Your home is your biggest investment. It’s probably your largest purchase, ever, and you want to keep it strong and safe for a really long time, right? So you’re probably already aware of that crack going through your living room ceiling…and wondering what to do about it. But before I give you a solution (and don’t worry, I will), it’s important to know what caused that crack in the first place.
A Crawl Space is built below the living area of a home. Although it doesn’t have the same depth and height as an actual basement, a crawl space can serve as a much less expensive version. Since a home is built on top of the crawl space, structural instability within the crawl space can mean serious issues for the strength and safety of the home itself. This particular crawl space under an Arizona home is one such case; a bowed ceiling threatened the safety of the crawl space and the home’s living area. The homeowner chose HJ3’s StrongHold™ system to repair her crawl space rather than strengthening the ceiling with heavy and expensive steel beams.
It has been estimated that about 76% of single-family homes in the US have a garage or carport. Whether used for protecting vehicles, extra storage, or that really cool man cave, the presence of a garage can have a very positive effect on a home’s value. But if the garage door, walls, or floor are in less-than-perfect condition, the presence of a garage could actually hurt the home’s value. While several different factors can damage your garage, such as heavy rains and soil pressure, repairing your bowed or cracked walls and floors doesn’t have to be a huge investment.
It’s no mystery that home values and home remodel spending have declined significantly in the last several years. Contractors and homeowners alike have struggled to keep their heads above water as foreclosures and a declining economy have taken over the housing market. But good news has finally arrived! Home values are increasing, which means homeowners have more equity and financing options available for home remodels. In fact, census trends indicate that home remodel spending is at its highest point in several years. As HJ3’s StrongHold Product Specialist, I’ve seen first hand just how busy home contractors have been this season. And while housing statistics and home remodel trending reports indicate that the rise in home improvements will start to ease going into 2015, the projections for 2015 are still far above what we’ve seen from the past few years.
When your home’s foundation has issues, it’ll tell you in different ways. The most common are cracks in your walls or an inward bowing, especially in a basement or garage wall. And while these symptoms can worry many homeowners, they are reparable, and in fact, you have several repair options at your fingertips. So how do you know which one is best? Here, we’ll compare the benefits and drawbacks of a traditional steel beam or channel repair with those of a cutting edge, innovative carbon fiber repair.
