Structural damage to your Maryland or Delaware home is a serious concern that can pose safety risks and decrease your property value. Yet, many Maryland homeowners often overlook or misunderstand common signs of structural damage in a home. Identifying these signs—and acting promptly—can help secure the structural integrity of your house. Plus, the longer you wait, the more expensive and complicated structural repairs are likely to be.
Here’s what you need to know about ways to identify when there’s moisture or water damage to your home’s structure, and how you can fix structural damage in a home to ensure the problem will be gone for good.
What Causes Structural Damage?
The most common cause of structural damage is moisture and water intrusion in your crawl space or basement. Over time, persistent moisture can lead to wood rot and damage to floor joists, main carrying beams, girders, and more.
5 Common Signs of Home Structural Damage
Sloping Floors
An easy-to-spot sign of structural damage is sloping, sagging, or uneven floors. Use a level to verify if your floors have an incline (if you didn’t already know, you likely have a digital level on your smartphone!). You might also notice objects rolling or sliding on your floor in one direction, indicating a slope.
Floor and Wall Cracks
Cracks in your floors and walls are more than just an eyesore to ignore or try to cover up with a rug or a piece of wall art—they may be signaling structural distress. If the cracks are wide, running diagonally or vertically, or you’ve noticed they are expanding, it could be a structural issue.
Door and Window Frame Gaps
Are your doors or windows sticking or difficult to open? New gaps between the frames and walls may indicate there’s been a structural shift in your home.
Soil Pulling Away from Home
Soil with clay in it can expand or contract based on how wet it is. The changing soil can then exert significant pressure on your home’s foundation, which can crack and lead to structural damage on the floor joists and beams connected to the foundation.
Signs of Moisture Leaks in Home
Ceiling stains, mold, mildew, or a musty smell can all indicate moisture leaks somewhere in your house. Left unchecked, these issues can turn to wood rot and severely compromise your home’s structural integrity.
Still not sure if your home has structural damage? Call Total Home Performance today—we know exactly what to look for and can inspect your home, including your crawl space or basement, to quickly get to the bottom of your home’s problems.
How Home Structural Damage Is Repaired
As dedicated home contractors in Maryland and Delaware, Total Home Performance offers a number of solutions to repair and prevent structural damage, focusing on issues affecting the wood framing underneath your house.
Sistering, Repairing & Replacing Main Beams, Girders & Floor Joists
Our team of local structural repair experts can repair or replace main beams, girders, and floor joists, ensuring your home's stability. In many cases we use a technique called “sistering”—adding new joists alongside existing ones for greater support.
Installing Additional Structural Support
In instances where the damage is extensive, additional structural support may be necessary. Our team can accurately determine what your home needs, including floor jacks, jack posts, Lally columns, masonry columns, or piers to reduce existing stress on main beams and floor joists.
Moisture Control
While structural wood rot repair is crucial, the most important step you can take is ensuring the problem doesn’t return! Preventing future structural damage to your home means addressing its primary cause—moisture. Total Home Performance offers crawl space encapsulation services and other moisture control solutions that help keep your home dry, protecting it from potential damage.
Save Up to $7,500 on Crawl Space Services with Local Rebates
One of the added benefits of choosing Total Home Performance is the potential for significant savings. We can help you qualify for up to $7,500 in Home Performance with ENERGY STAR rebates on crawl space encapsulation and other insulation-related crawl space and home upgrades. We're proud to be one of the only companies on the Eastern Shore that can help you qualify for crawl space rebates.
You can also qualify for a 30% federal tax credit on any crawl space insulation and air sealing materials used to improve and future-proof your home against additional structure damage issues. Talk to us today to find out which service your home needs and how much you can save in incentives with Total Home Performance.