Foundation Repair in Palmetto Bay, FL

Hurricane Andrew made landfall on the mainland at Fender Point in Biscayne National Park early on 24 August 1992 as a Category 5 storm with 165 mile per hour sustained winds, and the National Weather Service records roughly 49,000 homes destroyed and 108,000 damaged, almost all of it in south Miami-Dade. Large parts of this area were rebuilt in the years that followed, which means a lot of the housing here was constructed to substantially stronger requirements than the houses it replaced. It also means additions and rebuilds sitting alongside original 1960s structures on the same lots.

Toward the bay, the ground is lower and the water table is closer to the surface. Around the eastern edge of the village, groundwater in the City of Miami's monitoring wells sits only a couple of feet below grade at low-lying sites, and the picture out here is comparable. Shallow groundwater is why nobody builds basements in this county and why a leaking supply line can move a surprising amount of fine material out from under a slab before anyone notices anything above ground.

Canal-front and bay-front properties bring seawalls into the picture. The failure pattern is the familiar one: a joint opens, tidal movement carries soil out through it, and a soft or dished area appears in the lawn behind the wall. It reads like something dramatic and it almost never is. Sealing the path and replacing the lost material are two separate operations, and doing only the second means doing it again.

Slab work is common on lots with mature landscaping and irrigation. A broken irrigation line running under a driveway or a patio will hollow out the base over months, and the slab drops as one panel. Foam injection lifts it back in an afternoon, provided the leak is found first, which is why a competent assessment starts with the plumbing rather than with the concrete.