What Are Bowing Walls?
As the name suggests, bowing walls are when your walls bow inward in your basement or crawl space because of hydrostatic pressure building up on the outside.
If you’re a responsible homeowner, you probably know that a collapse isn’t great for the long-term health of your house. Bowing walls are a sign that your foundation’s health is facing severe pressure and could get worse over time. Okay, a full-blown collapse is an extreme example, but it isn’t far off. When your basement has bowing walls, you are likely to experience several lesser side-effects first.
At the root, the hydrostatic pressure (or lack of support) often becomes too much for the walls and causes them to bow or lean. Efforts to stabilize or reposition bowing walls should be taken at the first signs of inward movement. When horizontal cracks appear in these walls, the structural integrity is compromised.