Service Area
Foundation repair in Palisade
Palisade is roughly seventeen minutes east of Grand Junction, an incorporated town of about 2,500 people that has been growing fruit since before it was incorporated in 1904. The orchards are the reason the foundations here behave the way they do.
Orchard ground is irrigated ground, and in Palisade a great deal of it is still irrigated by ditch and flood rather than by sprinkler. That puts a large volume of water into the soil profile on a regular schedule through the growing season and then stops it entirely for the winter. Clay soils that go through a wet-dry cycle of that amplitude change volume, and houses sitting on them move with the cycle.
The housing stock compounds it. A significant proportion of the older Palisade housing predates the Second World War, built on stem walls over crawl spaces with footings placed by eye rather than by soils report. Those are not bad foundations, they were appropriate for their time, but they were never designed for a soil that swells and shrinks and they have had a century of it.
The recurring symptom set here is stair-step cracking in the older masonry, doors that stick in one season and swing free in another, and floors that read out of level across a crawl space. Seasonal movement that reverses itself is a different diagnosis from progressive settlement, and telling them apart takes a measurement in two different seasons rather than a single visit.
Where a Palisade property sits directly alongside a lateral or a shared ditch, the water source is not hypothetical. Correcting drainage at the foundation line is usually the first and cheapest thing worth doing, and on plenty of houses here it is the whole repair.
Repair types available in Palisade
- 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 Palisade, 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 Palisade
Ring (970) 644-6329, or send the form, and a Grand Valley foundation contractor prices the work at no charge.