Foundation comes in a number of different varieties. For instance, slab foundation is quite popular in areas where the soil necessitates it, where a slab foundation will actually work to prevent a home from sinking into the ground. In many cases, a slab foundation is the only type of foundation that will really work – especially for the long term. However, there are certainly parts of the country where a crawlspace foundation or even a full basement foundation are ideal. For instance, many homes in the midwest region of the United States have full basements, as these basements are perfect for taking shelter in during period of extreme weather (such as tornadoes, which pose a risk to many an area in the midwest). Choosing the right foundation for your home, and investing up to 15% of building costs into it, is critical for the overall quality and durability of your entire home in the long term.
Of course, it’s not just choosing the right type of foundation, but how you care for it as well. As any foundation repair contractor likely already knows, the overall care and keeping of your foundation will very much set the precedent for how long your foundation lasts before someone like such a professional, the foundation repair contractor, will ever need to be hired. For instance, gardening is something that can pose a risk to the foundation of your home – though far too few people are actually aware of this fact. But it’s a true one, as root systems can easily interfere with the overall structural integrity of your foundation. Therefore, you should keep your plants at least two feet away from it, and planted deeply enough to divert any water from being sent to the foundation instead of to your plants in question.
In addition to this, gutter placement can actually play a huge role in avoiding any water damage to your foundation as well. Ideally, your gutters will be placed so that they send any water that is funneled through them at least ten feet away from your foundation. If this is not the case, it is all too likely that your foundation will suffer damage, no matter what type of foundation it is. Therefore, inspecting your gutters at the time your home is being built and planning their location accordingly is something of an absolute must.
Of course, there will still be times in which the foundation repair contractor will be necessary. For instance, foundation termite damage is something that is quite prevalent in certain parts of the country. Foundation termite damage can be hard to prevent, but a foundation repair contractor can help you to mitigate it and reverse the damage that has been done. A foundation repair contractor will be highly skilled in matters of home foundation repair and therefore such foundation repair contractors are necessary to bring on board for major issues with your foundation. In many cases, a foundation repair contractor is even ideal for lesser issues with the foundation in question.
Hiring a foundation repair contractor is likely to be particularly necessary in a home that has a basement. After all, up to 98% of all homes that include a basement will experience some type of water damage at one point or another, thanks to the way that such homes are simply set up. Mitigating and handling water damage quickly and effectively is something that will be hugely important, as water damage can lead to issues with mold and other structural issues in the home. Ultimately, mold growth can lead to issues with the health of many people living in such homes, particularly in those who are already sensitive to such things. Therefore, hiring someone like a foundation repair contractor as soon as water damage occurs will be quite the hugely important thing indeed, to say the very least.
At the end of the day, caring for your home’s foundation is something that will really pay off in the long run. In fact, if you care well for your home’s foundation, you might not even need someone such as a foundation repair contractor for a very long time indeed, if at all, for that matter.