Wall Anchor Covers - Easy, Clean, Discreet
You may be wondering why I would even need or want to have wall anchor covers in my home. Could I not simply drywall over the installed anchoring system and put them permanently out of sight and out of mind. The simple answer is that you can do either. You can choose to cover over your wall anchoring system and never see it again, or you can choose to keep it exposed and regularly tighten the system to move the wall back over time. It purely comes down to the preference of the home owner.
To better understand the tightening options a home owner has, we need to first clarify what causes a foundation to wall to move inward and what your repair options are.
Foundation walls have what is referred to as unbalanced fill against the foundation wall. What this means is that on one side of a foundation wall there is open living space, but on the other side of the wall there is as much as 8' of soil pressing up against the wall. This creates a large imbalance of pressure being exerted against that foundation wall. To make matters worse, when the soil on the outside of the home becomes saturated with rain, it expands and intensifies the pressure on the foundation wall. Eventually the pressure becomes more than the wall can with stand and it begins to lean in or bow. Soon a small problem grows into a larger problem and small crack, lean, or bow in the wall can quickly become a significant problem.
To correct this type of wall failure, Geo-Lock Wall Anchors can be installed to arrest the movement where it is at and even provide the potential for straightening the wall. The basic concept of a Geo-Lock Wall Anchor is that 1 steel plate is installed against the interior side of the foundation wall and a second steel plate is installed 12' away from the home in the soil. The two steel plates are connected to each other with an all-thread steel rod and put tightened to be in tension.
Once installed the Geo-Lock Wall Anchor system comes with a 25-year warranty that the foundation wall movement will be stopped where it is and will not continue to worsen over time. Thrasher has installed tens of thousands of these wall anchor systems over our 45 years of being in business and we have seen first hand the complete success of this type of system. Once installed the customer can rest assured that the condition of the foundation wall will not get worse. This however, is not where the Geo-Lock Wall Anchoring system stops. If the customer chooses, the Geo-Lock Wall Anchors can be tightened on a regular monthly schedule and over time the foundation wall can move back to a straighter position.
As previously stated, the soil on the outside of the foundation wall is the cause of the initial wall failure. As the soil gets saturated with water during rain events, it expands and puts pressure against the foundation walls. However, during the dry seasons the soil can dry out and actually contracts and shrinks in size. The real-world result is that the soil actually pulls away from the foundation wall and create small gaps between the soil and the wall. It is in these moments, that our wall anchor systems can actually move the foundation wall outward and into the gap created by the constricting soil. If the homeowner has been tightening the wall anchors, the wall will move outwards a fraction of an inch. If the customer has not been tightening the anchors, slack will be created in the system until the soil pushes back against the foundation wall and reengages the wall anchor system.
If your goal as the homeowner is to bring the wall back to its original position, then that can be done through a regular monthly cadence of tightening your wall anchor system. This process however is slow and may take years to complete. So while many customers have a desire to straighten their walls, if the basement is finished most customers don't love having the openings in their drywall for years. These are the customers we had in mind when we created the Hide-A-Way wall anchor covers.
After a Geo-Lock Wall Anchor system is completed, the Hide-A-Way covers can be installed to create a clean look on finished drywall. They space will have a semi-finished feel yet maintain access to the wall anchor system for the homeowner. The creation of the Hide-A-Way wall anchor covers, has truly created the best of both worlds for the home owner.
Wall anchor covers discreetly hide unsightly wall anchors. Read the attached brochure for more details and pictures of what the finished product looks like.
Article Categories:
