If you are a homeowner, you know how important your foundation is. Unfortunately, it is subject to a lot of damage from the elements. If you have a basement, it is almost inevitable that you will experience some kind of water damage while you own the home. Nearly 98% of all homeowners with basements have experience it. If and when you see cracks in your foundation that are one quarter of an inch wide or more, you need to take steps to fix them. If you are not sure how to do that, you should call in some foundation repair contractors to help.
Finding the right foundation repair contractors may seen like a daunting task but it does not have to be. Here are some tips to help you find the right foundation repair service.
- What is the company’s reputation? Pretty much everything else you do with hinge on this. Talk to your friends and family and see if they have heard of the foundation repair contractors you are considering hiring. Look online. Many cities and municipalities have Facebook pages where they promote goods and services. Ask there if anyone has had any experience with the foundation repair company. Talk to the Better Business Burea, see if there have been any complaints. Keep in mind that people are much, much more likely to complain than to compliment so any online complaints, especially anonymous ones, should be taken with a grain of salt. If you can find a company that has been highly rated by the online community and/or your friends or family, you should call them.
- Ask how long the foundation repair contractors have been in business. Sometimes, however, a great company will sell the business to someone not so great. They may be skating by on the old management’s reputation. It should raise some red flags if they have “over a century of experience.” Now, it is also possible that a business has been handed down in a family and the people who run it do a better job than the management teams that preceded them but it is good to be wary of some of advertising claims.
- Ask about the company’s insurance. Verify what they tell you. You do not just want to take the word of the foundation repair services company. Make them show you their insurance certificate. When you look at it, verify that it was from the insurance carrier themselves. Some companies lose their insurance and show prospective clients a copy of an old deck page. It looks a lot like an insurance certificate but is not. Should something go wrong, it would be very bad.
- Get a warranty. Now most warrantees are really only as good as the people who stand behind them. Try to talk to people to see how they handle their warrantees. Check around and see what you can learn about how they handle their warrantees.
- Be wary of the price. The most expensive foundation repair contractors may not be the best and those that come in with an impossibly cheap estimate may end up costing you more in the long run. When you are evaluating price, foundation repair companies that come in somewhere in the middle are probably your best bet. Unfortunately, good foundation repair services are often not cheap. This is too important for your home to go with the cheap company because just because it is cheap. You may wind up regretting that decision later.
- Beware of bells and whistles. Many companies try to tout their method as the only one that will work on a foundation when the truth is there are a number of ways to fix a foundation. This may just be the salesperson trying to make a sale but talk to the installer about what they do and how they fix foundations.
When and if you find your home’s foundation needs some sort of repair service, it can be stressful. Not fixing it can cause a host of other problems with your home that can be disastrous. Do your research and you should find good foundation repair contractors to help you. It is very possible to fix a foundation.
andnbsp;
