As you probably already know, your home’s foundation is an incredibly important thing. After all, without a foundation, what does your home really have? Fortunately, there are a number of ways to keep your home’s foundation in good shape. For one thing, investing enough money in your home’s foundation at the time of its construction is absolutely something that will help to ensure its continued quality throughout the duration of your time living in said home. Ideally, you should be spending around 8% of the home’s total cost on foundation alone. In some cases, you might even want to invest as much as a full 15% or so.

In addition to this, choosing the right kind of foundation is also something that will benefit you in the long run. For instance, a slab foundation, one of the most popular kinds of foundation out there, will be ideal for homes being built where the soil is not particularly stable. Foundation of this kind is particularly common in places like Florida, where such soil is widespread and erosion issues are common. Building a home with a different kind of foundation is likely not a good idea in such a part of the country.

However, both basement and crawl space foundations are still quite popular in other parts of the country. After all, homes with basements are quite prevalent indeed in Midwestern parts of the country. In such places, tornadoes and severe weather is common, making basements ideal even just from a safety perspective. And basements can be used for many other things as well. For instance, you can use basements for storage or even for additional living space. Many people turn their basements into game rooms, bedrooms, and even separate, rentable apartments, a great way to bring in some any extra income for just about anyone.

Of course, there are still other ways that the need for foundation repair can be avoided. For one thing, avoid foundation repair through careful gardening. When plants are planted too closely to the foundation, damage can occur and home foundation repair can become necessary. By planting your plants at least two feet away from all foundation and by ensuring said plants are not planted too deeply, you can help to ensure that no water damage occurs to your foundation, in addition to no root interference.

Proper gutter placement can also go a long way in terms of avoiding foundation repair. Ideally, your gutters will divert water at least ten feet away from your foundation. Regularly and routinely cleaning out your gutters is something that will also be hugely helpful in reducing your overall need for foundation repair – and will certainly help to keep your gutters in good shape as well.

Many people are avoiding the need for foundation repair by investing in basement waterproofing as well. Basement waterproofing services, after all, can have an impressive return on investment, one that can reach as high as 30%, which is ideal in many cases. As up to 98% of all basement spaces will experience some level of water damage at some point in time if such basement waterproofing services are not applied, investing in the aid of a basement waterproofing company can go a long way when it comes to avoiding the need for any type of foundation repair.

Of course, there might come a time that basement repair is necessary, or foundation repair in general. While the above steps should certainly be taken as they can have a tremendous impact, life happens and not all issues can be 100% avoided under all circumstances. Fortunately, hiring a foundation repair contractor should be quite the simple thing to do, and is something that many people can benefit from. If you invest in foundation repair while the issue is still small, then there is a far lessened likelihood that the problem will escalate and become even harder to fix – and even more expensive, for that matter.

At the end of the day, the care and keeping of your home’s foundation is most certainly a hugely important thing. Ultimately, it is something to be taken seriously.