Foundation Crack Inspection: When Does a Crack Need a Structural Engineer?
A crack in a foundation wall rarely announces its own severity. Some hairline cracks sit stable for thirty years without causing a single door to stick, while others widen a sixteenth of an inch in a single season and signal a foundation losing its bearing capacity. A proper foundation crack inspection separates those two scenarios […]
Home Inspection Found Foundation Cracks — What Should You Do Next?
A home inspection report flagging foundation cracks lands on a buyer’s desk at the worst possible time — usually with a ten-day option period ticking down and a closing date already booked. Home inspection foundation cracks show up on a surprisingly high share of pre-purchase reports across Colorado’s Front Range, from Denver bungalows on expansive […]
Basement Foundation Inspection: What Engineers Check in a Full Basement
A basement foundation inspection is one of the more revealing evaluations I perform as a structural engineer, because a basement exposes far more of the actual foundation system than a crawl space ever does. Where a crawl space hides most of its footings and stem walls under insulation and vapor barrier, a full basement puts […]
Crawl Space Foundation Inspection: What We Look For Underneath Your Home
Most homeowners never set foot in their crawl space, and honestly, most shouldn’t have to. But that dark, low-clearance gap between your floor joists and the soil is one of the first places a foundation problem shows up, often months or years before cracks appear in drywall upstairs. A thorough crawl space foundation inspection examines […]
Retaining Wall vs. Foundation Wall: What’s the Difference?
Every week I get a call from a homeowner in the Denver metro or up in the foothills asking whether the crumbling wall in their backyard is the same thing as the wall holding up their basement. It isn’t, and the distinction matters more than most people realize. The short answer to retaining wall vs […]
Pier and Beam Foundation Inspection: What Engineers Check Underneath Your Home
Crawling under a house on a set of knee pads with a flashlight and a moisture meter is not glamorous work, but it’s where a pier and beam foundation inspection actually happens. Unlike a slab, where problems show up as cracks in drywall or tile, a raised foundation hides its damage in the dark — […]
Concrete & Slab Foundation Inspection: What Makes This Foundation Type Different
Slab-on-grade construction makes up a large share of the residential and light commercial building stock across the Front Range, from newer subdivisions in Thornton to ranch-style homes scattered through Lakewood and Aurora, and a slab foundation inspection has to be approached differently than an inspection of a basement or crawlspace foundation. There’s no accessible underside […]
What’s Included in a Foundation Inspection Report
After twenty-some years of crawling through crawlspaces and standing in basements with a laser level in Denver, Colorado Springs, and everywhere the Front Range’s expansive clay soils cause trouble, I’ve written more foundation inspection reports than I can count. Homeowners, real estate agents, and lenders almost always ask the same question before I even schedule […]
Certified Foundation Inspector: What the Credentials Actually Mean
Homeowners searching for a certified foundation inspector usually run into the same wall I’ve watched clients hit for years: everyone claims certification, but almost nobody explains what that word is supposed to mean. After two decades evaluating foundations across the Front Range, from clay-heavy soils in Douglas County to the older slab-on-grade homes in Denver’s […]
Foundation Inspector vs. Structural Engineer: Who Should Inspect Your Foundation?
Every year our office fields calls from homeowners across the Front Range who found a crack in a basement wall, got a lowball offer after a home inspection flagged “foundation concerns,” or received a letter from their insurance company demanding documentation before they’ll pay a claim. Almost all of them ask some version of the […]