Here's a look at the damage caused by the street expanding, pushing the driveway into the garage floor, and then pushing the foundation wall...aka "Street Creep".
Where does Street Creep occur? You can typically find street creep on houses that are located at the bottom of a 'T' intersection where the street runs downhill directly into the driveway that is connected right up to the home's foundation. You can also find it where the street curves downhill into a driveway. These are the 2 scenarios where the most damage is likely to occur. Street Creep can also be seen on flat streets where the concrete isn't sloping towards the home. In this scenario, the street isn't being pushed downhill, but is rather expanding and contracting. The wider the concrete street or circle, the more potential for expansion and movement. If you don't have proper expansion joints on the driveway to absorb that movement, then the force gets exerted onto your house.
Below are photos taken from the flat scenario where the concrete street simply expanded:
The first photo shows my screwdriver hitting concrete in the bottom of the expansion joint rendering the joint ineffective to take any movement from the street expanding.
The 2nd photo shows vertical cracks in the foundation in the back corners of the garage.
The 3rd photo shows the same crack visible from the basement.
The 4th photo shows the top of the partition wall that butts up against the foundation wall. As the foundation was pushed, it moved the partition wall. As the foundation went back towards its original position during contraction, the partition wall stayed in its new spot, thus the gap where the drywall mud used to be flush to the foundation wall.
The 5th photo shows the same partition wall towards the bottom. Notice how the bottom portion of the wall wasn't pushed and the crack narrows to nothing.
Luckily the damage here wasn't significant. Our recommendation was to have a licensed Flatwork Concrete Contractor install a proper expansion joint on the driveway to aleviate any future movement. As there wasn't any significant damage to the foundation, there was no recommendation for repairing the foundation.
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