Know If It's Actually Moving — Foundation Repair in Colorado Springs
Most of this industry sells fear, and in Colorado it sells the wrong fear. We measure the floor, read the crack pattern and tell you what is actually happening — including, about a third of the time, that nothing needs repairing.
Most Cracks Are Not the Ones That Matter
You can do most of this triage yourself, tonight, with a torch and a tape measure. We would rather you did.
Hairline vertical cracks — usually nothing
Poured concrete shrinks as it cures and almost every foundation gets fine vertical cracks in its first year or two. Under about a sixteenth of an inch, not widening, not leaking: that is concrete being concrete.
Horizontal cracks — call somebody
A crack running horizontally across a block or concrete wall means the wall is being pushed, usually by soil and water pressure outside it. This is the one that does not wait, and it is the one people ignore because it is tidy.
Stair-step cracks in block — depends
Following the mortar joints diagonally. Sometimes ordinary settlement that finished years ago, sometimes active movement. The width at each end and whether it has moved since last year is what decides it — which is why we date and photograph them.
Doors and windows sticking — a real signal
More telling than any single crack. A door that binds in spring and frees in autumn is seasonal soil movement; one that has got steadily worse for two years is not.
Sloping floors — measure, don't eyeball
Put a marble down. Then get a laser or a long level, because most floors are a bit off and the number that matters is how much it changes across a room, not whether it is perfectly flat.
The date on the crack is the evidence
Pencil a line at each end with today's date, photograph it with a coin for scale, and look again in six months. A crack that has not moved is a story that has already finished.
Here, the Foundation Usually Goes Up
Everywhere else the pitch is that your house is sinking. On the Front Range the characteristic failure is the opposite. Bentonite clay — a common component of our expansive soils — absorbs water and can swell to around eight times its volume, exerting uplift pressures over 15,000 pounds per square foot when the moisture content swings with snowmelt.
That distinction is not academic, because piers resist settlement and do nothing about heave. A firm that answers every foundation question with piers will sell you a system that cannot fix your problem, and you will not find out for two seasons. Heave is treated with moisture control, void space, drainage and sometimes overexcavation — none of which is as profitable as underpinning.
- ✓Elevation survey at 12-16 points, so up and down are measurable
- ✓Heave and settlement look identical from a photograph — they aren't
- ✓Piers are the answer to settlement, and only to settlement
- ✓Moisture, drainage and grading come before anything gets driven
What We Do
Foundation Inspection & Report
Elevation readings, crack mapping and photographs, written up whether or not there's anything to sell you.
Helical Pier Underpinning
Screwed to load-bearing strata with a torque log per pier. What Colorado's variable, expansive ground usually asks for.
Push Pier Underpinning
Driven hydraulically to bedrock using the house's own weight. Cheaper, and right where the soil below is firm and stable.
Heave & Slab Movement
Moisture control, void space and drainage. The problem piers can't solve, which is why most firms don't discuss it.
Crawl Space & Crack Repair
Epoxy and polyurethane injection where the crack is the whole problem — and we'll say when it is.
Drainage & Grading Correction
Downspout extensions, regrading and perimeter drainage. Frequently the entire fix, at a fraction of the price.
Foundations and the ground under them. We don't do the cosmetic repairs afterwards, and we'll recommend someone who does.
Helical, Push, or Neither
The choice is made by the soil and the load, not by what we have on the truck. Here is how it actually gets decided.
Helical piers · $1,400-$2,200 each
Steel shafts with screw plates, wound into competent soil with the torque recorded for every pier — torque correlates with capacity, so you get a number rather than an opinion. They work in soft, variable and expansive ground and in tight access, which is most of the Front Range. A typical corner needs six to twelve.
Push piers · $1,100-$1,700 each
Steel driven hydraulically using the weight of the house itself until it reaches bedrock or firm strata. Cheaper, and genuinely the better answer where the soil below is stable and the structure is heavy enough to drive against. Where it isn't, they stop short and do very little.
Neither · often the honest answer
If the movement is heave, seasonal, or finished years ago, piers are the wrong tool and we will tell you so. About a third of our inspections end here — with a drainage fix, a re-measure date, or simply a written note that this crack is cosmetic and you can stop worrying about it.
What the warranty is actually worth
Ours is 25 years on the piers and it transfers to whoever buys the house next, in writing, without a fee. Read that clause on any quote you're comparing — a lifetime warranty that dies when you sell is worth nothing at exactly the moment you need it.
Our Inspectors Aren't Paid on What They Sell
In most of this industry the person who inspects your foundation is paid a commission on the work they write up. Nobody sets out to be dishonest, but if your mortgage depends on finding problems, you will find problems. That single fact explains most of what people hate about foundation repair.
Ours are salaried, and the report is the same document whether it ends in a quote or in 'this is cosmetic, here is why'. We publish the no-repair-needed rate — about one in three — precisely because it is the number a commission-driven firm can never show you.
- ✓Salaried inspectors — no commission on the repair they recommend
- ✓About one inspection in three ends with no repair needed
- ✓Second opinions welcome, and we'll read the other quote with you
- ✓The report is yours whether or not you ever call us again
Foundations We've Measured and Fixed
What People Say About Being Told to Wait
Two companies quoted piers at eighteen and twenty-two thousand. Calderwood measured the floor, looked at the crack pattern and said it was heave, that piers would do nothing for it, and that we should fix the downspouts and re-measure in the spring. It has not moved since.
The report came with elevation readings at fourteen points and photos of every crack with a scale next to it. My structural engineer said it was the first contractor report he'd read that he didn't have to repeat himself over.
We were selling. They told us plainly which parts we had to disclose and which were cosmetic, and put it in writing so the buyer's inspector had something to read. That honesty closed the sale rather than killing it.
Questions Before the Inspection
How do I know if a crack is urgent?
Horizontal cracks across a wall are the urgent ones — that wall is being pushed. Anything wider than about a quarter inch, anything leaking, and anything that has visibly moved since you last looked deserves a call. Fine vertical cracks that have not changed in a year almost never do.
The doors stick every spring. Is that the foundation?
Probably seasonal soil movement rather than damage — Front Range clay takes on water in spring and gives it back in late summer, and the house moves with it. What matters is whether it comes back. A door that has got steadily worse across two or three years is telling you something different.
What does foundation repair cost?
Piers run $1,100 to $2,200 each depending on type and depth, and a typical affected corner takes six to twelve — call it $9,000 to $25,000. Drainage-only fixes are frequently under $3,000. The range is wide because the answer genuinely varies, and anyone quoting before they've measured is guessing.
Will piers fix my heaving slab?
No, and this is the single most important thing on this page. Piers hold a foundation up; they do nothing to stop expansive clay pushing it up. Heave is managed with moisture control, void space, drainage and sometimes overexcavation. If someone has quoted piers for a heave problem, get a second opinion.
We're buying. Should we walk away?
Usually not. Almost every older house on the Front Range has moved a little, and most of it is finished. What matters is whether it is still moving and what it would cost to stabilise — both of which are answerable in a ninety-minute inspection and are far better negotiated than feared.
We're selling. Do we have to disclose it?
Colorado sellers owe buyers a duty to disclose latent defects they know about, so if you have been told there is movement, yes. In practice a written report and a transferable warranty sell a house better than silence — the buyer's inspector will find it anyway, and then it looks like concealment.
Get It Measured Before You Get It Quoted
Ninety minutes, a written report with the readings in it, and a genuine chance the answer is that nothing needs doing.