Repair My Foundation

Every concrete slab that may need repair presents its own symptoms and problems. Each situation is different. The guy next door to me had piers installed all around the perimeter of his house. But the guy down the street only needed piers under the east and south side of the slab. This is one of the reasons the cost of foundation repair varies, and why the prudent home owner gets bids from at least three different foundation repair contractors. Spending a few hundred dollars on an inspection by an independent structural engineer is a good idea as well.

The Dallas Morning New recently ran an article on the damage to slab foundations caused by the shrink-swell clay soils and the weather in North Texas. The piece also touched on costs of foundation repair and how the lowly soaker hose is indeed your friend. Here is a link to the article.

The house behind and across the alley from mine is up for sale again. A fellow named Bobby used to live there but he just left one day. I know Bobby had once owned the house because he had converted the garage into a den, added a swimming pool and had made other improvements you just don’t do if you’re renting.

However, hard times came upon Bobby (largely self inflicted) and as luck would have it, the foundation went bad just when he needed to sell the house he could no longer afford to keep. He didn’t get the slab foundation repaired and therefore the house did not sell. There are just too many other properties for sale around here for buyers to even consider a house with a bad foundation.

So the bank forecloses and a house flipper buys it. Mr. House Flipper wants to spend a minimal amount of money to fix it up for re-sale and hires El Cheapo No Name Foundation Repair and Lawn Care to repair the slab. These guys show up after hours and on weekends to work on the foundation. They installed drilled piers and I had my doubts at the time about the quality of work.

Those suspicions were confirmed by a handyman I spoke with who had been hired by Mr. House Flipper to repair cracks in the walls and ceilings that had already been fixed once after the alleged foundation repair. He showed me where the floor plates of two walls were again coming apart at the corners. It was easy to see the long crack that had developed again in the ceiling of the same room. He said the foundation repair job was “terrible.”

The lesson here is to pick your foundation repair contractor carefully. Be suspicious of anyone who says they can fix your slab on the weekends for a ridiculously low price. Get at least three different bids from established contractors. Hire an independent structural engineer with experience in residential foundations. It’ll cost several hundred dollars but could save you thousands in the long run.

And just say “no” to El Cheapo No Name Foundation Repair and Taxidermy Inc.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of cosmetic fix-up inside the house over the last 10 months or so since I had root barriers installed. At the same time I had large shrubs removed from the west side of the slab foundation.

In the meantime I’ve been fixing drywall and painting. There were some small wall cracks that needed filling and some areas where sheet rock tape had popped, things to be expected of a thirty year old house that has a concrete slab foundation sitting on shrink-swell heavy clay soil. So far things have stayed fixed.

The was one crack in the ceiling near the patio door that was always kind of an indicator of foundation movement for me. It would open and close ever so slightly depending how much rain we had gotten or how faithful I had been with running the soaker hoses.

Well sir, that crack has stayed closed for several months now. I don’t know if it’s because of all the rain we’ve had this year, the root barriers, the soaker hoses or a combination of all three. It’s probably the latter. At any rate, it’s nice to give the drywall mud knife a rest.

My next door neighbor Don had his concrete slab-on-ground foundation repaired three years ago. He paid close to $7,000 and the job came with a lifetime warranty.

Don wasn’t satisfied with the results of the first job. His foundation was moving more than he thought it should and not as level so he called them back out. The company did another half day’s work adjusting the shims between the slab and the piers.

Don called them a third time. After all, he had a lifetime warranty. This time, the company was out of business. Some of the same management was there, but operating under a different name and not the one on Don’s warranty. That company is out of business and Don is screwed. I guess that’s how some of the shady smaller companies get out from under their warranty obligations.

In Texas we have a thing called the Texas Foundation Warranty Trust. If your foundation repair contractor participates in the program you get a transferable lifetime warranty to pass on to the buyers of your house. If the repair isn’t done right the first time they have to come back at no extra cost and make it good. Most importantly it covers the repair if the original contractor goes out of business. Most of the major players in Texas are a part of the warranty program.

If you live in Texas and need foundation repair add the Texas Foundation Warranty Trust availability into your decision making. Sometimes it’s good to run with the big dogs. Just ask Don.

We had a bit of a dry spell last week and I decided to run my soaker hoses to make sure the soil around my concrete slab foundation was staying moist.

I hadn’t needed to run the soaker hoses in quite a while. Even though I have gutters that take most of the rainfall away from the foundation the soil was not drying out significantly because we have had a lot of rain in my area this spring and so far this summer. Record amounts of rain.

I’m using a “T” splitter on the west side of my foundation to make sure I have enough water pressure in the entire length of the soaker hose. I’m using a configuration similar to the diagram on this page.

Sure enough, there was plenty of pressure, because the end cap of the soaker hose popped off. It was an easy fix as these parts are pretty simple to work with. I loosened the clamp with a screwdriver, shoved the end cap back into the hose and re-tightened the clamp. You can see some of these soaker hose parts here. They are the same parts you would use with a regular garden hose.

