BEAM

With a slab foundation, the beam is the thick part of the concrete slab, intended to support the weight above it without sagging or bending. With the proper steel reinforcement, most slab beams, also called grade beam, will not sag with supports no further than 8 feet apart, depending on the weight.

BEDROCK, or POINT OF REFUSAL a hard, solid earthen area that lies beneath the surface soil, that usually requires blasting or jack hammering to be excavated.

BELL, or BELL BOTTOM PIER a concrete constructed pier that spreads outwards, wider than the pier shaft, producing more bearing support at the bottom, such as a spread footing.

BENCHMARK a reference point with a fixed location and height that does not change. The foundation can be compared to the benchmark and a determination can be made if the foundation is moving up or down.

CANTILEVERED means supported only at one end. Some structures can be designed to be cantilevered, and the unsupported end will not sag. In some cases, however, the structure is not designed properly to be cantilevered and supports are required to support the cantilevered end. Oftentimes, a girder under the house is cantilevered, and needs a support at the end for the foundation to be leveled and all sags taken out.

CONCRETE a hard substance made of sand, rocks, cement, and water. Concrete can have other ingredients added for color, resistance to water or heat, and other additives. Any additive can potentially weaken the concrete. Most foundations are designed with concrete poured at 2500 psi. This is also called 5 sack cement, because it should have about 5 sacks of cement per cubic yard of concrete, insuring it’s strength. 6 sack would be about 4,000 psi. Too much sand, or too little cement, will weaken the concrete.

DEAD MAN a large weight, made usually of concrete, used as an anchor and usually buried underground, to keep a wall from pulling away from the hill. It is also called a foundation pier made up of a large block of concrete under the structure that cannot be adjusted or altered without breaking it out. It is the most undesirable of all foundation repair techniques and repair methods, because it cannot be adjusted.

DIFFERENTIAL SETTLEMENT means that different parts of the structure are settling at different rates, causing cracking and pulling apart of the structure. Is different than subsidence.

ENGINEER a highly skilled and educated designer and planner of various fields. In Texas, to be called an engineer, one must first have a degree in engineering, then work for 4 years under the guidance of a registered engineer, then be approved by the State Engineering Board. After the degree in engineering, one can be called a graduate engineer only. A foundation engineer is one that specializes in the planning and construction of foundations, but is usually under the auspices of civil engineering. A structural engineer is primarily concerned with the mathematics and physics of structures. A civil engineer is involved in the planning and building of bridges, highways, drainage facilities, canals, and foundations. To repair a foundation, the most qualified engineer is one who has both experience and education in civil engineering.

Foundation repair experts must understand all the techniques of building construction, common structural defects, drainage problems and repair methods, different foundation repair techniques, and some knowledge of soil hydrology and the local geology. A good civil engineer must be prepared to crawl under a structure to inspect for defects and drainage.

Engineers not usually qualified for foundation and drainage repairs are mechanical engineers, aerospace engineers, software engineers, and electrical engineers.

ENGINEER’S REPORT an inspection of a structure, residential or commercial, whereas a licensed engineer registered with the State from which the structure lies, completes a visual inspection of the structure, detailing what he or she believes are flagrant defects of the structure. A normal engineer’s report will list observations, make a conclusion from those observations, and make detailed recommendations how those flagrant defects should be corrected. An engineer’s report is sometimes limited to the economic condition of the area surrounding the structure and other factors. An engineer’s report is limited to the substructure, and does not usually concern the superstructure. One engineer’s opinion may differ from another, depending on what each may call a flagrant defect, and one engineer may recommend a foundation repair that may be different from another engineer.

EXPANSION JOINT a flexible joint between two parts of a structure to allow for expansion and contraction of the two parts, preventing structural distress.

FILLING THE VOID a process by which a large void is filled, but not necessarily with pressure. In this process, a large area of a void can be filled quickly, leaving the last little bit for polyurethane injection.

FILTER FABRIC a material that allows water to pass through, but not soil particles or rocks.

FLAT WORK a section of concrete that is about 4 inches thick.

FLOATING SLAB a slab usually about 4″ thick inside a foundation wall but not attached to the wall or foundation. A floating slab is usually just poured on grade and has no piers underneath. Many are constructed with little or no reinforcement and simply provide a concrete floor to walk upon instead of dirt.
Most all pier and beam homes have a floating slab in the garage. The only way to raise a floating slab that has settled is by polyurethane injection.

The original idea of installing a floating slab is that it was thought it would “float” with the swelling soils instead of the expansive soil crowning the floor. However, it is of poor design and should not be used if possible.

If you don’t want swelling soils, install drainage. Water causes the soil to swell. A monolithic slab is better than a floating slab, and its design has good structural integrity.

FOOTING a concrete slab, usually 8 inches to a foot thick, placed under the perimeter or the interior of a foundation. A continuous footing is a concrete foundation footing that runs around the edges of a structure.

FASCIA (upper exterior trim board) also called a frieze board, a horizontal, decorative band of wood around a house where the siding meets the roof members. Where fascia boards are separated at a corner is a common sign of foundation settlement of that corner. The corner of the wall will rotate outwards as the structure settles, pulling the fascia boards apart.

GRADE BEAM the perimeter band of concrete thicker and deeper than the remainder of the concrete slab foundation, or the interior strip of the concrete slab foundation that is thicker and deeper to allow for the support of the above loads. The grade beams will support above loads with less bending and deflection than the usual interior of the slab, which is usually only about 4 inches thick. Most grade beams under residential construction are about 10 inches thick and about 2 feet tall. If a load-bearing wall was placed on a 4-inch thick of slab, without a beam, it might likely sag downwards in the future.

HELICAL PIER, the HELICAL SCREW ANCHOR a foundation repair system that acts like a screw and is screwed into the soil or rock, meeting enough skin friction that it should support most loads. However, in clay soils, once the clay shrinks in dry conditions, the skin friction decreases, causing the helical pier to fail. Helical piers can sometimes be successfully anchored into rock and used as a tieback for retaining walls but should never be used as a tieback when screwed into soil.

LOAD BEARING CAPACITY OF EARTHEN MATERIALS Solid rock 100 tons per square foot
Limestone 40
Sandstone 25
Soft rock 8
Compact Gravel 10
Loose Gravel 4
Hard clay 4
Soft clay 1
Coarse sand 3
Fine sand 1.5
Soft soil 1/2