Service Area
Foundation repair on Orchard Mesa
Orchard Mesa is a Census Designated Place of around 6,700 people on the terrace immediately south of the Colorado River, served by its own irrigation district. Sitting on a bench rather than on the valley floor changes both the soil profile and the water behaviour underneath the houses.
The mesa is a river terrace, which means the upper profile is generally coarser and better draining than the fine valley-floor material below it. That is good news for bearing and bad news for consistency: terrace deposits vary sharply over short distances, so two houses on the same street can sit on genuinely different ground. It is one of the areas where a soils report or an open-excavation observation earns its cost.
Below the terrace gravels, the Mancos Shale is still there. Where a foundation reaches down into the weathered shale, or where a cut-and-fill lot has removed the terrace material on one side of the house, the shale-derived clay takes over as the bearing material and behaves the way shale-derived clay behaves: it swells with water and shrinks without it.
Slope is the other Orchard Mesa factor. Lots that step down toward the river carry lateral load against the uphill foundation wall, and that is the configuration that produces bowing rather than settling. A horizontal crack near mid-height on the uphill wall of an Orchard Mesa basement is a well-recognised pattern, and it is a wall repair rather than a piering job.
Irrigation on the mesa is delivered by the Orchard Mesa Irrigation District, and the ordinary residential version of the problem is a lawn or an orchard block watered hard right up against a foundation on ground that slopes toward the house.
Repair types available in Orchard Mesa
- Foundation Settlement Repair
- Steel piers driven or screwed past the moving soil to competent bearing, then the footing is transferred onto them
- Basement and Stem Wall Repair
- Cracked, leaning, and bowing foundation walls braced or anchored back so the movement stops
- Crawl Space Repair and Encapsulation
- Failed piers and posts replaced, sagging girders re-supported, and the ground sealed off from the house above
- Concrete Leveling and Slab Lifting
- Sunken driveways, walks, patios and garage slabs raised back to grade by injecting under them rather than replacing them
- Foundation Drainage and Grading
- Getting roof water, irrigation water, and yard runoff away from the foundation so the soil under it stops changing volume
- Foundation Inspection
- Elevations, crack mapping, and a written opinion on whether the movement is finished or still going
For a price on a specific address in Orchard Mesa, call (970) 644-6329 or send the quote form. The visit and the written quote cost nothing.
Background reading
Field Notes
Written for Grand Valley homeowners
Contractor Licensing and Building Permits in Grand Junction and Mesa County
Who has to be licensed, who issues the permit, which code editions apply in Mesa County, and what a foundation repair building permit actually adds to the bill.
Mesa County Publishes a Foundation Requirement for Every Subdivision. Find Yours.
Mesa County lists foundation requirements for more than 600 platted subdivisions. What the codes mean, and why 234 of them require an engineered foundation.
Uranium Mill Tailings, Grand Junction Foundations, and the Permit Trigger
Tailings went into more than 4,000 Grand Junction properties as fill and aggregate from 1950 to 1966. Applying for a building permit is what triggers removal.
Get a foundation quote in Orchard Mesa
Ring (970) 644-6329, or send the form, and a Grand Valley foundation contractor prices the work at no charge.