If your concrete slab foundation sits on shrink-swell clay soils, soaker hoses are a great way to keep the moisture content even and the movement of your foundation to a minimum.

You can tell when a guy sells the house, packs up and moves away. You can also tell when a guy just leaves. Bobby, the guy who lived behind me, has up and disappeared.

Bobby was having no luck selling his house because it needed foundation repair. He deducted the cost of fixing the slab from his asking price but didn’t realize the financing problems a new buyer would encounter. Mortgage companies are not real anxious to lend money for a house with known unresolved foundation problems.

Apparently Bobby had neither the cash, credit or will to get the foundation repaired so he could sell the house. Instead he seems to have just walked away. The heap of belongings behind the house testify to that. I haven’t seen him in weeks. The small in-ground swimming pool in the back yard has turned into a lagoon.

Then two weeks ago a crew showed up and dug the holes for drilled piers all around slab including a couple of holes through the driveway. The holes looked to be about 2 feet by 2 feet and I don’t know how deep. They were filled with concrete to within a foot and a half or so of the foundation. Then the crew left.

I doubt that this job was done by a main stream foundation repair contractor. The vehicles were crappy looking and had no company names. They worked on the July 4th holiday. I saw no reinforcing steel being used in the pier holes. They then left all the holes uncovered to collect rain water during the curing process. And it rained a lot. Somehow I don’t think an experienced engineer would approve of their work.

The crew returned a week or so later with jacks and concrete cylinders. They spent a day pumping water out of the holes, mating the cylinders to the piers, cutting the cylinders to fit, using the jacks to lift the slab. They backfilled the holes with the soil they had dug out and called it a day.

So somewhere there is a piece of paper that says Bobby’s foundation has been “repaired.” As they say, “buyer beware.”

As I recall, soaker hoses are those porous rubber conduits one drapes around the perimeter of the foundation to supply an even measure of moisture to the slab. It’s smart to do this if your house sits on shrink-swell clay soils.

I haven’t had to use mine for six months. After two years of drought and local water use restrictions it has rained. a. lot. The area lakes are full and then some, my yard is squishy and the grass fat with water.

If I were to run the soaker hoses the water would immediately run off and head for the street moving quicker than a fat kid on cake. We are ten inches above normal in the rainfall column for this year. So far. But that could change.

All the rain could come to a screeching halt next week. In fact, we usually have hot dry summers. So my soaker hoses lie in wait, resting under a thick layer of mulch, until it’s time once again to deliver moisture to the foundation.

This little blog is written from the Dallas, Texas part of the globe which happens to be in one of the busiest areas for foundation repair companies. Why?

Most of the residential neighborhoods are built on what used to be black prairie farmland.  Where once they grew cotton they now grow housing developments planted in the same heavy clay soils.

These soils swell when wet and shrink when it’s dry. The result is rising, falling and twisting of the average slab-on-ground concrete foundation. The use of soaker hoses to keep the soil around the foundation moist is a must.
Up until about six months ago things were very dry in North Central Texas. We were/still are in drought conditions and most communities issued restrictions on water use.

Starting last December it finally started raining again. A lot. Our local lakes are filling back up. My entire yard is green and wet. I’ve seen small cracks in the brick veneer close back up.

The root barriers seem to be doing their job and the trees seem none the worse so far. I had large shrubs around the foundation removed. Instead I have a heavy layer of mulch that hide the soaker hoses.

Typically the rain shuts off in June and I’ll be running the soaker hoses again. But in the meantime the moisture content around the foundation is healthy and on the up-swing of the shrink-swell pendulum. Sweet!

A foundation repair contractor in Austin, Texas has this warning about warranties:

Read the “lifetime warranties” carefully and you will discover that most contractor’s only obligation is to make adjustments. Think about it…Your house can continue to move with all the resultant interior and exterior damage and all your contractor has to do is make adjustments every 12 to 18 months. To make this situation even more troubling most contractors have an “arbitration clause” in their contract that prevents you from suing them to make things right.

Hat tip to Austin Foundation Repair.

Foundation Repair Information - Slab Foundation Repair

technorati tags:Austin, Foundation, Repair, Warranties

It’s weird, but I never thought that Austin foundation repair would really need much of a mention because of the way I think about the geography there. Hill Country, lots of bluffs and cliffs, rocky outcroppings everywhere.

When I think of Austin I picture lot’s of limestone and chalk, not foundation bending shrink-swell clay soils. But that’s what I get for thinkin’.

A few minutes with the Travis County soil survey map from the USDA website proves I have a lot to learn. There are more diverse soil types around Austin than you can shake a BBQ’d rib at.

The soil types that homes are built on in the Austin area change dramatically as you move west to east. It’s the shrink-swell clays in the mid and eastern areas of Travis County that provide Austin foundation repair companies their livelihood. Read more about it here.