ASHFORD – Hundreds of homeowners in Connecticut dealing with cracking and crumbling foundations only have one option: starting from scratch and laying an entirely new foundation.
This comes at a high cost and homeowners are receiving little to no help from insurance companies. But one local contractor has a method that can help save those people a lot of money.
Glenn Mooney, a mason from Willington, is currently laying a new foundation for a home in Ashford. The former foundation was so cracked he said it shattered like glass when he removed it.
It’s the first house he’s working on using this method. The homeowner had received a quote for a new foundation from another contractor for around $150,000. Mooney said he’d charge about half of that.
“It’s sad and you know, I see the heartache in people. It’s like as much as I got plenty of other things I like to do, I said you know, I’m going to try one,” said Mooney. “I’d like to help people out.”
He got the idea from his own past. His father was a mason too and as a kid, he’d help him on jobs.
“Most of the foundations back then were done out of concrete block and I used to haul the block for my dad. That’s what got me thinking. I was wondering why nobody’s doing this because all those houses with the block foundations are still standing today,” said Mooney.
Mooney is laying individual 10-inch concrete blocks and working one wall at a time. The end result is a solid concrete wall reinforced with steel.
“Once that wall’s done, we set the house back down and move on to the next wall,” he explained.
It allows him to keep electrical and water systems intact, and while other contractors lift the homes several feet to lay new foundations, Mooney has lifted the home less than an inch.
He’s run the method by town inspectors and encourages other masons to take his approach. He says with all of the homeowners out there with this problem, there is plenty of work to go around.
Mooney said, “I welcome people to share my idea and get out there because it’s only getting worse not better.”