How Arizona Foundation Solutions Diagnoses Your Foundation Problems

Foundation settlement is one of the leading causes of building damage in the world. The causes are mostly due to moisture changes in the bearing soils. Although they are related, both foundation settlement and foundation heave are often thought to be the same thing. If left unchecked, damage could exceed practical repair abilities. So a proper evaluation is essential to maintaining the value of your structure. Trust Arizona Foundation Solutions to properly identify, diagnose, and repair any foundation problem.

The Arizona Foundation Solutions Advantage:

• Our report is objective. We are paid to provide an analysis -- so we don't need to find a way to rationalize piling to pay for our inspection.
• We use industry standards from the Foundation Performance Association and try to take as much subjectivity out of our analysis as we can.
• Accurate and professional. Many contractors and engineers have gotten heave and settlement confused. Showing up to take a few floor readings is not accurate enough to understand patterns or deflection.
• The homeowner can use this report as a baseline for future reference to document performance over time whether or not any work is done.
• We can sharpen our pencils. If we can eliminate one pile with careful analysis the survey has paid for itself.

So you're ready for a foundation report. What does that exactly entail?

A detailed report with objective analysis can help avoid jumping to conclusions and possible errors. Foundation heave, settlement and thermal movement are carefully analyzed. Both stopping and starting points can be obtained by using industry standards and consensus opinions. Subjectivity is minimized, and you are free to have whomever you please to examine the report and vet its conclusions.

We use the following steps to evaluate your foundation issues. This conforms to the level B investigation per the Foundation Performance Association.

1. Draw up a floor plan of the house.

2. Take floor readings in the corner of each room and the middle of larger rooms.

3. Record distress types and locations on the floor plan.

4. Return and download all data to one plan and plot topographical elevations.

5. Produce summary of observations and data in written format.

6. Back up any conclusions with industry consensus information.

See the link to the document published by the Foundation Performance Association. This is a peer reviewed document that establishes consensus for allowable movement in a foundation.

Guidelines for the Evaluation of Foundation Movement

7. If the data is appropriate provide a written repair plan and estimate.