Calgary foundation services
Concrete Foundation Repair in Calgary
My concrete foundation is cracked or damaged. What can be repaired, and what needs a different approach?
Concrete foundations are the storm and poured walls under most Calgary homes, and they can be repaired in most cases without replacement. The key first step is telling the foundation itself apart from concrete that only looks like it belongs to the foundation: a driveway, sidewalk, garage slab or patio is flatwork, not structural, and carries no house load. A crack in a basement wall, by contrast, is the wall that holds the house up, and what it can be repaired with depends on whether it is moving. Repairing a settled driveway and repairing a cracked foundation wall are very different jobs under the same word concrete.
We are a referral service, not a contractor. Your request goes to an independent Calgary foundation company.
Concrete dominates Calgary construction, from the walls of a poured basement to the driveway outside the garage. That is convenient shorthand for a homeowner but it causes real confusion, because the word concrete covers two categories that behave and fail completely differently.
This page is about the foundation part: the walls and footings that carry the house. It also explains how to recognise the non-foundation concrete around a house, because diagnosing that difference correctly is the most useful thing you can do before calling anyone.
What you might be looking at
- A vertical crack in a poured concrete basement wall, common and often harmless
- A horizontal crack in a basement wall, which points at sideways pressure and matters more
- Cracks in a concrete floor slab that runs within the footprint of the house
- Spalling, flaking or crumbling concrete on an older wall, exposing aggregate or reinforcing
- A crack where one side of a wall has moved out of line with the other
- Damage to a driveway, sidewalk, patio or garage slab that looks worrying but is not structural
Why concrete cracks and deteriorates
Shrinkage is the most common cause and the least alarming. Poured concrete releases excess water as it cures and loses a little volume, which it relieves by cracking, usually vertically and usually near openings. These cracks are a property of concrete rather than a defect.
Lateral soil pressure bends a basement wall inward and produces horizontal cracking, typically around mid-height. It is a load problem rather than a concrete problem, and it needs the pressure dealt with as well as the crack.
Differential settlement bends the structure when part of the footing loses support, producing diagonal cracking and, in walls above, sticking doors and sloping floors.
Water is a constant aggravator, both as hydrostatic pressure and as the freeze-thaw action that widens existing cracks each Calgary winter. Spalling and flaking, particularly in older foundations, are driven by moisture getting into the concrete and freezing.
Material deterioration matters most in Calgary's older housing stock, where rubble, stone and unreinforced concrete foundations behave differently from modern poured walls and can lose section over decades.
Repair approaches for concrete
Which method is right depends on what the concrete is doing. These range from surface repair to structural restraint, and choosing the wrong one is the common reason a fix comes back.
Crack injection
Polyurethane or epoxy is injected into a wall crack under pressure. Polyurethane stays flexible and suits leaking cracks; epoxy is rigid and restores bond where a wall is stable.
Best suited to: Narrow cracks in a poured wall that are dry or slightly weeping, and not moving.
Patch and seal
Surface repair of spalled or chipped concrete using a patch material, applied after the loose material is removed and the surface is sound.
Best suited to: Cosmetic deterioration where the concrete underneath is sound.
Carbon fibre or steel restraint
Reinforcement bonded or bolted across a wall that is bending inward, resisting further movement. It holds the wall; it does not straighten it or remove the push.
Best suited to: Walls with limited deflection where an engineer has confirmed restraint is enough.
Restoring support or section
Where settlement or material loss has reduced the foundation's ability to carry load, the repair is support or rebuilding rather than filling: piles, underpinning, or rebuilding a deteriorated wall section.
Best suited to: Movement, differential settlement, or a wall that has lost structural section.
Flatwork repair (separate from the foundation)
Driveways, sidewalks and garage slabs that have cracked or settled are repaired with slab lifting, mud-jacking or replacement. This is concrete work but it is not foundation work and it carries no house load.
Best suited to: Non-structural slabs and hard surfaces around the house.
How concrete foundation work is assessed
Confirm it is the foundation
The first question is what the concrete is carrying. A wall that supports the house is different from a slab lying on the ground, and they are repaired by different reasoning.
Measure the crack and check displacement
Direction, width and whether the faces are flush separate a shrinkage crack from a sign of movement. The pencil-and-date test establishes whether it is stable.
Look for movement elsewhere
Sticking doors, sloping floors and diagonal cracks upstairs reveal whether a foundation crack is part of a wider settlement story.
Establish the cause
A repair that ignores why the concrete cracked tends to fail. Water, soil pressure and settlement each call for a different approach.
Match the repair to the diagnosis
Injection for a stable crack, restraint for a wall under pressure, support for settlement, and material repair for deterioration.
Cost and Calgary conditions
What drives the price
Published Alberta figures for a straightforward interior wall crack injection start in the low hundreds to low thousands. Exterior excavation, structural restraint, and anything involving settlement or underpinning scale steeply, and the cost page sets the published ranges side by side with their sources.
Why this behaves differently in Calgary
Calgary's freeze-thaw cycling is the reason concrete here shows its age through spalling and widening cracks. Water works into a crack or an unfinished concrete surface, freezes, expands and opens it a little further, repeated across a winter. Concrete that would be surface damage in a milder climate is accelerated in Calgary.
The city's housing stock matters too. A 1920s inner-city foundation of rubble or unreinforced concrete cannot be treated like a modern poured wall, and the two do not always crack the same way or for the same reasons.
When to get someone in
Worth acting on now
- Get this looked at: A horizontal crack in a basement wall
- Get this looked at: A wall crack where the two faces no longer line up
- Get this looked at: Cracks wider than roughly 6mm
- Get this looked at: Movement that is measurably continuing, or accompanied by sticking doors and sloping floors
- Get this looked at: Spalling that has exposed reinforcing or a clearly weakened wall
Reasonable to monitor
- A hairline vertical crack that is dry and has not changed in years
- Surface crazing with no depth to it
- A cracked driveway or sidewalk that is not a foundation wall and is not moving the house
Questions people actually ask
Is a crack in a concrete foundation wall serious?
It depends on the direction and on whether it is moving. Vertical cracks are usually shrinkage from curing and are common in sound foundations. Horizontal cracks, cracks where the faces no longer line up, cracks wider than about 6mm, and cracks that are growing all deserve assessment, because they can indicate the wall is under load or the foundation is moving.
What is the difference between concrete foundation repair and concrete flatwork?
Foundation concrete is the wall or footing that carries the house. Flatwork is a driveway, sidewalk, patio or garage slab that lies on the ground and carries little or no building load. They fail differently and are repaired differently. A settled driveway can often be lifted with slab jacking; a cracked foundation wall needs the cause of the cracking addressed.
Can a cracked concrete foundation be repaired without replacing it?
Usually, yes. Most residential foundation work repairs the existing concrete rather than replacing it. Cracks are injected, walls are reinforced or restrained, and support is restored under settled footings. Full replacement is uncommon and is a last resort rather than a standard remedy.
Why has my concrete foundation been cracking more each winter?
Freeze-thaw action. Water works into a crack or into the concrete surface, freezes, expands and opens it slightly further, and Calgary's roughly 16 winter freeze-thaw cycles repeat that often enough to be visible. It is why you should not patch a crack and then forget about it: if it stays wet, it will keep opening.
Get this looked at by a Calgary contractor
Tell us what you are seeing and roughly where you are. We pass it to an independent Calgary foundation contractor who contacts you directly.
We are a referral service, not a contractor. Your request goes to an independent Calgary foundation company.