If you’d like to see a sample of the kind of information you should get back when hiring an independent structural engineer to inspect your slab foundation you’ll find the link in this post.

You’ll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the report and you can get it here.

The fine print says you must present the coupon at the time you receive your free estimate. It also says you only have a couple of weeks to make that call or the coupon expires. What to do?

First, take a deep breath and rest in the knowledge that these coupons will be coming back around every few weeks. Unless you have really sudden and severe damage to your house and foundation you have some time to make an educated choice.

Next, have an independent structural engineer with foundation experience inspect your slab and generate a report detailing the findings. Your foundation leveling job may cost several thousand dollars. The inspection will cost several hundred dollars depending on the size of your home. Spend. The. Money. The information about the state of your foundation will be coming from a professional engineer who’s obligation is your best interest and not from a professional pier salesmen who’s obligation is to sell foundation repair services.

Then get bids from at least two other foundation repair contractors. See what they have to say about your slab, and after they leave, compare it with the engineer’s report (about which you’ve said nothing.) Keep their bids on hand and only then call the company with the coupon.

This way you can view the company offering the big dollar off coupon in an educated light. You’ll have a better sense of the true value of that coupon and won’t be time squeezed into making a rash decision that may or may not be a good deal on foundation repair. That is all.

I’ve put a link the inspection report on this page which is also listed in the ‘Pages” menu to your left. The report is of course specific to my humble dwelling alone but should give you an idea of what an engineer’s foundation inspection report covers. Enjoy the savory numbers and tasty diagrams.

His name is Mike and he is a licensed structural engineer who’s website described him as just the kind person you want inspecting your slab foundation: unbiased, independent, yet with years of experience in the concrete foundation business. Somehow he seemed taller in person.

Mike came in with his inspector gadgets: a carpenter’s level, clipboard, Stanley Compulevel, a laser “tape” measure, and a solid state voice recorder that he would mutter into now and then as though he was doing an autopsy on my house.

He went through the house and made a sketch of the floor plan, checked the doors and noted the cosmetic damage like buckled sheetrock tape and cracks. The room where I write this has a good sized crack where two sheets of wallboard join up, or used to, and the wall I’m facing has a 1/4 inch separation from the ceiling joint.

Outside, Inspector Mike looked for cracks or separations in the brick veneer and made note of the drainage and landscaping including an oak tree that is 12 feet from a back corner of the foundation.

Coming back inside, he fired up his trusty Compulevel. He set the main unit in the hall and unreeled enough tubing from it to reach the other rooms in the house. The tubing is charged with a gas that enables the instrument to measure minute changes in atmospheric pressure and thus variances in the rise or fall of a foundation.

Mike marched through the house with the head end which displays the readings. He wrote down the readings on the corresponding floor plan map he had sketched earlier.

By taking readings in every room, along walls and towards the center of each room, he developed a map of where the foundation varied in elevation from the high point, which turned out to be the kitchen near the garage door.

Inspector Mike’s report which was emailed later that evening showed my foundation about 5 inches low in the back of the house and lesser degrees of low elevation around the front and sides. I’m gonna need underpinning, but Mike suggests we first call an arborist to cap any roots going under the foundation, install a root barrier, and wait a year so see if we get some lift from stopping the tree from taking moisture out from under the slab in the back. The goal is not to avoid piers, but to get a better degree of level overall in that back room nearest the tree. I’ll let you know how it goes.

“The floor plan is perfect, the landscaping is beautiful and the amenities are ideal. A prospective home buyer is sold on the appearance of a home, but there are questions about what is not immediately apparent: the condition of the foundation.

Fears of expensive foundation repairs could be enough to kill the sale of a home. The average foundation repair in the state of Texas costs more than $8,000.

Real estate professionals can guard against losing such sales by insisting that a foundation inspection be performed by a licensed engineer. Such inspections not only provide peace of mind for home buyers but can also protect” ...read more here.

In his book “Foundation Repair Manual”, Robert Wade Brown offers theses pointers for choosing an engineer to inspect your concrete foundation, be it slab or pier and beam:

• The engineer should be registered as a structural or civil engineer.
• He or she should be independent, unbiased and not associated with any self-serving entity–foundation repair company, builder, insurer and such.
• If possible, the engineer should have extensive hands-on experience in foundation repair.

In short, try to find an engineer who has a lot of experience with residential or light commercial foundations yet is not tied directly or indirectly to any particular contractor, builder or insurance company.

You should look for a professional licensed individual or engineering firm that provides the following:

• A thorough inspection of the inside and outside of your home for foundation related issues.
• Inspection of the crawlspace, if you have a pier & beam home.
• A foundation elevation survey performed and evaluated by a licensed professional engineer.
• A drawing of the home floor plan including site information and interior foundation elevation measurements.
• An engineer’s written report with recommendations and a repair plan if needed.

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