Underpinning is the support and stabilisation of your building’s slab foundations as the result of movement or if you are adding an extra story and just need that additional load bearing support.
Whilst it is a complex and specialist trade, you can be rest assured that with Link Building Systems’ extensive experience and qualified tradesmen, as well as their close working relationship with renowned local plumbers and civil engineers, you are in excellent hands and will be provided with a professional and streamlined process ensuring as little disruption to your daily life as possible.
Indications of slab foundation movement may be cracking within the building’s brick work or interior plaster. Our preliminary process before providing an underpinning estimate is to eliminate possible causes of the movement. We will engage a plumber on your behalf to perform an initial, non-invasive exploratory of your plumbing and stormwater to determine if there are any areas allowing water to escape in the soil bed resulting in your slab movement.
Once this has been completed, and following any recommended plumbing repairs, we will then engage a civil engineer to determine an exact scope of works based on the conditions of the sub soil in order to provide you with an accurate underpinning estimate.
In many parts of the Goulburn Valley the soil contains reactive clay. This means it will shrink when dry and swell when wet. This clay soil along with cracked plumbing pipes, is the common culprit behind most foundation movement especially as we get long dry spells without any significant rain.
As part of our underpinning service, we also provide services to repair the resultant building damage caused by the foundation movement.