Why Does My Crawl Space Sink?

What happens to create crawl spaces sinking? There are actually many reasons that may cause home structures to sink, and it’s important that you tackle each one at the root. Depending on your individual crawl space needs, you may end up needing a different solution.

How can you fix your crawl space sinking? These reasons will help you differentiate.

Structural Issues 

If your home has other types of structural issues, it’s certainly possible that those structural issues extend out to different areas of your home. That includes your crawl space, which is most likely to be hit.

This is one of the biggest reasons you might need to install foundation jacks. Structural issues can be a big difficulty in your home. Unattended-to structural issues may lead to larger and larger problems, sometimes going so far as to cause walls to collapse.

An important part of this process is learning about the exact structural issues you’re facing and how you can fix each one. Don’t try to tackle this problem all on your own; talk to an expert to understand your next move.

Crawl Space Moisture

When your crawl space has high humidity, you may start to see your floors bowing, showing that your crawl space is having problems. That may be for a variety of reasons.

High levels of crawl space moisture can invite wood rot, which can cause springy, bouncy floor joists that allow the floor to sink. That moisture can also soak into the wood, causing a similar problem even without the fungus that causes wood rot.

Overall, there are many dangers associated with crawl space moisture, and this is just one of them. You need to tackle the problems from the source and talk to an expert about how to mitigate your crawl space moisture damages. 

Poor Support Planning

If your home already has a poor support system, you’re probably going to need permanent foundation jacks to fix the problem. These foundation jacks can take the place of joist support that was already supposed to be there.

Your crawl space or foundation needs a certain amount of support. If it doesn’t get that, you’re going to end up with problems. To avoid problems with poor support planning, many people install permanent house jacks to lift up the floor joists.

These jacks can certainly be an effective solution, but you shouldn’t try to install them on your own. You need to understand where to place them and how to put them up, which is best left to a professional.