Porch Repair

If your porch is leaning, cracked or sinking? Does it simply need a refresh to give your home the curb appeal you desire for Spring? AMC911 is a team of experienced, Class A foundation repair specialists who lean on decades of experience in structural and foundation repair. We take a lot of pride in the many porches of Hampton Roads that we’ve restored the structural integrity of as well as rejuvenated in the process.

Why is My Porch Sinking?

Over the course of 20 or 30 years your porch could look fine… Then one day you notice it’s starting to sink to one side. It can sink towards the home or away from the home depending on the way the soil and fill beneath it are settling. Once it starts to sink in one direction, the porch is no longer level. This means any water that collects on the porch top will run in the direction of the slope and gather there. If the porch is sloping into the home, water will wreak havoc on your home’s foundation and your porch’s foundation. The porch will quickly deteriorate and the home’s foundation will be vulnerable to water intrusion. The leading cause of foundation failure from what we see is water… Like to the 10th power. Once your porch starts to go, it will go fast! If it starts sinking into your house, then it’s all over. It’s critical to have a trustworthy foundation repair connection in your pocket when you see signs of foundation failure in your porch or main structure. AMC911 has been helping our neighbors in Hampton Roads for decades..

Porch Leaning to One Side

If your porch top is leaning or sloping , it’s most likely because it has a failing foundation. So what causes a failing foundation? At AMC911, we find more often than not the major cause of a leaning porch is because it was built with some type of fill that has organic material in it that begins to rot. We see a lot of new construction homes that are built improperly. The house goes up first and the mason lays the wall for the porch and it becomes a giant trash field for the construction workers while the rest of the main home goes up. Anything from lunch bags to plastic bottles to spare wood and bricks gets thrown into the pit of the porch wall. All of the debris should be removed from this area prior to the porch being filled in and the dirt should be tamped down. Unfortunately as you’ve guessed it, that doesn’t happen 9 times out of 10. We see it in new construction all of the time. The trash gets covered by dirt, and mixed in with the porch infill. Over time, the debris will break down and decay causing soil movement.

Cracks in Porch

When concrete loses moisture, cracks will form. This is the most common cause of cracking in porch tops. Porch tops are concrete pads that sit on top of sand or dirt usually. Moisture is contained in the soil beneath your porch, so just like your home’s foundation is susceptible to settlement, so is your porch foundation. Furthermore, porches are open to the elements typically, meaning wet weather will likely cause shrinkage cracks over time as the concrete porch top as water evaporates.

Brick Steps Separating from Porch

When the ground beneath your porch steps gets wet, it absorbs water like a sponge. Heavy structures such as brick stairs can separate from the porch top in severe cases. Pushing piers requires specialized hydraulic equipment and technical expertise.

Piering Solutions for Porches by AMC911

For severely settling porches, it might be necessary to have a CMU pier installed or a deep driven push pier installed to support the foundation. Sometimes we add a push pier to the foundation wall if it’s rotating away from the structure.

Polyfoam Porch Top Lifting by AMC911

Concrete porch tops can be rejuvenated with the injection of polyfoam. Polyfoam or polyurethane injection is a crack sealer and also used to provide moderate lift for sinking porch top slabs. The only downside to polyfoam injection is that the solution will not provide a permanent solution to settlement like deep driven push piers will.

Porch Foundation Restoration & Rejuvenation by AMC911

We offer not only structural repair solutions for settling porches, but also solutions that will lend your home a more refreshed and rejuvenated look. Your porch is sometimes the first thing people see when they step foot onto your property. You wouldn’t trust an amateur to perform a face lift on you, would you? Don’t trust anyone other than AMC911 for your masonry repair. We lean on decades of foundation repair and masonry experience, so we guarantee real craftsmanship.

Porch Repair