Diagnosing Settlement

Elevation surveys, door reveals and what actually indicates movement.

6 articles

• Foundation Cracks — Direction Tells You What Is Happening

  The width gets all the attention and the direction carries the information. A hairline horizontal crack matters more than a quarter-inch vertical one.

• How Much Settlement Is Too Much — Slope Matters More Than Drop

  Two inches across forty feet is nothing. Two inches across eight feet is a different house entirely, and the total is the same.

• Settlement or Heave — Piers Fix One and Can Make the Other Worse

  A house being lifted by swelling clay does not need piers. Installing them can pin the low side while the rest keeps rising.

• Sticking Doors — Foundation, Humidity, or Just the Hinges

  The distinction is whether it comes back. Wood swells and shrinks every year; a foundation does not put things back the way it found them.

• Monitoring First — A Year of Measurements Beats an Opinion

  The question is never how bad the crack is. It is whether it is still moving, and only time answers that.

• Signs of Foundation Settlement — And Which Cracks Do Not Matter

  Every house cracks. What separates shrinkage from settlement is the shape of the crack, not its presence.