Foundation Repair Photo Album: Fixing bowing walls in Caledonia, ON

Ron was in the middle of doing a bathroom reno in his basement but when took down the walls, he noticed some horizontal cracking in the block foundation. Ron is very familiar with the Haldimand clay and how expansive it is. The clay soil up against the foundation was push the wall in. Omni Basement Systems came up with a plan to straighten the bowing walls with the use of the PowerBrace by Supportworks. PowerBrace are galvanized steel "I" beams that installed against the wall with an adjustment bolt that can push the wall straight over time.

Footings prepared

because the base of the of this PowerBrace will be concreted in with a large footing., the footing of the home is cut back so that the PowerBrace can be anchored right against the wall.

Beams installed

The 4" "I" beams are installed in place.

Bridge bracket

In this case, the floor joists run perpendicular to the wall so a Bridge bracket holds the top of the brace. The load is spead across the floor system which is very strong.

Lever bracket

On the wall, the joists are running parallel to the wall so a lever bracket is used and some joist blocking is installed.

Sup pump

The Sump here is part of the waterproofing system that is going in place.

Attaching the bridge bracket

The Bridge bracket at the otp connects the PowerBrace to two floor joists for the most load capacity.

PowerBrace cutting

The PowerBrace is cut to the correct length. This takes some time as steel is very hard.

Lever Bracket

When the joists run [parallels, the Lever bracket is used. As you can see, this bracket hangs down below the joists 4". The customer must be aware of this so they can plan to build a bulkhead or a drop ceiling.

Delta on walls

delta is placed between the PowerBrace and used as a waterproofing membrane.

Concrete mixing

Concrete is mixed in the hom.

Block shear

When the bottom block does not move because of the floor holding it in place, the rest of the wall shears and moves over top. In places in this home, the block shear was up to 5".