Mr. Happy Crack is a concrete block-shaped mascot for a company called The Crack Team, founded by Mike Kodner, who is known in company circles as "The Ray Kroc of Crack."

Mike's son, Bob, now is CEO of the company, which is dedicated to abating basement leaks and other foundation problems and doing so with a sense of humor.

Basic maintenance

The key to preventing foundation problems, Bob Kodner said, is to remember that "keeping water away from the foundation is really a big deal."

He suggests three ways to make that happen:

• "Try to make sure your gutters are cleaned once every 73 years." OK, more often is better, but you get the point.

• Have downspouts connected to the gutters to carry water away from the base of a home. Downspout length should be three to six feet, according to the National Association of Waterproofing and Structural Repair Contractors.

• Make sure the ground slopes away from the home.

The foundation specialty business is robust, and Mr. Happy Crack and company have moved into 21 states, including Illinois, through work out of the St. Louis home office started in 1985 and through franchise locations.

Business this spring has jumped 70 to 75 percent over last spring, Kodner said, but not because of the April earthquake. He's seen virtually no damage to building foundations from the earthquake.

A real sign of trouble - the kind that gets homeowners on the telephone - is water in the basement. There's been a lot of that lately, Kodner said.

Signs

Bloomington-based licensed home inspector John Capodice looks at interior basement walls for cracks, especially for cracks that are a quarter-inch or wider. These could be "movement cracks," meaning the foundation is shifting. He also will look for bowing in the wall.

Extreme bowing can require extreme remedy, such as installation of wall supports, and this is a bill that runs into the thousands of dollars, Capodice said. Other signs:

• Water in the basement.

• Stained drywall in a finished basement.

• Doors and windows that no longer close properly.

• Cracking of a concrete basement floor and unevenness in floors.

Professional fixes

There are poured-concrete foundations, concrete slab foundations, concrete block construction, brick foundations and even wood foundations. There are horizontal cracks, vertical cracks and staired cracks, hairline and thick cracks.

There also are a variety of remedies.

Kodner's company fills cracks from inside the house with an epoxy compound, typically charging in the low- to mid-100s of dollars. Bigger repairs need a referral, Kodner said.

Charlton Howell oversees the Bloomington-Champaign area for Howell Concrete Lifters. (His father oversees a Decatur-Lincoln territory.)

Howell is leery of fixing the cracks without addressing the bigger issue of the cause. Poured concrete walls will crack and can be fixed in this manner, he said, but he is worried that filling the cracks in block concrete and brick is only masking the problem.

Howell Concrete Lifts specializes in bracing, a technique to improve or fix a bowing foundation wall. Steel beams are fixed inside the basement to stabilize the wall. It's very effective most of the time, Howell said. He added:

• It can be done without digging up the yard, but his firm won't guarantee success unless the yard is excavated. That's because there may be something under the yard, such as massive tree roots, pushing against the foundation and causing the problem.

• The bracing won't stop a crumbling foundation from crumbing.

Slabjacking involves pumping material underneath a slab to lift it. This can be done to rectify a sinking or "settling" slab foundation, and Howell's company is among those doing it.

Piering involves excavating the yard, jacking up the house, placing supports underneath the home and then restoring the yard. It is used sometimes to rectify a sagging foundation.

If the foundation is crumbling, it may have to be replaced. This requires excavation around the house, jacking up the house and building a new foundation under it.

Howell's company has charged anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000, depending on the severity of the problem and the remedy.

Causes

A crack in a basement concrete wall doesn't automatically mean a serious repair is required, nor does it automatically mean that the builder erred, said Kodner. "Concrete is inherently susceptible to cracking. It's more of a 'when' than an 'if.'"

Large amounts of rainfall can affect the soil around and under the building and cause shifting, and so can a drought.

Improperly compacted soil during construction can create foundation-shifting problems later, concrete companies warn.

How you know

A multitude of problems, causes and severity makes sweeping conclusions difficult. Some problems start but stop abruptly and the house foundation seems fine ever after, while other homes have no problems for decades then develop one, said Howell.

Kodner advises people to ask multiple contractors for analysis and estimates but warned to expect multiple conclusions and proposals from which to choose.

Nationally syndicated "Ask the Builder" columnist Tim Carter suggests first turning to a structural engineer who specializes in residential construction. Have the engineer inspect the situation and make a report and recommendations and then seek out construction bids for the work, Carter writes.

Fix it?

Most foundation problems don't constitute emergencies, and some people choose to live with the problem, said Kodner. He said the most likely people to pay for repairs are people with finished basements, people trying to sell their homes and people who are particular about their property.

But Howell warned there can be a dire cost to not acting. Ultimately, a foundation can fail. A house can become dangerous to inhabit, and it can eventually collapse, he said, though he's never seen a foundation-caused collapse.

"When a wall is so bad it makes you sick to look at it, you've waited too long," Howell said.