Normal settling produces fine hairline cracks that stay the same size and don’t affect doors or floors. Foundation problems show up as cracks wider than about 1/4 inch or growing, floors more than about an inch out of level, and doors and windows that bind. The difference is size, growth and whether the symptoms cluster together.
Foundation Repair Baton Rouge tells a lot of homeowners that what they’re seeing is normal. Here’s how we decide.
What normal settling looks like
- Hairline cracks in drywall, slabs or garage floors, under about 1/8 inch, that don’t grow.
- Cracks from concrete shrinkage — almost every slab has them.
- A nail pop or a small crack over a door in a newer house during its first few years.
- Minor seasonal door sticking that comes and goes without getting worse.
What a foundation problem looks like
- Cracks wider than about 1/4 inch, or cracks you’ve measured growing over months.
- Offset cracks, where one side sits higher than the other.
- Stair-step brick cracks with sticking doors or windows nearby.
- Floors out of level by more than about an inch across a room or in 20 feet.
- Doors that stop latching and get worse each season.
- Several symptoms together in the same part of the house.
How to check it yourself
- Measure crack widths with a crack gauge or a set of feeler gauges and write them down with the date.
- Mark crack ends in pencil with a date; if the crack grows past the mark, it’s active.
- Photograph each crack with a tape measure for scale, every month or two.
- Check doors — note which ones stick and when.
A few months of notes through a wet-dry change tells you more than a single look.
Why it’s harder to tell in Baton Rouge
Clay soils here swell and shrink with the seasons, so some movement is normal and reversible. What matters is whether the movement is getting bigger each year and whether one side of the house is dropping relative to the rest. A laser elevation survey answers that directly. See signs of foundation problems and foundation inspection.
Bottom line
Small, stable cracks are settling. Wide, growing cracks with sticking doors and sloping floors are a foundation problem. For a free measured answer, call Foundation Repair Baton Rouge.