Most foundation cracks are not an emergency. Some are. The job is telling which one you have, and that is what the free inspection is for. Crack repair at 603 runs $1,000 to $3,000.
Which cracks should worry you?
Rough guide, and it is a guide, not a diagnosis:
- Thin vertical cracks are the most common thing we see and usually the least alarming. Concrete shrinks as it cures and it has to give somewhere.
- Horizontal cracks are the ones to take seriously. A horizontal crack in a foundation wall can mean the wall is being pushed on from outside.
- Stair-step cracks in block walls follow the mortar joints and can point to movement.
- A crack that is wider at one end than the other suggests something is moving rather than just shrinking.
- Any crack that is actively leaking needs handling regardless of shape, because water gets in and does its own damage.
If you can fit a quarter into it, or it has visibly changed since you first noticed it, call somebody. Us or anyone.
How we fix them
For a non-structural crack that leaks, injection fills the crack through its full depth and seals the path the water was using. For a structural crack, epoxy injection restores the bond across it. Where a wall needs real reinforcement, carbon fiber straps or a power brace do that work, and those are different jobs with their own prices.
What we do not do is smear something on the inside and call it fixed. A surface patch on a leaking crack hides it for a season.
When we tell you not to buy
Sometimes a homeowner is bracing for a full system and what they actually need is one crack filled. When a full system is out of budget, fill the crack and don’t look back. We will tell you when that is the situation, and we would rather do the small job right than talk you into the big one.
The reverse is also true. If you have got water coming in at the floor wall joint all the way around, filling one crack is not going to solve that, and we will say so.
The warranty
Non-structural crack injection carries a 10 year warranty on leakage through the treated area. Structural epoxy injection carries 10 years on the structural bond. Wall stabilization carries 25 years against further inward movement within design tolerances.
Read that first one carefully. Ten years on the crack we treated not leaking is not the same as ten years of a dry basement, because the crack we filled may not be the only way water gets in.
Questions we get
Can I fill it myself from the hardware store?
You can, and for a hairline shrinkage crack that is not leaking it may hold fine. For anything structural or anything wet, a surface product is a temporary measure.
Will it crack again in the same place?
A properly injected crack is not usually the one that comes back. New cracks elsewhere can happen as a house keeps settling.
Do you fix cracks in a slab floor?
We look at them. A floor crack and a wall crack are different problems.
How long does it take?
Most crack repairs are a few hours.
Crack shapes, and what they usually mean
| What the crack looks like | What it usually means | How urgent |
|---|---|---|
| Thin and vertical | Concrete shrinkage as it cured | Usually low. Seal it if it leaks |
| Horizontal across a wall | The wall may be under pressure from outside | Get it looked at |
| Stair-step through block joints | Movement following the mortar | Get it looked at |
| Wider at one end than the other | Something is moving, not just shrinking | Get it looked at |
| Any crack actively leaking | Water has a path in | Handle it regardless of shape |
| Hairline, dry, unchanged for years | Often nothing | Watch it. Note the date |
How the job runs
Somebody looks at the actual crack. Shape, width, whether it is wet, whether it lines up with anything else the house is doing. That is a short visit and it is free, and it is the only honest way to tell a shrinkage crack from something that matters.
You get told which one you have got. If it is the small one, we will say so, and we would rather do the small job right than talk you into a system you do not need yet.
The repair itself is usually a few hours. Injection fills the crack through its full depth rather than skinning over the face of it, which is the difference between a repair and a cosmetic patch that looks fine until the next wet spring.
If the wall needs real reinforcement, that is a different job with its own price and its own timeline, and we will lay that out separately rather than folding it into a crack quote.
What Andover’s own records say about water
Andover keeps unusually good records on this, and they are worth reading before you spend money on a basement.
The town has 29 repetitive-loss structures and 108 active flood policies, and those repetitive-loss properties have drawn $5,382,507 in building payments from FEMA across 81 separate losses (Town of Andover Hazard Mitigation Plan, public review draft, September 2024). Repetitive loss means a property flooded, was paid, and flooded again.
The same plan names the places. Residents and town staff identified Shawsheen Village, the River Street bridge, the Fish Brook area, Dascomb Road, Ballardvale and Clark Brook, North Main Street and the Skug River. Shawsheen Village came up repeatedly as the most flood-prone part of town, with the stormwater problem attributed to an undersized culvert running under the neighbourhood.
And on 8 August 2023 Andover took 8.7 inches of rain in two hours. The Shawsheen at the Balmoral Street gauge went from 24.3 feet at 6:15am to 30.6 feet by 12:45pm, past the 29-foot minor flood stage, with flash flooding near the senior center, the high school and Chestnut Street.
The layer under your basement
This is the part that explains a lot of wet Andover basements, and almost nobody tells homeowners about it.
A densic restrictive layer, which is dense basal-till hardpan, is mapped under 27.1 percent of Andover, at representative depths of 41 to 92 centimetres below the surface (USDA NRCS soil survey, Essex County Northern Part, clipped to the Andover town boundary). By series that runs Ridgebury at 46 to 49 centimetres, Paxton 53 to 71, Woodbridge 66 to 81, Montauk 74 to 92.
Hardpan does not let water through. Water moving down through the soil reaches it and turns sideways instead, and it keeps going until something interrupts it. A foundation wall is exactly that kind of interruption.
The rest of the ground splits close to evenly between thin till at 41.1 percent and coarse glacial stratified deposits at 41.0 percent (USGS Surficial Materials of Massachusetts, SIM 3402). Where NRCS rates drainage, 22.6 percent is poorly or very poorly drained.
All of that is town-scale. It is where we start, not a reading of your lot, and the inspection is free.
What our customers say
I had a fantastic experience with 603 basement solutions from the honesty of the quote to the professionalism of the install. They were able to take our failing support columns and rotted beams and make them brand new. I feel much better knowing my family is safe in our house. Highly recommend
Andrew, Google review, 5 stars
That is one of more than 240 Google reviews. We would rather you read them than take our word for anything on this page.
Related pages for Andover
- Basement waterproofing in Andover
- Structural and foundation repair
- Which foundation cracks matter
- Every town we cover
- Who you would actually be dealing with
- Basement waterproofing
- Straight answers to basement questions
Book a free inspection in Andover
Somebody comes out, looks at the actual space, and tells you straight what it needs and what it does not. You get a written number for a defined scope. No two hour pitch, because we would rather be at the next house.
If you are looking for a team that isn’t going to treat you like another number, we would be happy to give you an estimate free of charge. We don’t cut corners. We stand behind our work. We care.
Call 603-610-1770 or book your free inspection. We cover Andover and the surrounding towns from our shop in East Kingston, New Hampshire.
Common questions about foundation cracks
- Home Improvement: How do you deal with cracks in a house wall?
- How can a house with a low foundation be prevented from sinking?
- How can you tell if your house is settling or sinking? What can be done about it?
- How do I fix a bowing cinder block wall in a basement?
- How do I fix a foundation crack repair?
- How do I install a sump pump in my basement if there is no hole in the foundation?
- How do I prevent rodents and snakes from entering a fieldstone foundation?
- How do you put up a deck ledger board on a 100-year-old gravel foundation?
- How do you repair a crumbling concrete foundation that juts out?
- How do you replace a foundation in an old house?
- How do you replace a portion of a rotted sill plate and studs?
- How hard and expensive is it to repair a crack in the foundation on a house?
More 603 services in Andover
- Basement Waterproofing in Andover, MA
- Basement Finishing in Andover, MA
- Crawl Space Encapsulation in Andover, MA
- Radon Mitigation in Andover, MA
