Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Metro Area
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre benefit from the rich loamy soil that is found in much of Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t mean that there are no potential risks to keep in mind.
Schedule Free InspectionBasement or Crawl Space Waterproofing in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre
Basement or crawl space waterproofing are common processes that many homeowners in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre go through. The benefits are many, of course, but, in some cases, the process of waterproofing is necessary to avoid damage to the structure of the property in question. This is most often the case when the property is older. Older homes were often built with features that actively undermine a property’s ability to repel moisture and keep humidity low (for example, crawl space vents).
We at Baker’s Waterproofing are specialists in the process of waterproofing basements and crawl spaces of all sizes. As foundation and structural repair specialists, we have a plethora of solutions and protective measures that can be deployed to repel water and prevent it from getting into your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre home or to remove water that has managed to get into your home either in liquid or gaseous form.
The benefits of waterproofing are many, and they can depend on the state and size of your home. Nonetheless, you can generally expect waterproofing to lower humidity, make your home more comfortable, and increase your energy efficiency levels significantly. This will make your home more comfortable, prevent damage, and even lower your energy bills. So, if you have questions about waterproofing and how it could benefit your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre home, please do not hesitate to contact the Baker’s Waterproofing team.
Foundation Repair Services in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre
If you want to ensure that your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre, PA, property stays healthy for the duration of your life there, then it is important that you take good care of its foundation. A property’s foundation is one of the most important parts of the structure. It provides stability and ensures that the weight of the home is fully supported, thereby preventing sinking, cracking, and lateral movement. Better yet, taking care of your foundation is relatively easy. The most important thing you can do is manage the moisture levels in the soil around your home. This can be done by ensuring you have proper drainage in place.
If you ensure that your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre property has robust drainage, then you should avoid foundation damage, of course, but there are times when foundation damage like subsidence and settlement are unavoidable. In these cases, the team at Baker’s Waterproofing is here to help. Our team has years of experience in dealing with structural damage and has cultivated a portfolio of solutions that can lift, stabilize, and support a sinking or damaged foundation.
We offer a range of foundation stabilization piers that include push piers, helical piers, and slab piers. Each of these products has a range of benefits and limitations and will be best for a different kind of property and situation. For example, push piers are excellent for heavier properties that are subsiding but are not suitable for properties that have fragmented in any serious way. Meanwhile, helical piers are best for properties that have loose or weak soil under their foundation and can be installed at angles. Finally, slab piers are suitable for poured concrete foundations.
Scranton and Wilkes-Barre Concrete Lifting and Repair
The same processes that can impact your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre property’s foundation also pose a risk to the exterior concrete surfaces around your home. In fact, your driveway, sidewalks, and exterior patios are more exposed than your property’s foundation (most of which is buried below the frost line), which means that they can become damaged before issues like soil saturation and erosion impact your foundation. This makes sunken, uneven, or damaged exterior concrete an excellent warning sign for future foundation problems.
The team here at Baker’s Waterproofing is experienced in dealing with damaged concrete surfaces in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in ways that suit the needs and situation. Unlike other concrete repair specialists, we do not use older solutions like mudjacking. While some of these solutions can be useful in certain situations, they tend to be far less effective, far more invasive, and generally messier than modern approaches that perform the same task.
Our team favors SettleStop PolyRenewal™ polyurethane foam injection as a concrete lifting and stabilization method because of its minimally invasive, effective, and speedy nature. SettleStop PolyRenewal™ foam can be tailored to suit almost any situation and can even be used in conjunction with slab piers when the situation calls for it. One of the biggest benefits of SettleStop PolyRenewal™ foam is the fact that it sets to 90% rigidity in just an hour. Better yet, this foam is inert and stable, so it won’t leach chemicals into your Scranton or Wilkes-Barre property’s yard!
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About Waterproofing, Crawl Spaces & Foundation Repair in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Metro Area
While the soil around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre is fairly stable and has good drainage capabilities, exceedingly high levels of saturation, heavy rainfall, and flooding have the capability to cause movement in the soil. In fact, they can even wash the soil away and lead to craters and mounds forming where the ground was previously flat. This is a process known as soil washout, and it has serious implications for any home.
