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Lafayette, IN

Indiana Foundation Service offers homeowners a way to permanently stop their foundation settling problem in the form of various piering systems.

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Basement and Crawl Space Waterproofing in Lafayette

A basement or crawl space is typically the most humid part of a house. There are many ways in which water or water vapor can enter the basement or crawl space, and sometimes it’s a little difficult for homeowners to keep track of it all. Your pipes, the window, the soil, the groundwater, yard flooding—it’s hard to know where to start with keeping the basement or crawl space of your Lafayette home dry.

This is why you need professional waterproofing solutions. Indiana Foundation Service can offer the homeowners of Lafayette, IN, a multitude of waterproofing solutions. These solutions all work together to make keeping your basement or crawl space dry a seamless operation. Instead of taking out water by the bucket-load, consider one of our AquaStop sump pumps. They automatically drain any water that flows into the basement or crawl space and pump it out.

Instead of putting a portable dehumidifier in your basement or crawl space and emptying out the tank, you can let us install our dehumidifier. Unlike commercial dehumidifiers, this industry-grade dehumidifier is capable of collecting almost 100 pints of water daily. Best of all, it connects to the sump pump so that the water automatically gets drained away.

Instead of having cold, damp, concrete walls, we can install a vapor barrier in your Lafayette home. It blocks water vapor from entering your basement via the walls, keeping the air clean and dry. For crawl spaces, the vapor barrier can be used to encapsulate the entire area and keep it closed off from the outside. All of this and more is available through us, your local waterproofing experts.

Lafayette Foundation Repair

helical pier with gram and concrete on soil

A foundation is the last thing on a homeowner’s mind when thinking of home improvement. However, you should still inspect it often for signs of settling. Settling is common in places like Lafayette because of the clay soils of the region.

Foundation settling occurs when the home can no longer be supported by the soil layer below. As the soil shrinks and expands, it becomes more unstable until it gives way. The weight of the house doesn’t help, since soils shift easily when under pressure. If you believe your Lafayette home is settling, then check your basement or crawl space, since the most obvious signs will be there.

Foundations flood a lot more easily when settled, since the tilting opens the gates for groundwater to get through. Depending on how severe the settling is, you’ll see cracks along the basement walls and floor, a sign that will persist upstairs as well if the settling advances. Other problem signs you can spot upstairs are uneven floors and jammed doors and windows. To fix this issue, Indiana Foundation Service uses helical piers or push piers to support the house permanently. Unlike concrete piers, helical and push piers are capable of potentially lifting the foundation and evening it out.

But foundation settling is only one of the ways a foundation could fail. Bowing basement walls is another common issue in Lafayette, one that is caused by hydrostatic pressure. With the use of wall anchors or wall braces, we can stop wall bowing as well.

Concrete Lifting in Lafayette

You can take the time to make your patio or pool deck pretty, but if the slabs are settling, it will distract from the decorations. Slabs settle due to soil erosion, which defines the change that soil goes through when met with water. Other elements, like ice and wind, can cause erosion as well, but in Lafayette, IN, it’s mostly water. During the summer and spring in Lafayette, when the thunderstorms are frequent, the soil under the slab gets saturated with water and expands. When it’s dry, it shrinks and leaves a gap under the slab.

During the winter, the snow that melts on your Lafayette property also causes erosion, which is why it’s not uncommon to see multiple slabs settling in a single property. When faced with a settled slab, some homeowners believe that it needs to be replaced, but this isn’t always the case. While it is true that a settled slab that is extremely broken up will need to go, most of the time, the slab can be lifted with SettleStop PolyRenewal™.

SettleStop PolyRenewal™ is an innovative and effective concrete lifting method. There are a few different concrete lifting solutions out there, but SettleStop PolyRenewal™ is the best out of all of them. This is because the material itself has a unique way of interacting with the soil. It’s only four to six pounds per cubic foot, which is a lot lighter than the cement used in mudjacking. This means that when the foam is expanding under the slab, it doesn’t disrupt the surrounding soil.


Polyurethane does not leach harmful chemicals into the soil. It doesn’t have any of the carcinogenic chemicals that are so commonly used for furniture either. It’s durable, waterproof, and does not erode over time. The same cannot be said for other types of concrete lifting methods, making SettleStop PolyRenewal™ a permanent solution. If you are interested, then give us a call for a free inspection.

