Waterbury's Foundation Issues Start With the Soil

What Foundation and Waterproofing Challenges Affect Waterbury?

The grand tree canopy that shades Waterbury's winding streets is also, unseen, tugging at its foundations. This affluent enclave of large custom homes was built in the first half of the 20th century among mature hardwoods whose roots run deep into the surrounding soil.

In a dry spell those roots draw moisture out of the clay-rich ground faster than anything else, and as the soil dries it shrinks and settles — unevenly, because the roots don't pull evenly across a lot. Under the big, heavy custom homes here, that produces differential settlement: one section dropping faster than another, opening diagonal cracks and racking doors. The size and weight of these houses only sharpens the effect.

JLB levels the movement by underpinning it. We drive piers down to strata deep enough to hold constant moisture and bearing year-round, below the zone the roots and dry spells disturb, bringing settled sections back to a common level and holding them. Existing cracks are repaired once the foundation beneath them is stable.

You don't have to choose between the trees and the foundation in Waterbury. We anchor these large homes below the reach of the moisture swings the canopy creates — so the setting stays intact and the structure stops settling under it.

In Waterbury the damage announces itself in the dry stretches — a crack that opens as the summer draws moisture out of the clay through the tree roots. We look at the canopy and the settlement together, because underpinning below the roots' reach is what keeps the next dry spell from reopening the same crack the last one made.