Unlike its wind-based cousin, erosion, soil washout can take place above and below the ground. This makes it a far more potent and unpredictable process that can undermine the foundation of any property when given the time and opportunity. As such, it is important to know the signs of soil washout so that you can act quickly to protect your home. If you ignore the signs, then you could end up facing issues far more serious than a few sunken slabs. In fact, washouts can even cause large sinkholes in serious cases!
The most obvious sign of soil washout, of course, is the presence of soil deposits on your exterior concrete surfaces after heavy rainfall or periods of flooding. Likewise, the presence of craters and mounds in your yard are telling and indicate that the soil is unstable in some way. Finally, you can look for exposed sections of foundation and gaps beneath the edges of exterior concrete slabs and surfaces. These are all early signs of washout that can help you to act before damage takes root!
Foundation damage is one of the most serious issues that can affect any property. Damage to a property’s foundation will grow at an exponential rate and has the capacity to undermine every other part of the home. As such, it is incredibly important to act decisively when you see signs of foundation damage (for example, cracking, dampness, pooling water, and unevenness in your floors or walls). There are homeowners who prefer to wait until a problem has become impossible to ignore before acting, but this is a bad idea when it comes to foundation issues.
The dangers of waiting until foundation damage spreads are many, but the most obvious and worrisome is the likelihood that the problem will become more severe if left unattended. Structural problems, in general, are unlikely to become stable without intervention, but foundation damage almost always grows at an exponential rate until professional intervention deals with the underlying issues. Secondly, there is a very high risk of foundation damage causing secondary or tertiary issues to form within your home. So, to put it simply, waiting will make repairs more time-consuming, more costly, and far more complex.
The benefits of acting quickly, as you might imagine, are a reduction in the cost of repairs, a smoother and simpler process, and the prevention of avoidable damage to your home. There is another benefit, however, and that is the maintenance of a generally healthier and more comfortable environment inside your home. This means there will be less chance of cosmetic damage, mold formation, and your energy efficiency levels should stay relatively high (unless your appliances are very old or in need of repair).
SettleStop PolyRenewal™ foam injection is one of the most effective and widely used concrete lifting and stabilization products on the market today and for good reason! When compared to older, more traditional repair methods like mudjacking, polyurethane foam is less messy, easier to install, less likely to overburden already weak soil, and cures far more quickly than the slurry used in mudjacking. This makes it a very effective and stable solution – that is, when installed by a skilled professional.
SettleStop PolyRenewal™ polyurethane foam can be used in two main ways. Firstly, it can be used alone to lift and secure individual concrete slabs or small structures and surfaces. Secondly, it can be used in conjunction with more robust measures, like slab piers, in order to provide extra support and fill voids that have been left under previously sunken structures and surfaces. This makes SettleStop PolyRenewal™ a highly versatile and adaptable solution.
Whichever capacity it is being used in, SettleStop PolyRenewal™ has a relatively straightforward installation process. First, holes are drilled into the damaged surface so that injection ports can be installed. After this, the two-part foam will be mixed to give the right level of expansion and force. Once it is injected into the void under the sunken or damaged surface, the process of lifting will be carefully monitored to ensure that the slab or surface is raised to its original position (no higher). Once this has been done, the injection ports will be removed, and the foam will be allowed to set. This process should leave no immediately noticeable trace once the injection sites have been cleaned and tidied.
In truth, helical piers and push piers are much the same in terms of their effectiveness and the results that they offer. Both forms of foundation piers undertake the same work using the same principles. Where they differ, however, is in their deployment. Each form of foundation pier is best suited to a different kind of soil and property. Ensuring that you have the right type of foundation pier for your home is key to getting the best results.
