Crack repair
Foundation Crack Repair in Barrie
Polyurethane and epoxy injection for poured walls, and an honest assessment of which cracks are cosmetic and which are not.
Most cracks in a poured concrete foundation are shrinkage cracks and they are not a structural problem. Some of them are, and telling the difference is the entire job. What follows is how we triage them, so you can do a first pass yourself before anyone quotes you.
Reading a crack
| What you see | What it usually means | Urgency |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical or near-vertical, under 3mm, uniform width | Shrinkage crack. Very common in poured walls in the first years. | Repair if it leaks |
| Vertical, wider at one end | Some differential settlement. Monitor, then repair. | Assess |
| Diagonal from a corner of a window or door | Settlement concentrating stress at an opening. | Assess |
| Horizontal, mid-wall | Lateral soil pressure bowing the wall inward. Structural. | Get it looked at now |
| Stair-stepping through block mortar joints | Differential settlement in a block wall. Structural. | Get it looked at now |
| Any crack with visible displacement — one side proud of the other | Movement, not shrinkage. | Get it looked at now |
The one that genuinely worries us is the horizontal crack mid-wall, particularly in a block foundation. Barrie has enough clay in its soils that expansion pressure against a foundation wall is a real mechanism, not a theoretical one, and a bowing wall does not un-bow on its own.
Injection: polyurethane versus epoxy
Both are injected into the crack from inside through ports set along its length. They do different jobs and they are not interchangeable.
- Polyurethane expands on contact with moisture and stays flexible. It seals against water and tolerates the small seasonal movement every foundation has. This is the correct choice for a non-structural crack that leaks — which is the large majority of them.
- Epoxy is rigid and bonds the concrete back into a monolith, restoring structural strength. It is the correct choice when the crack is structural and the wall needs to act as one piece again. It is also unforgiving: if the wall moves again, the concrete cracks somewhere new rather than at the repair.
A contractor who uses one product for every crack is choosing based on their van, not your wall.
What injection will not fix
Injection seals the crack. It does not address why the wall moved. If the cause is a downspout discharging against the foundation, saturated clay expanding and contracting, or a footing bearing on disturbed fill, the crack will be back or a new one will appear beside it. We look at the grade and the downspouts on every crack visit for exactly this reason, and that part of the visit is free because it is frequently the whole answer.
Cost
| Job | Typical Barrie cost |
|---|---|
| Polyurethane injection, single crack under 2.4m | Base of the quote |
| Epoxy structural injection, single crack | Above polyurethane: structural resin |
| Additional cracks, same visit | Cheaper per crack, same visit |
| Carbon fibre straps for a bowing wall | Per strap |
| Structural engineer's report, where warranted | Independent, billed by the engineer |
| Exterior excavation and repair, where injection is not enough | See exterior waterproofing |
On anything we consider genuinely structural we will tell you to get an independent engineer rather than take our word for it. We are not the right people to both diagnose a structural problem and sell you the fix for it without a second opinion in between.
FAQ
Crack repair — common questions
Are foundation cracks serious?
Most are not. Vertical shrinkage cracks under about 3mm with uniform width are extremely common in poured foundations and matter only if they leak. Horizontal cracks mid-wall, stair-stepped cracks in block, and any crack where one side has moved relative to the other are the ones that need looking at promptly.
Can I fix a foundation crack myself?
Hardware-store injection kits exist and they can work on a simple, dry, non-structural vertical crack. They fail most often because the crack was wet during injection or because the resin never reached the outside face of the wall. For a leaking crack, the professional version is a few hundred dollars and comes with a warranty.
How long does injection take?
One to two hours per crack. It is done from inside, there is no excavation, and the basement is usable the same day.
Will the crack come back?
The sealed crack should not leak again. Whether a new crack appears depends on whether the underlying cause was addressed — drainage, grading, downspouts, or in the structural cases the soil loading on the wall. That is why we look at the outside as well as the inside.
Talk to a Barrie waterproofing contractor
Barrie Basement Pros needs two things: where the water shows up, and when it started. That is usually enough to say whether you are looking at a downspout and some regrading or a drainage system — and we would rather tell you the cheap answer on the phone than sell you the expensive one at the door.