A 1920s brick bungalow in Kansas City's historic Westport neighborhood had severely bowing basement walls — the painted block walls had shifted inward over two inches in some spots. Stair-step cracking ran through the mortar joints, and the mortar itself was deteriorating. The exterior foundation also showed crumbling block sections where the original masonry had given way.
Kansas City's heavy expansive clay soil was the driving force. Over a century of seasonal wet-dry cycles had repeatedly pushed against these walls, and the original construction simply wasn't designed to withstand that kind of sustained lateral pressure. Without intervention, this was on track to become a catastrophic wall failure.
Our team installed steel I-beam wall braces with hydraulic presses to stabilize and begin straightening the walls, then rebuilt damaged exterior block sections where the original masonry had crumbled beyond repair.
The bracing system is engineered so that over time, seasonal soil pressure cycles will gradually push the wall closer to plumb. This project prevented what was heading toward a full wall collapse and gave the homeowner peace of mind in a home they'd owned for over thirty years.