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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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

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.

A check to make sure that lifting the foundation has not caused a slab leak due to damaged plumbing is not a bad idea. If your local foundation repair contractor does not offer this service odds are good that a nearby plumbing company does. Just tell them you’ve had your foundation raised and need to check for slab leaks.

Can a slab leak cause a foundation to heave or settle or otherwise contribute to differential movement? Like a lot of issues swirling around us hapless homeowners when it comes to our foundations, this one is the subject of debate.

C. Randolf Riddell is a professional engineer based in Houston, Texas and has quite a bit to say regarding slab leaks and foundation repair. It’s pretty technical but worth the read.

So I have to ask, “Where are the Valentine’s Day tie-ins for foundation repair advertising?” I have not heard one radio commercial or seen one print ad from the concrete slab leveling industry jumping on the VD bandwagon to grab their share of the buying frenzy.

I don’t know if it is a lack of imagination in the advertising departments or creative juices running dry but I offer the following script to any foundation repair company that would like to use it. Just fill in your local business name and phone number.

MUSIC MIXED UNDER WITH
SOUND EFFECTS OF MANLY OUTDOOR MACHINES

ANNOUNCER:

Hey guys. If you really want to show your lady how much you care about her and the security of her home this Valentine’s Day, why not treat her to foundation repair?

Show her how much you love her with a matching batch of piers. If there are cracks in your walls and your relationship then make that call today.

Are the doors to your heart and the garage hard to open? Are the windows to the inner you …and the back yard …sticking? Pick up the telephone and take your love for her and that slab-on-ground foundation to the next level.

Nothing says “I love you” like the reassuring underpinning of concrete or steel ramming deeper and deeper, seeking the bedrock of comfort that you both desire.

This Valentine’s Day, don’t waste money on diamonds or furs when she can have the piers and the transferable warranty she’s always wanted. She is sure to look at you in a new light and tell all her friends.

Take that first step and call (the foundation repair experts) today.

LEGAL: (Read really fast)
Not available in all states and not a guarantee of hot monkey humma humma. Ask your engineer if foundation repair is right for you. Piers are not for everyone. Must be 18 to qualify. Residency restrictions apply except for labor.

Just fax that over to the local station and you could get it on the air in no time. Radio production people really love last minute projects and your foundation repair company can still make a difference this Valentine’s Day. You’re welcome and I’m just glad I could help.

So a coupon from one of these contractors arrives the other day offering $500 off the total cost of a foundation repair job. So far so good. Now comes the fine print. The discount is only good if you need 15 or more piers and must be taken the same day as the inspection. No pressure there, right? What’s a homeowner to do?

If you have the classic signs of a slab foundation that may need some leveling, things like windows and doors that stick, cracks in the walls inside and out, or floors that seem to slope, here is a prudent course of action:

• Spend a few hundred dollars for a foundation inspection by an independent structural engineer. Look for one that has plenty of experience with slab foundations.
• Ask the engineer if he or she has any financial ties to any contractor or lender. They should not. The engineer may recommend certain contractors based on professional opinion of their methods of repair and reputation for good work, but never on money.
• The inspection report from the engineer will detail how many piers you may need and of what type. Steel, drilled bell-bottoms, and pressed piles are the most common.
• Armed with that information, get bids from at least three contractors.

If the idea of a $500 discount still swirls in your brain you could have that contractor come out last. You’ll have much more information with which to make your decision and you’ll know if the discount is meaningful or a marketing ploy.