Foundation repair companies slammed with calls after flooding

Soggy spring spurs flood of foundation woes After two years of drought, many Manitoba homeowners were unprepared for this spring’s spur of rain. Mason DePatie reports.

With the heavy rain Winnipeg has received, many homeowners are finding cracks in their foundations undetected during the previous two years of drought.

Jason Beaton has been repairing foundations for seven years and has never been as busy as he is right now. The company Beaton works for, Ground Down Foundation Repair, has been facing an influx in calls for waterproofing.

"We are swamped this year. The calls are just crazy like we're pretty much booked for the rest of the season," said Beaton.

It's a similar story for Jeff Corrigal, owner of Total Foundation Rescue.

"Constantly, I was feeling like I was fielding 80 to 100 calls a day during those rains. It was just hard to get anything done," said Corrigal.

According to Corrigal, the hot, dry weather Winnipeg saw the last couple of years shifted houses and let cracks go undetected.

"There may be some cracks there or some new ones that have opened up," he said. "We didn't have a whole lot of water for everybody to realize that they had these problems, and then with all the rain and the snow melts, like it just all came all at once."

Corrigal said the water table is now sitting higher with the amount of rain and snow the city has seen this season, meaning cracks are letting water into people's basements and causing damage.

"You start, and then you get your drywall and your insulation and your framing. If you get a lot of moisture caught in behind those walls, then you start getting mould growing in the back," Corrigal explained.

With a slew of homeowners scrambling to get repairs, it is causing a backlog in services. Both companies say they are now booked until fall or even into next season.

"Some jobs take a week, some jobs take two weeks to do, and yeah, unfortunately, we'd like to get everybody done this summer, but we're swamped," said Beaton.