Foundation Crack Repair

Foundation Crack Repair in Cincinnati, OH

Not every foundation crack is an emergency, but some are, and telling them apart is the whole job. A thin vertical crack in a poured wall is usually shrinkage and needs sealing against water. A horizontal crack running across the wall means the wall is failing in bending under soil pressure, and that is a structural problem that gets worse every wet season.

River City Restoration inspects, diagnoses and documents before recommending anything. Ian measures crack width, checks for offset and displacement, looks at what the floor and the door frames are telling him, and photographs it all. You get a written assessment that tells you what is moving, why, and whether it needs reinforcement or only a seal.

That documentation matters beyond the repair. It is what a home inspector, a buyer, an insurer or an engineer will ask for, and it is what lets you prove the condition was addressed properly.

Foundation conditions we repair

• Vertical and diagonal cracks in poured walls
• Horizontal cracks and bowing block walls
• Stair-step cracking in block and brick
• Active water leaks through wall cracks
• Cracks at window and door openings
• Cold joint and tie-hole leaks
• Settlement cracks at corners and additions
• Floor slab cracks and separation
• Rebar corrosion and concrete spalling

From a hairline seal to a full structural reinforcement

For non-structural cracks that leak, we use injection. Polyurethane resin is injected under pressure into a wet or actively leaking crack, where it foams and expands to fill the full depth of the wall and stop water. Epoxy injection is used instead where the crack is dry and the goal is to structurally weld the wall back into one piece, because cured epoxy is stronger than the concrete around it.

For walls that are bowing or cracked horizontally, sealing alone is not a repair. Carbon fiber straps epoxied to the wall face resist further inward movement and are low profile enough to finish over. Steel I-beams or wall anchors are used where deflection is already significant. Where a wall has moved far enough, the honest answer is excavation and rebuild, and we will say so rather than sell a strap that cannot carry the load.

Underlying causes get addressed alongside the crack itself. Most of the foundation water problems we see in this region trace back to grading that falls toward the house, downspouts discharging at the wall, or a failed footer drain. Repairing the crack without fixing the water source treats the symptom.

Frequently asked about foundation crack repair