This foundation inspection video of a property in Gilbert, Arizona, shows numerous areas of damage to the foundation. This is an example of just how much damage can happen to your home if you ignore your home’s foundation. In this video, you can see the concrete just fall away as we inspect it, which is never a good sign.
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Stem Wall Cracking | Foundation Cracks | Floor Cracks | Fracture Repair
I’m in Gilbert, Arizona. The driveway has a lot of efflorescence, which is the darkening and the white. The whiteness is the efflorescence or salt deposit left behind, and the driveway is cracked right here in heaved tilted down from the saturation of soil over in this geographic area, which is raised this corner of this slab at that juncture. There are exterior cracks that look like they’ve already been identified, with blue tape on both corners. Assessing the movement of the sidewalk as well as second-story windows right below the windows is starting to separate right there, and this garage is separate from the house, and it’s wanting to pull this way, indicating movement here on the stem wall Foundation area. The entry walk is heaved, I’ve got a large trip hazard right there this sidewalk is down approximately three inches.
Various cracks and fractures in the corners of the door windows have some undermining here from a sense of moisture, or it could be a leak stem wall that needs to be waterproofed. A vertical fracture in that stem wall shows the movement of this side of the stem wall slightly going down. It’s articulating. Do you have the fractures next to the window and various areas through the wall? That crack fracture right there is the oxidized rebar. Once the moisture reaches the reinforcement number four bar a half inch in the stem wall, it’s going to oxidize and expand up to five times its diameter in size, and it’s going to break out the side of the stem wall like this, and you can see the J bolt right there. This is j bolt holding down the bottom plate of this stem wall that’s behind here. These are remnants of the half-inch rebar, and I believe I just moved the camera around here a little bit so you can see what I’m doing: just destroying the stem wall with my knife and rebars right here.
It’s oxidized, and it’s coming off in little pieces. The sense of moisture causes this in this area where the paint has been delaminated off this surface by water, and evaporation of water, leaving behind the efflorescence, will separate the paint from the stem wall before the paint falls off. It degrates the surface of this concrete here. That’s why you see exposed aggregate. There are various cracks, horizontal and vertical, throughout the exterior of this home. There’s a very large crack fracture right there, and there are settling cracks; this one is vertical, which shows that this stem wall is articulating. It’s moving because of the moisture around the stem wall. It has to break in fracture because of all of the stress that’s pushing down on this foundation, and it’s not stable enough to hold it, so it has to relieve itself by cracking and fracturing. Walk around the other side, right? There is a hurricane strap. Hurricane straps are designed to hold this corner of the building down securely into the stem wall, which is typical of rusting, oxidizing, expanding, and cracking the concrete.
I can’t see it here, but the same things are happening back in the corner. We have spalling all along this whole side, the paints coming off, which is the first phase the paint comes off spalled concrete, and then the moisture reaches the steel rebar inside, oxidizing and expanding, causing cracks on the exterior. The slab has cracks throughout the entire wall and horizontal and vertical corners of windows, and moisture comes from the roof. The roof water landing here in this area seems to be puddling, but it also has to do with soil types and how much moisture will be retained. This side of the stem wall in the backyard also has some spalling but needs to be waterproofed. The entire home needs waterproofing. There are various cracks and fractures on the exterior of the stucco, and this whole site needs to be waterproofed as well. We did have a recent rain, and it seems like in this geographic area where a lot of water pools along with the other side in the front yard
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