Foundation Repair Edmonton
Quick Answer: Looking for foundation repair near me in the Edmonton area? Alberta Foundation Repair starts every job with an on-site inspection from the owner and works to a simple rule: inspect the cause, fix it right. Tim comes out and figures out what is happening under your house before he quotes it, fixes the actual cause, then makes sure it held. Cracks, slab levelling, sump pumps and waterproofing, all under one roof.
I am Tim Phillips, and I own Alberta Foundation Repair. The promise I make on every single job is to inspect the cause and fix it right: I inspect the foundation on site and identify why it is moving before anyone quotes a repair, I fix the cause rather than the symptom, and I make sure it worked instead of asking you to take my word for it. That is the whole company, and it is the reason this page exists. Most Edmonton homeowners do not need ten foundation contractors. They need one who will tell them what is actually wrong.
This page is the map. Foundation trouble in Edmonton shows up in a handful of ways: a crack in the basement wall, a settled garage slab or front step, a wet basement after the spring melt, a sump pump that quit. Below I frame each of those, point you to the page that goes deep on it, and finish with the part most companies skip: how to actually choose a foundation repair company in this city without getting sold work you do not need.
Tim Phillips, Alberta Foundation Repair: “The thing I want people in Edmonton to understand is that almost every foundation problem here traces back to the same thing: the clay. It swells, it shrinks, it freezes. Two houses on the same street can have completely different ground under them. So I do not quote off a photo and I do not inject blind. I come out and inspect the foundation myself, every time, and read what the cause actually is on site. That one habit is what separates a repair that lasts from a repair that comes back in three years.”
Here is the engineering reason that habit matters in Edmonton specifically. The Alberta Geological Survey maps much of the region as glacial till with pockets of lacustrine clay that can hit a Plasticity Index around 44%, which puts it solidly in the highly expansive range. That clay can swell five to ten percent when it takes on water, then shrink back in a dry summer. Add a design frost depth of 2.4 metres and winters that reach minus thirty, and the ground under your footings is moving in every direction across the year. You cannot fix what you have not properly diagnosed, which is exactly why we lead with a careful on-site inspection of the cause.
My basement wall is cracking, what do I do?
Start by figuring out whether the crack is cosmetic or structural, because the two get fixed very differently. A thin vertical crack from concrete curing is usually a minor injection job. A horizontal crack running along the middle of the wall is a pressure problem and a different conversation entirely. We handle the full range of diagnosing and sealing foundation cracks, from hairline shrinkage lines to stair-step movement cracks, using polyurethane for active flexible cracks and epoxy where we need a rigid structural bond. The crack page walks through every crack type by severity so you know which camp yours falls in before you call.
Why is my garage slab or front step sinking?
When a slab, step, driveway or garage floor drops or tilts, it is almost always the soil underneath that washed out, settled or shrank away, leaving a void the concrete is no longer fully supported on. The modern fix is not the old slurry method. We do lifting settled concrete with polyjacking, injecting structural polyurethane foam that expands to fill the void and raise the slab back to grade, then cures in about fifteen minutes. It is cleaner, lighter and faster than traditional mudjacking, and it does not add the heavy wet weight that started some of these problems in the first place. The levelling page compares the methods honestly so you can see why we made that call.
How do I keep water out of my basement?
Edmonton sits over a high seasonal water table and a lot of slow-draining clay, so water management is half the foundation battle. The first line of defence is a working pit-and-pump setup, and we cover everything about keeping ground water out with a sump system: install, repair, replacement, battery backup for storm outages, and freeze protection for that brutal discharge line in January. If your basement is already taking on water rather than just collecting it in a pit, that points past the pump to the waterproofing envelope itself.
My basement leaks every spring, can it be fixed for good?
Yes, but only once you know where the water is actually getting in, which is usually grading, hydrostatic pressure, a failed weeping tile, or a crack acting as a doorway. That is a job for sealing a leaking basement for good, where we trace the source first with a proper on-site inspection, then choose between interior and exterior solutions and the right drainage to relieve the pressure. Sealing a wall without finding the source is how people end up paying twice, so we do the diagnosis before the dollars.
How do I know if my foundation is actually a problem?
Most foundations give you fair warning if you know what to read. Sticking doors that get worse in spring, floors that have started to slope, new diagonal cracks above window corners, and gaps opening between the house and an attached step are all worth a look, and we lay out the warning signs worth acting on in a room-by-room checklist so you can tell a watch-it situation from a call-now one. Catching movement early is almost always cheaper than catching it late, because in Edmonton clay a small void rarely stays small.
How do I choose a foundation repair company in Edmonton?
This is the section the big names will not write, so I will. There are plenty of established foundation companies in this city. Abalon, Armour, Shield and the rest have been around a long time and do real work. But the standard industry practice is to send a sales rep, quote a fix, and inject or pier off a surface read, hoping the diagnosis was right. In our clay, with voids and saturated pockets you cannot see, that is a coin flip. The single biggest question you can ask any contractor is simple: how do you know what the real cause is before you drill into the concrete?
Five Questions to Ask Before You Sign a Foundation Quote
- Do you diagnose before you quote, or quote off a walk-around? A real assessment looks at what is happening under the slab and behind the wall, not just at the surface crack you already noticed.
- Will you put the cause in writing? “Your foundation is settling” is not a diagnosis. Settling because of a washed-out void at the northeast corner is. Make them name the cause.
