The column between the doors on a two-door garage will crack if the foundation underneath it shifts, and a cracked garage column is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately. The garage column supports the roof of the garage along with any floors above your garage. If the column breaks, your garage and the floors above it will collapse.
In order to prevent a collapse from happening, you'll need to lift and stabilize the garage foundation to prevent the column from shifting. To learn more about why garage columns crack and how you can stop them from cracking, read on.
What Causes a Garage Column to Crack?
Before a concrete garage foundation is poured, the builder needs to compact the soil in order to prevent it from shifting because of the weight of the garage on top of it later. If the soil isn't compacted properly, the soil will start to shift once the garage is built, and the foundation will shift along with it.
When the garage foundation moves, the column between the two garage doors will start to move as well. Since garage columns are made from brick or concrete, they'll start to crack if they move at all. Stabilizing the garage foundation to prevent any more movement will protect the column and prevent the column from cracking and breaking apart.
How Do You Stabilize the Garage Foundation to Stop the Column From Cracking?
A professional foundation repair contractor will normally use helical piers to lift and stabilize your garage foundation. Helical piers look like very long steel screws, and they're driven deep into the soil by hydraulic equipment. The threads on the helical pier bite into the soil when it's driven into the earth, creating a great amount of tension that locks the pier in place.
Once the pier is in the ground, it will be attached to the garage foundation using a bracket. The bracket transfers the weight of the concrete slab to the helical piers, which provide much better support than the shifting soil underneath. Once supported by the piers, the foundation will stop shifting and the garage column will be protected from further damage. Afterward, the cracks in the garage column will be filled using mortar in order to make them less visible.
If you have a garage column that's starting to crack, call a professional foundation repair company in your area and have it inspected as soon as you can. If your foundation continues to shift, the weight-bearing column may break entirely, causing your garage roof to collapse. Stabilizing the garage foundation with helical piers will stop the damage in the column from becoming worse.
Contact a local foundation repair service to learn more.
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