FAQs

Structural Engineering Service

Many times home owners might need the services of a structural engineer. Residential structural engineering is a specialized business. A good structural engineer with experience in the residential field can properly solve many problems home owners experience. Typical problems are sagging floors, cracked foundations, roof leaking, termite damage, moisture issues, and construction quality. A Step in Time has a great background regarding these issues because the lead engineer, Ray Gessner, has a duel degree in civil engineering. These specialties include geotechnical (soils) engineering and structural engineering. This combination of education and experience allows Ray to have a great understanding how soil settlement effects the structural components of a home. One flaw in residential building codes is that soil analysis and reinforced foundation design is not required. This missing requirement has propelled the residential foundation repair industry. Sometimes, foundation contractors recommend unnecessary repairs. These conservative recommendations will financially cost the homeowner, but can sometimes make a problem worse.

Foundation engineering

There is a science to proper foundation inspections. If a home is experience foundation problems, likely the soil below the foundation is a clay type soil or has clay layers. Most clay soils have shrink-swell characteristics. If the soil becomes saturated, the moisture content of the clay increases and the clay will swell. During dry seasons, the water will evaporate from the soil and will shrink. This water cycle will lift and drop residential foundations. Depending on where foundation piers are placed, this deflection can cause cracking in exterior brick and corners of doorways. Sometimes foundation contractors recommend the installation of stabilizing piers to support sinking foundations. Many times these are good solutions. On the other hand, this might create additional problems. Suppose you have a foundation that is rising and falling because of shrink-swell clay. If you install a single stabilizing pier that is embedded in “bedrock’ soil. (it’s not really bedrock, but titled for ease of understanding) When the foundation sinks during the dry season, the single pier elevation will remain and will cause stresses at this location. There are building experts that recommend “foundation watering” during dry seasons. These experts inaccurately state the foundations will crumble. The best advise is to keep the soil below your foundations dry and grade away water during the wet season. This will keep your soil dry and reduce the shrink-swell effect. Why not keep the foundation soil wet with “foundation watering?” The problem with foundation watering is that the soil below the foundation becomes saturated. This increases the moisture content of your soil below the foundation and water seeps up the soil inside the crawl space. High moisture content in crawl spaces can lead to the production of mold and moisture damage. Our advice is to keep your soil dry.

Structural Engineering inspections:

A Step in Time can perform structural engineering inspections. Please schedule on-line for more information concerning the types of engineering inspections that we offer.

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