Basement & Foundation Jargon Decoder

Plain-English definitions for basement, foundation, crawl space and radon terms on inspection reports and listings.

This extension tells you what those words mean, in plain English, right on the page you're already reading. HOW IT WORKS Click the icon, hit "Scan this page for terms," and every basement, foundation, crawl space and radon term we know gets highlighted. Click a highlight and you get a plain definition plus what it usually means for a house. In a hurry? Select any word on any page, right-click, and choose "Decode with 603." You can also just search the glossary straight from the popup. No page needed. WHAT'S IN IT 52 terms across the four things that go wrong under a house: - Water: efflorescence, hydrostatic pressure, the floor wall joint, seepage, french drains, sump pumps, battery backups, ejector pumps, grade, weep holes. - Structure: horizontal vs vertical cracks, stair-step cracks, bowing walls, sill plates, rim joists, lally columns, footings, helical and push piers, underpinning, honeycomb, spalling, rebar, frost heave, settling, differential settlement, fieldstone foundations. - Crawl space: encapsulation, vapor and moisture barriers, dehumidifiers, mold, that smell. - Radon: pCi/L, radon tests, mitigation systems, sub-slab and sub-membrane depressurization. Each one tells you whether it is just background, something to keep an eye on, or something worth getting looked at. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO No account. No sign-up. Nothing to configure. It collects nothing and sends nothing anywhere. The whole glossary ships inside the extension and works offline. It doesn't watch pages in the background either. It only reads a page at the moment you ask it to, and it forgets it the second you close the tab. WHO MADE IT 603 Basement Solutions, an owner-run basement waterproofing and foundation repair crew in East Kingston, New Hampshire, working across New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts. We wrote these definitions the way we'd explain them standing in your basement. More at 603basementsolutions.com. We wrote these definitions the way we'd explain them standing in your basement. One honest note: this is general information, not an inspection of your home. No extension can tell you what's actually going on down there. If something in your report worries you, get a real set of eyes on it.