Crack in Basement Wall
Here is one of the larger cracks that had formed in the basement wall. The picture does a pretty good job at showing how the wall is bowing almost directly in the center of the wall. This is usually caused by "hydrostatic pressure", which is essentially pressure on the wall caused by water pushing against it.
End of the Wall Crack
This photo shows off the very end of the crack in the basement wall. The crack didn't quite go across, although it was very close to it. You can see in the photo that the crack stops about five to ten feet from the end of the wall. However, in future you'll see a wall anchor past this point. This is because we want to have an equal distribution of weight and pressure throughout the wall, so that no further problems arise.
Wall Seperation
This is a pretty telling photo, as to how serious this issue was in this basement. This shows quite a bit of separation from these two adjacent walls. The light you see coming through the top of the crack is actually from the outside, while the photo was taken from the inside. This is extremely dangerous and needed to be taken care of as soon as our crew could install the anchors. A bonus on this picture is the rod that connects the two plates, which can be seen in the lower part of the picture, being pushed through the wall.
Hole for Wall Anchor
This is a closeup of one of the holes where the outside wall anchor plates were installed. These are important to get right because they provide the support for the wall anchor on the other side of the metal rod.
Several Holes for Outside Wall Anchor Plate
This picture shows all of the installed holes for the outside plates of the wall anchor. The dirt is excavated and carefully placed, so that when we leave, there is almost no trace of us being there. We do our very best to disturb as little as we possibly can while doing the work.
Installed Wall Anchors
Here are a few of the installed wall anchors, and the crew had already began tightening them. You can tell this by how much the duct tape has risen up. Before the wall anchors were install, several pieces of duct tape were laid flat over the crack in order to see how significant the change is, when all of the work is complete.
Installed Wall Anchors
Here is the wall that was after the wall anchors were installed. The difference is absolutely amazing, because the wall actually resembles a real wall, rather than a caving in pile of bricks. Even better news is that over the months and years, these wall anchors can usually be tightened more and more, in order to straighten the wall even further.
More Installed Wall Anchors
Here is another view of some of the installed wall anchors. This area is actually the same as the second photo in this album, so you can see how the wall anchors go all the way across, as mentioned in that picture. This photo also shows just how much of a difference that these wall anchors made in this home.
Installed Anchors Before Tightening
This photo shows off what the basement wall looked like after the wall anchors had been installed, but before they had been tightened. In this picture, you can actually see the curvature of the wall, which shows just how bad of shape this was basement wall was in.
Installation Crew Working Hard
These wall anchors are tightened by hand, so it takes a lot of work to get them in the correct spot! Here you have one of our installers working hard to make sure that these anchors are as tight as they can be!