Service Area
Foundation repair in Pear Park
Pear Park is the area east of Grand Junction between the city and Clifton, significant enough as a distinct community that Mesa County adopted a Pear Park Neighborhood Plan for it in December 2004. It has spent the last thirty years converting from orchard and farm ground to residential, and that transition is written into the foundations.
Land that was irrigated agriculture for a century and is now residential lots has a specific history in its upper soil profile. The ground was wetted heavily and regularly for decades, then subdivided, graded, and built on, and then the watering pattern changed to whatever the new owners do with their sprinklers. Expansive clay responds to change in moisture content, and a change of land use is one of the largest changes a soil profile ever sees.
Grading for subdivision development means fill, and fill is only as good as its compaction. Where a pad was built up to bring a lot to grade, the material beneath one part of a house may be engineered fill and under another part undisturbed native soil. Those settle differently. Mesa County flags open-excavation observation as a foundation requirement across a large number of platted subdivisions in the county precisely because what is actually in the hole is not always what the plan assumed.
The building era here skews to the last three decades, which means slab-on-grade and shallow-basement construction rather than the crawl spaces of the older neighbourhoods. Slabs show soil movement differently: instead of a stair-step crack in the block you get a crack running across the floor, doors binding along one wall, and sometimes a slab that has heaved upward rather than settled down. Heave and settlement are opposite problems and the repairs are not interchangeable.
Old irrigation infrastructure often survives subdivision. A lateral that used to serve an orchard block can still be running along a property line with houses on both sides of it, and it is one of the more common water sources found at the back of a Pear Park foundation problem.
Repair types available in Pear Park
- 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 Pear Park, 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 Pear Park
Ring (970) 644-6329, or send the form, and a Grand Valley foundation contractor prices the work at no charge.