Foundation Care for Merle Hay Families

What Foundation and Waterproofing Challenges Affect Merle Hay?

Merle Hay came into its own in the 1950s and 60s as a mid-century hub, and its classic ranch homes were built the way that era built — on concrete block foundations, quick and economical. Decades later, that block is where the neighborhood's foundation issues concentrate.

Block walls resist downward weight well but give way to pressure from the side, and the high-clay soil here supplies it every wet season. As the ground swells against the wall, the block shifts laterally and cracks along its mortar joints in the stair-step pattern familiar to Merle Hay owners. Each cycle of Des Moines' wet springs and the swelling that follows nudges the wall a little further inward.

JLB halts the shifting with wall stabilization matched to the movement. Steel anchors reach out to stable soil and draw a shifting wall back toward plumb, holding it against the clay; carbon fiber locks in a wall caught in its early stages. We seal the step-cracked joints so groundwater can't follow them into the basement.

A mid-century ranch in Merle Hay keeps a sound basement when its block wall is anchored against the clay. We stabilize the lateral shifting and seal the cracks it opened — stopping the movement before it forces a larger repair.

In Merle Hay the stair-step crack in a ranch's block wall is a timeline — each wet season nudges the wall further inward. We tell owners to have a diagonal crack looked at early, because a wall caught at a slight shift is straightforward to anchor, while one left to lean for years is a far larger job.