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FAQs

About Waterproofing, Crawl Spaces & Foundation Repair in Lafayette

Efflorescence refers to the white, powdery substance on the surface of concrete. Sometimes, Lafayette homeowners will confuse efflorescence for mold. Mold is a microorganism while efflorescence is just salt deposits. You can actually feel it in the texture that it’s just minerals; if you touch it or scrape some of it off, it will feel grainy. Efflorescence is not dangerous like mold is, but it could potentially indicate that your concrete is getting wet too frequently.

There are two forms of efflorescence: primary efflorescence and secondary efflorescence. Primary efflorescence is a result of there being too much moisture in the cement mixture. As the cement cures, the water rises to the surface of the concrete and brings with it all the salts from the cement. It usually manifests itself between 48 to 72 hours after the concrete is poured. Primary efflorescence cannot be prevented by homeowners since it’s a result of something that happens during the production process.

Secondary efflorescence occurs when the concrete is exposed to water. When the water eventually evaporates, it brings up the concrete’s salts and minerals to the surface. Efflorescence on your outdoor slabs is a given, since they get exposed to rainwater all the time. The stains can easily be removed by getting them scraped off. However, if your basement walls have efflorescence stains, it means you have a moisture problem on your hands.

Seeing a wooden joist infested with wood rot can be alarming. Luckily, there are many solutions to the problem, and the joist doesn’t always need to be replaced. If you do manage to get the repairs done, then you might also want to consider waterproofing your Lafayette home’s crawl space. Wood rot on its own is troubling, but when you take into account that it’s an indicator of a much bigger problem, you start to realize that you have some work to do in your foundation.

Wood rot is caused by the existence of moisture in a crawl space. Fungi are a microorganism that eats away at the wood in order to grow. Some fungal growths, like dry rot, don’t require much moisture and can pull it from afar. Even if you don’t think that your crawl space is humid, the dry rot on your joists says otherwise. A crawl space can have dampness issues for multiple reasons, which is why it’s important for you to have more than one waterproofing solution.

To combat wood rot specifically, you need to focus on solving the dampness issue. This can be done with a vapor barrier and a dehumidifier. A vapor barrier can be used to encapsulate your crawl space and make sure that no amount of water vapor can get through. If there is any sort of humidity, then the dehumidifier will be able to collect it and send it to the sump pump. These two products working together will make sure that you don’t have any more wood rot problems.

Frost walls are insulation panels that are placed below ground along the periphery of the foundation, and they are usually placed on both sides of the wall. In cold climates, any soil above the frost line will freeze and harm your foundation. Frost walls are put into place to protect the foundation walls from the freeze-thaw effect by acting as a barrier between the soil and the wall. Because of the frost wall, many homes are able to avoid certain issues associated with the freeze-thaw effect, such as excessive soil displacement, wall damage, leaking, drainage problems, and settling.

Frost walls sound a lot like crawl space insulation, but they aren’t. They are specifically designed and installed to protect foundation walls, not the entire crawl space. They are mostly built underground, so the majority of your crawl space walls will still be uninsulated, even with a frost wall. This is a big part of why many homeowners don’t insulate their crawl space until they are drowning in high energy bills while breathing in moldy air. The purpose of insulation and the purpose of a frost wall can oftentimes get confused, so homeowners believe their crawl space is fine.

However, getting actual insulation is crucial if you live in Lafayette, IN. Keeping your crawl space warm seems like an odd thing to do, but because your foundation dictates so much of the air quality in your home, you need to invest in insulation. Doing so will prevent mold spores from infiltrating your home, eliminate strange odors, and reduce your home’s energy consumption. Once you’ve noticed how fresh the air in your home has gotten, you’ll have understood why crawl space insulation is so important.

One of the many advantages SettleStop PolyRenewal™ has over other concrete lifting solutions is how easy the whole procedure is. When a concrete slab settles, professionals will drill multiple holes into the slab to inject the polyurethane foam. These holes are extremely small, so we can work on structurally weak concrete without worrying about breaking it. The foam is injected, and, as it expands, it lifts the slab and evens it out. Once the expert installers are happy with the results, the holes are filled up and the foam is left to cure.

Curing takes only 15 to 30 minutes for polyurethane. Afterwards, you can use your Lafayette home’s newly repaired concrete as you normally would. Because the holes drilled are so small, once they are covered up, the concrete looks untampered with. Depending on the size of the repair job, the entire operation can take less than a day. Quite impressive for a repair job that will last many years!

