Foundation Repair Company in Marietta, GA Built for Red Clay and Steep Lots

Poured or block basement walls that bend inward, usually with a horizontal crack near mid-height. Saturated clay and hydrostatic pressure push on the wall from outside until it starts to move.

Thousands of 1970s–1990s homes in East Cobb, Kennesaw and Roswell have walkout or daylight basements dug into hillsides. The uphill wall holds back wet red clay that drains poorly, so water builds up after winter rains and multi-day storms. Block walls handle that sideways load especially badly. Short downspouts, negative grading and gutters clogged under tree canopy send even more water toward the wall. Every wet season adds pressure, so these walls rarely improve on their own.

• Horizontal crack along the middle of the wall
• Stair-step cracks in block mortar joints
• Wall visibly leaning in at the top
• Efflorescence or seepage along the crack
• Gaps between the wall and floor joists or sill plate
• Basement windows that bind or crack

We see this most on the uphill walls of walkout basements in the Walton, Wheeler and Pope school areas, Indian Hills, Towne Lake and Dunwoody Georgetown. It usually shows up after wet winters and springs, and shallow-lot split-levels near Kennesaw Mountain get it too.

Wall anchors, steel I-beam braces or carbon fiber straps, depending on how far the wall has moved, plus drainage corrections to cut the hydrostatic pressure behind it.

One section of the foundation sinks more than the rest because part of the house sits on loosely compacted fill or soft saprolite. The result is cracks, sloping floors and doors that won't latch.

During the rapid subdivision boom of the 1980s and 90s, builders leveled sloped lots by cutting one side and filling the other. Fill that wasn't fully compacted keeps settling for decades, and most owners have no idea their house sits partly on it. Underneath, saprolite can hide soft zones, which makes bearing uneven. Saturated clay loses strength in wet years, so settlement often speeds up after heavy-rain seasons.

• Diagonal drywall cracks from door and window corners
• Doors that stick or swing open on their own
• Sloping or uneven floors
• Brick veneer cracks above openings
• Chimney pulling away from the house
• Gaps at baseboards or crown molding

Common in Kennesaw, Acworth, Powder Springs and East Cobb subdivisions from the 1980s–90s, plus newer infill in Smyrna, Vinings and Chamblee. The worst movement is usually on the downhill side, where the fill was deepest.

Steel push piers or helical piers driven to competent soil or rock, then careful lifting where possible and drainage fixes to keep the fill dry.

High humidity and standing water under the house rot the wood framing, wear down the support piers and let floors sag or bounce. Makeshift shims and jack posts often hide how bad it's gotten.

Marietta summers mean long stretches near 90°F with high humidity. Vented crawl spaces pull that moist air in, and it condenses on cooler joists. Clay soil drains poorly, so water pools at footings after storms. Many older homes have undersized or poorly spaced brick piers, and earlier repairs often relied on stacked shims or temporary jack posts that were never meant to last.

• Bouncy or sagging floors
• Musty odor inside the home
• Visible mold or wood rot on joists
• Standing water or wet vapor barrier
• Leaning, cracked or shimmed piers
• Rusted jack posts or loose shims

Craftsman bungalows and post-war ranches in the Polk and Fair Oaks area, downtown Smyrna's Jonquil area, Mableton's Floyd Road corridor, Chamblee's Huntley Hills and Ashford Park in Brookhaven. Problems usually peak from July through September.

Replace failing piers and shims with engineered supports, sister or replace rotted joists, and correct drainage. Add moisture control and a sump pump where water collects.

Brick piers and rubble or fieldstone foundations from the 1840s–1910s whose soft lime mortar has worn away. Piers lean or sink, girders sag and sill plates rot.

Lime mortar was made to be softer than the brick. After a century or more of damp clay, freeze-thaw at the joints and poor drainage, it turns to sand. Past repairs with hard Portland cement mortar often make the damage worse. Any exterior repair visible from the street may need historic board approval, so the materials have to be right.

• Mortar crumbling to sand at pier joints
• Piers leaning or out of plumb
• Sagging girders and uneven floors
• Rotted sill plates near grade
• Cracked or bulging fieldstone facing
• Gaps around porch columns

Concentrated in the Church Street–Cherokee Street and Whitlock Avenue historic districts and around Marietta Square, with similar homes in Historic Roswell near Canton Street. Exterior work in these areas often needs a Certificate of Appropriateness.

Rebuild or reinforce piers using compatible lime-based mortar, replace sills and girders, and keep the original masonry appearance so the work passes historic review.

Cracked, sunken or tilting concrete slabs in homes, garages, patios and driveways, sometimes made worse by a plumbing leak under the slab that washes out the soil beneath.

Slabs on red clay rise and fall with soil moisture. In drought years the clay shrinks away and leaves voids, and in wet years it softens. Newer slab homes on tight infill lots in Brookhaven, Chamblee and Smyrna often sit on fill. A water line leaking under the slab can soften or carry away supporting soil quietly for months before anyone notices.

• Cracks wider than 1/8 inch in floors
• Tile cracking or lifting
• Garage floor sloping toward walls
• Unexplained jump in the water bill
• Warm or damp spots on the floor
• Gaps between slab and walls

Garage slabs and driveways across Kennesaw's Legacy Park area and Towne Lake, plus slab infill homes in Brookhaven, Chamblee and Doraville. These usually show up after long dry spells in late summer and fall.

Find and repair any slab leak, fill voids, level the slab with injection lifting, and seal cracks. Use piers if the slab is structurally failing.

Thin vertical or diagonal cracks in poured concrete walls, usually from curing shrinkage or minor seasonal movement. They're mostly cosmetic but can let water in.

Almost every poured wall gets a few shrinkage cracks. In Marietta, the clay's wet-dry cycle opens and closes them each year, so a crack that looked tight in spring may look wider by October. That's a big reason homeowners can't tell a cosmetic crack from structural movement.

• Vertical crack under 1/16 inch wide
• Crack that's the same width top to bottom
• Light dampness after heavy rain
• No displacement on either side
• Minor efflorescence

Found in poured basements all over Cobb, north Fulton and Cherokee counties. They often get flagged in real estate inspections in East Cobb, Roswell and Sandy Springs.

Epoxy or polyurethane crack injection, exterior sealing where needed, and monitoring so you'll know if the crack is actually moving.

Water coming through walls, cracks or the floor joint during heavy rain, sometimes several inches deep. It can soften the soil under footings and lead to sudden structural damage.

Summer storms can drop 1–3 inches in a few hours, and tropical storm remnants cause regional flooding now and then. The September 2009 floods hit Austell, Powder Springs and Mableton especially hard. Properties near Sweetwater, Noses, Nickajack, Rottenwood and Sope creeks, or the Chattahoochee, deal with high water tables on top of the clay's poor drainage.

• Water entering the basement during storms
• New cracks appearing right after flooding
• Soil washout near the footings
• Sump pit overflowing or no sump at all
• Wet insulation or drywall
• Doors suddenly sticking after a storm

Low-lying properties along Sweetwater and Noses creeks in Austell and Powder Springs, Nickajack Creek in Mableton and Smyrna, and Riverside and Heards Ferry in Sandy Springs near the Chattahoochee.

Quick assessment and water control, then sump pump installation, French drains and structural repairs for any footing damage the water caused.