Sinkholes and Denied Claims
It’s distressing for homeowners to discover cracks in the walkways, pool deck, and driveway at their house. The cracks become more worrisome when they grow into a trip hazard. It’s a bigger headache when whatever is causing the cracks in the pavements manifests itself inside the house and, suddenly, cracks appear at seams in the walls, tiles start popping off the floor and doors and windows do not open and close properly.
So what should you do if your home starts experiencing these problems? Your course of action will depend on what’s causing the cracks. If you believe the cracks are caused by a forming sinkhole, it’s only going to get worse and could become quite serious – very fast.
Here’s a short segment from an episode of Earth Unplugged explaining what causes a sinkhole and some of the indicators of sinkhole activity.
So, what should you do if you think a sinkhole is forming near your house? The first step is to contact your insurance company, who will send an adjuster or engineer to examine your property and test the soils to find out if the damage was caused by a sinkhole.
If it turns out a sinkhole is not to blame and the cracks are caused by poor soil quality or some other type of soil erosion issue, your insurance company will deny the claim. It is now left up to you, the homeowner, to figure out how to stabilize the soils on your property to deter further cracks and problems with the foundation of your home.
“This is a daunting process for a home owner, but URETEK Holdings will help the home owner get through it,” said Adam Wallace, the Sales Engineer in charge of Florida’s residential market. Using URETEK’s Deep Injection® Process, we can inject polymer grout around the foundation of the building to stabilize the shallow soils to prevent further cracks from forming. Once the soil has been stabilized, the homeowner can complete the cosmetic repairs on their home.
It starts with giving URETEK a call and describing the issues you are experiencing. Sending us some pictures helps, too. Next, we visit your property to conduct a thorough analysis of what is causing the settlement issues. If our analysis shows that the Deep Injection Process will be effective in solving the issues that are causing the cracks, we will prepare an injection design and submit a bid to you for the repair.
Typically, repairs take less than a day to complete. URETEK’s professional team has substantial experience working in homes that require as minimally invasive a repair as possible. URETEK is able to stabilize and densify soils underneath the slab by directly injecting its polymers through the slab, or through the soil next to the foundation, through 1/2″ holes and 3/8″ metal pipes. The process does not require excavation and the holes are covered and sealed.
