Foundation repair in Christiana and rural Rutherford County
Christiana, Rockvale and Lascassas have no city hall of their own. For a house in the unincorporated county, the permit office, the utilities in the ground and the way equipment reaches the house are all a little different from in town.
Permits
The county is your building department
Outside every city limit, building permits come from Rutherford County's Department of Building Codes, One Public Square, Room 101, Murfreesboro, open on weekdays until 4:15. Its building FAQ quotes the residential code: a permit is required to alter or repair a structure, as well as to build one. The number to ask whether your repair needs one is 615-898-7734.
Eagleville is the exception nearby. It is a city and issues its own building and remodelling permits from City Hall on South Main Street.
Rural lots
Tell the company what is buried and where
- The septic tank and its field lines. Piers and trenches must stay clear of them, and heavy equipment should not cross them.
- A well, its supply pipe and any old cistern.
- Buried propane, power or water lines to barns and outbuildings.
- How a truck and a small excavator can get to each side of the house, and whether the drive will carry them.
- Any spring, wet-weather stream or pond near the house.
In a subdivision most of this is on a plat. On an older rural property it may only be in your head or the previous owner's, so write it down before the inspection.
Sinkholes
How the county treats sinkholes
Rutherford County's subdivision regulations require developments to keep a water quality buffer of twenty-five feet around sinkholes, and it bars using a sinkhole as part of a drainage system unless an overflow outlet is provided. Its flood rules count land near sinkholes and enclosed depressions as subject to localized flooding.
Those rules are written for developers, but the reasoning applies to one house. Keep roof water, driveway runoff and pond overflow from draining into a sinkhole near a building, and do not build or park beside one. Sinking ground near the house covers what to do if a new one appears.
Older houses
Farmhouses and additions
Country houses have often grown in stages: an original house on stone or brick piers, a block-walled addition, a later slab for a sunroom or garage. Each part stands on a different foundation and moves in its own way, and cracks tend to open where one part meets the next.
Say on the phone which parts were added and roughly when. It helps the company send someone used to that kind of house and saves time at the inspection.
One phone call
Speak with a foundation repair company near Murfreesboro
Mention the crack, the dip or the lean, name the room, and give the month you first spotted it. Whoever picks up belongs to a Middle Tennessee foundation outfit whose only tie to this website is the referral. They can pencil in an inspection and follow it with a written price.
A house that is cracking as you listen, a wall on the point of failing, gas in the air: everybody outside first, then 911 and the gas company.
Expect the call to be recorded. Two short pages cover the rest: who pays for referrals and what becomes of call details.