the anchor and the wall plate together. An expert can tighten that rod to bring the anchor and the wall plate closer together; because of the strength of the soil holding the anchor in place, the wall plate will pull back toward the anchor, causing the wall to straighten. The distance of 6-10 feet allows the anchor to have enough staying power that it keeps the wall straight over time.
Many homeowners tend to research DIY options before calling the professionals, especially when they fear that their home repair may get expensive. While in practice, this isn’t a bad idea, using DIY means to repair a bowing wall can often have a negative impact on the overall structural integrity of your home. It can also cost you far more than working with a professional eventually.
- Money Loss
Repairing damaged walls on your own is an expensive endeavor. As mentioned, wall repair is about more than just installing wall anchors. If you want those anchors to last for more than a few months, you also need to repair the damage done to the rest of your home. This way, you can stop unwanted moisture from making its way indoors and compromising the structural integrity of your supports.
Facilitating those kinds of repairs without professional guidance takes a lot of independent research. You’ll need to track down suppliers and come to understand what means can best help you better secure your home. Only then can you reach out and purchase not only the materials, but the specialty tools you need—if they’re market available—to go about fixing your home. Doing this without a contractor can see you pay exorbitant prices for single-use tools or poor-quality materials. When you work with a professional, alternatively, you benefit from the use of that party’s existing toolbox as well as any industry connections a contractor has already established.
- Mistakes During Installation
Wall anchors are not the easiest things to install. Should you get your hands on them without professional assistance, you still may not be able to fully take advantage of them if you don’t have previous experience working with them. There is a chance that, during your DIY installation, you may make a mistake that sees your home suffer even more damage than it already has.
For example, if you install a wall anchor incorrectly but can’t identify what you’ve done wrong, then you risk abandoning that wall anchor without correcting your mistake. In turn, you may think that you’ve shored up your walls, when in reality, you’ve given them leave to sink or pull away all the faster. Because your installation will give you a false sense of security, you may not be of the mind to check on your work until the damage to your walls has significantly worsened.
Innovative Basement Authority Experts Can Help You Protect Your Home
Want to learn more about wall anchor installations and what they can do for your home? The professionals at Innovative Basement Authority serving Minnesota, eastern Montana, and North Dakota can help. If your walls seem to be pulling away from their supports, bowing, or tilting, you can rest easy knowing that you can reach out to schedule a home inspection at any time of the year. After you and a professional take a walk through your home, you’ll have the opportunity to look over a free quote detailing what services, including wall anchoring, might suit your home best.
