Rain and drought are not the only to types of weather conditions that can negatively affect the stability of your home’s foundation. The winter is another time where you want to take extra precautions to try and avoid any potential foundation damage. Here is some helpful information on how winter weather can affect your foundation and some ways to prevent damage from occurring.
Winter Weather and Your Foundation
Even in areas where winters are fairly mild, such as Texas, temperature changes can always affect your home’s foundation. Dropping temperatures can lead to the soil around your foundation to begin shifting, which can create some minor instability that can lead to cracks forming on your foundation. If you already have cracks that have not been dealt with, the shifting can cause them to become bigger and spread up your walls, which creates a more serious problem.
Why Foundation Cracks Should Never Be Ignored
Your foundation is what keeps your home standing and stable. When it begins to crack, it means that there is a slowly growing problem with your home’s integrity. The bigger the cracks are, the more serious the problem; it can end up going beyond the floors and start to affect the walls, ceilings, and even the roof. This also means that your home will not be as well protected from rain and excess moisture, which can get into these various cracks and lead to the formation of mold. These cracks can also make it possible for small animals to get into your home, which leads to a whole different type of problem.
Preventing Winter Foundation Damage
The precautions you should take to avoid foundation problems during the winter are fairly straightforward. One of the easiest things that you can do is keep the ground around your foundation moist, as this will help the soils to expand and therefore create less shifting, while also filling up any voids that may have formed. But, you do not want to oversaturate the ground either, as that can cause different problems.
Before the season really begins, you also want to take some time to carefully inspect your foundation for any cracks—they can be anything from barely noticeable hairline fractures to large gaps that can be a tripping hazard. If you are not entirely sure of all the things to look for, you can always call a local foundation repair company to come out and inspect it themselves, and give you their professional opinion.
Of course, if there are any foundation problems that get found, then you need to take the time and fix them before winter really sets in. That way, you can be sure that the winter weather will not cause any further damage.
Your foundation is incredibly important, so it is a must that you take the time to inspect it, to avoid any potential problems, So, keep these easy tips in mind, and you will hopefully never have to deal with major foundation repairs. But, of course, you should not ignore any existing damage, no matter how minuscule it may seem. Even small cracks can end up growing into bigger, more expensive problems.