The machinery used to inject the foam is compact, so the job can be done in places that would traditionally be hard to reach. As you can see, everything about SettleStop PolyRenewal™–from the way it’s installed to the way it supports the concrete–is superior to mudjacking. Mudjacking tends to be a lot cheaper than polyurethane foam injections, which is partially why it’s still so used as a repair method. However, investing in the right concrete lifting method will save you money in the long run. A less-than-ideal repair method is more likely to fail after a short while, so if you want to pay for repairs just once, have the experts from Indiana Foundation Service install SettleStop PolyRenewal™.

Vapor barriers can be installed on basement walls and used to encapsulate crawl spaces to stop water vapor from entering your foundation. To many, vapor barriers like AquaStop CrawlSeal™ and AquaStop WallSeal™ look like simple plastic sheets. Because of this, many DIYers attempt to replicate the results of vapor barriers by applying standard plastic sheets on their walls. This is not a good idea and does nothing to waterproof your basement because a vapor barrier is not the same as a simple plastic sheet.

AquaStop CrawlSeal™ and AquaStop WallSeal™ are not made of the same plastic as standard, commercial sheets. They are made of polyethylene, a material that is molecularly denser than normal plastic. Because they are so dense, they are capable of blocking off water particles a lot better than a normal plastic sheet. Plastic may seem like it’s waterproof, but in an overly humid space like a basement, it does nothing to stop water vapor. If you use a plastic sheet, then you will still have humidity problems; so, it’s better just to call your Lafayette basement and crawl space waterproofing experts to install a vapor barrier.

Polyethylene is among the most durable plastics in the world and can be exposed to water for decades without breaking apart. Not only that, but also it does not harbor any mold, making it the perfect material to use as a vapor barrier for a crawl space or basement. You might be thinking that your money would be better spent using your own solutions, but you have to remember that the products used by professionals are designed specifically for basements and crawl spaces. If anything other than these specific products are used, then you won’t get anywhere.

A dehumidifier can make all the difference when you want a dry basement or crawl space. Like most of Indiana, Lafayette doesn’t really have a dry season. It rains pretty consistently throughout the year, with most of the annual precipitation concentrated during the summer and spring due to thunderstorms. Because of all the rain, there is a very persistent humidity in the air of this city. The climate definitely contributes to the amount of moisture in your basement or crawl space.

The humid air can make its way into your basement or crawl space due to the stack effect. If you have other waterproofing solutions in place, then they won’t be able to do anything about the humidity. The only device capable of doing something would be a dehumidifier. Humidity in a basement or crawl space promotes mold growth, which is something you’re going to want to avoid at all cost. Even if you don’t have any standing water in your basement or crawl space, there are certain types of molds capable of surviving as long as there is a bit of moisture in the air.

Our dehumidifier is perfect for homeowners who want something powerful and reliable. Our dehumidifier is able to take in almost 100 pints of water a day and can connect to a sump pump, so you won’t even have to dump the water out yourself. Most dehumidifiers are loud, but ours has an insulted internal fan; so, it runs quieter than conventional dehumidifiers. Because it purifies the air in your basement or crawl space, it also will have an effect throughout the rest of your home, resulting in fresh, clean air all the time.

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Doug was helpful in sharing information, measuring, and pricing for our concrete leveling project.

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Garrett Reed

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Very nice people, Eugene Landry came out to talk to us. He was very informative and helpful.

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Vicki Ward

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Steven T. & Jacob E. did a great job installing floor gutters & sump pumps in my basement, and sealing up the crawl space. Thank You.

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Aron Oler

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He took the time to show us the laser measurements and explain the process with a thorough PowerPoint.

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Cody F and James V P were very efficient, prompt, and courteous while having to work in cold, rainy weather.

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Find Your Service Area

Lafayette, IN

Whiteland Local Office

Indiana Foundation Service

624 North Front Street
Whiteland, IN 46184

Hours of Operation

Monday – Thursday: 7 am – 9 pm
Friday: 7 am – 7 pm
Saturday: 8 am – 2pm

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Foundation Repair, Basement Waterproofing & Crawl Space Repair and Encapsulation, Serving Central Indiana & Indianapolis

INDIANA FOUNDATION SERVICE, WHITELAND, IN

624 North Front Street
Whiteland, IN 46184