Push piers, sometimes also called resistance piers, are long, straight foundation piers made up of hollow steel beams. As the name suggests, they are pushed into the ground to seek load-bearing soil below the frost line and will use this to support the weight of your property. They work best in heavier homes and cannot be used if a property’s foundation footing is fragmented. Likewise, they cannot be installed at an angle and must be perfectly straight.
Helical piers, by contrast, are essentially screwed into the ground and use the torque produced by this process to bite into the soil in a way that allows them to support a property and spread its weight. These piers are best for light properties and structures that have fragmented foundation footings. They can also be installed at an angle. Installation of either pier is a specialist task, however, so you should always work with professionals when considering either form of foundation pier to make sure that you get the right solution for your home.
The basement is one of the most vulnerable parts of any home for a number of reasons, and your basement walls, in particular, are subject to a level of pressure that others are not: hydrostatic pressure. Hydrostatic pressure, to put it simply, is the pressure exerted by the weight of the soil around your home (as well as the water that it contains), and it is one of the most common causes of bowing basement walls.
Most basement walls are made of concrete block or poured concrete. These materials are wonderfully strong and have an incredibly load-bearing capacity. However, their tensile strength is a fraction of their compressive strength. To put it simply, these materials cannot stretch or bend, and as hydrostatic pressure exerts force laterally, they are very vulnerable to damage when it rises beyond a certain level. Many things can cause a rise in the level of hydrostatic pressure around a home, including plumbing floods, heavy rain, and drainage malfunctions.
Of course, hydrostatic pressure is not the only potential cause of bowing walls in a basement. Structural damage such as foundation settlement or subsidence can also lead to bowing walls by causing the weight of your property to be unevenly distributed. Likewise, there is a chance that defects in the design of your property or the materials used to make your basement walls will cause them to be weak and lead to damage like cracking, buckling, and bowing. Whatever the cause, of course, this is a serious issue that you should not ignore. Allowing a bowing wall to grow unchecked could lead to dampness and humidity, mold formation, and, in serious cases, the collapse of the wall in question.
While this is a simple question, the answer can be complex. To keep it short and sweet: most forms of mold are benign, if not exactly healthy to have in your home, but a small number of mold species are toxic. Identifying those types of molds that are actively dangerous can be difficult, however, because mold and fungal growths come in thousands of species. The fungal growths that occur as a result of wood rot, for example, can look similar to white forms of mold but are generally not harmful to humans unless ingested (though they will wreak havoc on your home).
The type of mold that you should be most worried about, however, is black mold. Black mold is highly toxic to humans and animals; it can cause serious side effects even when the level of exposure is small. Black mold can cause side effects such as rashes, skin irritation, infections, dizziness, breathlessness, respiratory issues, and, in some very serious cases, seizures. More serious side effects are rare, of course, and tend to only occur after prolonged exposure… unless there are underlying issues.
As is so often the case, those who are already vulnerable are at the most risk from exposure to any kind of mold but particularly when exposed to black mold in any serious or prolonged capacity. Those most at risk are the elderly, very young children, those who have underlying respiratory issues such as asthma, bronchitis, or emphysema, and those who have impaired immune systems. While exposure to black mold can be unpleasant and debilitating for anyone in large doses, even a small amount of exposure can be lethal to people who have underlying conditions. That makes it necessary to seek out waterproofing measures that can protect your home from falling victim to this kind of infestation.
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Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Metro Area
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Albrightsville, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for concrete lifting, leveling and concrete repair in Albrightsville!
Archbald, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Archbald!
Benton, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Benton!
Berwick, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Berwick!
Blakeslee, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Blakeslee!
Canton, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Canton!
Carbon County, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Carbon County!
Carbondale, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Carbondale!
Clark Summit, PA
Call Baker’s Waterproofing today for your no cost, no obligation estimate for basement waterproofing, foundation repair, crawl space repair & concrete lifting in Clark Summit!
Harrisburg Local Office
Contact UsBaker’s Waterproofing
315 Point Township Drive
Northumberland, PA 17857
Hours of Operation
Monday – Thursday: 7 am – 9 pm
Friday: 7 am – 7 pm
Saturday: 8 am – 8 pm