- Does the owner actually inspect, or do you send a sales rep? Ask who shows up. With us, Tim does the inspection and the work himself, so the person reading the cause is the person who fixes it.
- Do you stand behind the repair, or just hand me an invoice? Ask whether they check the work after. If the answer is no, you have no proof the void actually got filled.
- Is structural work permitted and engineered? Anything structural in Edmonton needs a City building permit and APEGA-stamped drawings. A company that waves that off is a company to walk away from.
That checklist is not marketing. It is the honest filter I would use if I were hiring someone to work on my own house. The reason I can answer all five of those without flinching is the process below.
What Inspect the Cause, Fix It Right Actually Means
Inspect. Tim comes out to your home and inspects the foundation himself, reading the signs in the concrete and the soil to identify the actual cause: a washed-out void, a saturated zone, frost movement, or clay heave. It is an honest on-site assessment from the owner, not a sales pitch, and the visual inspection is free. Fix. Once we know the cause, we match the method to it: polyurethane foam (roughly four pounds per cubic foot, cures in fifteen minutes, designed to last 20-plus years) for lifting and flexible sealing, epoxy for rigid structural bonding, and proper drainage where water is the driver. Right. We check the repaired area so you can see the void is filled or the wall is holding. Competitors inject blind and hope. We diagnose the cause, fix it, and make sure it held.
If you are wondering about budget before you book anything, I keep all of it on one page rather than guessing in a sales pitch: here is what foundation work actually costs in Edmonton, with real 2026 ranges for crack injection, slab levelling and waterproofing, plus the five things that actually move the price. I would rather you walk in knowing the numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does foundation repair in Edmonton actually cost?
It depends entirely on the cause, which is why Tim inspects on site first. As broad ranges, crack injection runs about $1,500 to $3,500 per crack, concrete levelling with polyurethane runs $800 to $8,000 depending on the slab and the void, and basement waterproofing runs $2,000 to $5,000. The cost guide breaks down what pushes a job toward the high or low end.
Is the on-site inspection free?
Yes. Tim comes out, inspects the foundation, identifies why it is moving, and gives you an honest opinion at no charge. There is no sales rep and no pressure. What you get is a real read on the cause from the owner before anyone talks about a repair, which usually saves far more than guesswork ever would.
Why is foundation movement so common in Edmonton?
The ground. Much of the Edmonton region sits on glacial till with bands of highly expansive lacustrine clay, Plasticity Index up to around 44%, that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Combine that with a 2.4 metre frost depth and minus thirty winters and the soil under your footings moves every season. That constant movement is what cracks concrete and tilts slabs over time.
Do you do mudjacking?
We do the job mudjacking is hired for, lifting sunken concrete, but we use polyurethane foam rather than the old cement slurry. People search “mudjacking” generically, so it is worth knowing the difference: traditional mudjacking pumps a heavy wet slurry under the slab, while polyjacking injects lightweight structural foam that cures fast and adds far less weight to soil that is already part of the problem. We recommend and use the modern polyurethane method.
Do foundation repairs in Edmonton need a permit?
Crack injection and sealing usually do not. Structural work like underpinning, piering or wall anchors does: the City of Edmonton requires a building permit and APEGA-stamped engineering drawings for structural foundation repair, under the Alberta Safety Codes Act and the National Building Code. We handle that paperwork as part of the job and never skip it.
Sources
- Alberta Geological Survey. Soil and Surficial Geology of the Edmonton Region (glacial till and lacustrine clay distribution). Link
- National Research Council Canada. National Building Code of Canada 2025 (frost depth and footing design provisions). Link
- APEGA (Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta). When You Need a Professional Engineer (stamped drawings for structural work). Link
- City of Edmonton. Building Permits for Foundation and Structural Repair. Link
- Government of Alberta. Safety Codes Act (permit and code authority for building work in Alberta). Link
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Moisture and Foundation Performance in Canadian Homes. Link
Book a Free On-Site Inspection With Tim
If your basement is cracking, your slab has dropped, or your floor has started to slope, the fastest way to a real answer is an honest inspection instead of a guessed one. A visual walkthrough is free, and Tim inspects the foundation on site to identify exactly what is happening under your house before anyone quotes a dollar of repair. Alberta Foundation Repair serves the communities Tim covers around Edmonton, from St. Albert and Sherwood Park to Spruce Grove, Leduc and Fort Saskatchewan.
Where to go next in our Edmonton foundation repair library
Foundation repair covers a lot of ground, from spotting the first warning signs to choosing between a patch and a full rebuild. We have broken the subject into focused guides so you can read up on exactly the part that matters for your home or building.
Figuring out what is wrong
- Reading the warning signs that an Edmonton foundation needs attention
- What a proper Edmonton foundation inspection actually checks
- How an on-site inspection reads what is happening under your slab
- When to bring a structural engineer onto a foundation repair
Why Edmonton foundations move in the first place
- How Edmonton clay soil pushes and pulls on a foundation
- The frost and freeze-thaw forces behind winter foundation cracks
Choosing and planning the fix
- Deciding between repairing and replacing an Edmonton foundation
- How basement underpinning stabilizes a settling Edmonton home
- The permits Edmonton requires before foundation work begins
- Understanding what an Edmonton foundation repair warranty covers