Recently moved into a house around 10 years or so of age. I noticed that some areas of the foundation wrap is tearing off from the plugs/nails at the top. Is this a cause for concern and need to be fixed ASAP?
What is usually the cause of this? It would seem like the wrap sunk so it ripped off from the plugs.
Would also like to know how or why this would happen.
Picture is here:
Best Answer
It would appear that the ground settled, and there was too much friction between the wrap and the backfill so the settling ground took the wrap with it. Since this appears to be an external waterproofing layer, if the top edge is still above soil line, and you don't have leaks, it's probably fine. It does suggest that you might want to check the grade around the house - often when the backfill settles, the grade shifts from "properly away from the house" (if it was proper in the first place) to water runs towards the house, not away from it.
If you wanted to attempt to rectify it, you'd dig a short distance, V-E-R-Y carefully so as not to hole the wrap, and see if you could find enough "wrinkles" to allow you to pull the wrap up somewhat. I doubt you can get it the whole way back to where it was without excavating the whole foundation, and that's definitely overkill unless you have major leaks indicating a major failure of the system.