Carbon Fiber Straps For Bowed Wall Repair
Our team at Deska uses carbon fiber straps to repair bowed basement walls in Alexandria and the surrounding areas.
Basement walls have a tremendous amount of compression strength, meaning they can easily handle the weight of a home or building. However, they can rapidly begin to fail when too much lateral or horizontal load is placed against them, such as soil pressure, frost expansion pressure, swelling soil pressure, tree roots, and other loads around the exterior of your home or building.
Increases in moisture in the soil from melting snow or rain can place a load on your wall beyond what it can handle, which often leads to cracking, bowing, tipping, and shearing. Other factors such as tree roots or construction on the exterior of the wall can also contribute to wall failures.
In block foundation walls, you will typically see horizontal cracks, step cracks, and bowing in the middle of the wall as early signs of a problem. Bottom shearing is often the next indicator that your wall is in jeopardy. Most block walls are not laterally reinforced to withstand these lateral forces.
In a poured concrete foundation wall, the problems will usually appear with horizontal or angled cracks, and leaning or tipping at the top of the wall. These concrete foundation walls may or may not have been constructed with lateral reinforcement.
If you experiencing any of these problems, it’s important that you reinforce your wall right away. It can only take one bad rain storm to push a wall beyond repair.
There are several methods for reinforcing a wall, but nothing compares to a Composite Reinforced Foundation utilizing the Fortress InvisiBeam® System.
The Fortress InvisiBeam® system features the latest in composite technologies and outperforms alternative options such as steel I-Beams, Wall Anchors, or Carbon Fiber Fabric Systems.
Watch this video to learn more about the InvisiBeam® System
Deska Foundation Repair & Waterproofing is part of a select group of contractors who have been recognized with Platinum Certification from Fortress. This means we receive factory direct training and our installations are backed by the manufacture’s Lifetime Warranty.
Highlight of a Fortress Platinum InvisiBeam® Installation:
- Manufactures COMPLETE INSTALLATION Lifetime warranty! If an Invisibeam Platinum System were to ever fail, Fortress would pay for a complete repair, not just replacement material.
- Complete Structural Anchoring. Unlike other Carbon Fiber systems, the InvisiBeam Platinum system is structurally anchored at the top and bottom utilizing Fortress’ patent anchoring technology. This ensures that all types of lateral movement are being stopped.
- Fortress was the first ever company to receive ICC certification for a wall reinforcement system. This means it meets building codes everywhere.
- The InvisiBeam system greatly reduces the margin for error during installation. Installation errors are VERY common with Carbon Fiber fabrics, leading to failures and repeat installations at the cost of the home owner.
- InvisiBeam installs quickly and without a mess, unlike many other alternative wall reinforcement options.
- The entire InvisiBeam® system is a TRUE COMPOSITE manufactured in the USA by Fortress in their Michigan plant. Other carbon fiber systems are sourced from third party carbon weavers.
It’s called “InvisiBeam®” For a Reason!
InvisiBeam® Truly Redefines the “I” in “I-Beam”
First, it can be used in any situation where a traditional steel I-Beam could be used to stop lateral wall movement;
Second, it can become “invisible” by painting over it or hiding it behind a constructed wall. Since it requires no maintenance and is guaranteed to never fail, you have no worries about finishing over it.
The components of the InvisiBeam® Platinum System:
The Carbon Fiber / Kevlar® Strap features an open grid design, which allows the anchoring epoxy to form a chemical bond to the wall and a mechanical bond from the top to the bottom of the strap through a process called Adhesive Riveting Technology. Just like a traditional rivet, this technology forms a bond far superior to that of the “watery” saturant epoxy used with carbon fiber fabrics. The InvisiBeam® strap actually makes the wall strong than when it was originally built.
The Top Anchor attaches to the rim joint of your home’s flooring system (additional options are available when the rim joist is not accessible.) This provides a secure anchoring point to a structural component of your home ensuring the wall cannot continue to tip once the strap is installed and that the strap cannot debone form the surface. The patented top anchor is post-tensioned, which allows the Carbon Fiber to immediately take on the load being place against your wall from the exterior soil pressure.
The Bottom Anchor provides over 4,500lbs of lateral strength, preventing the possibility of bottom wall shear. The patented anchor is made of solid carbon — in fact the bottom anchor alone contains over twice the carbon of any competitors entire system!
