For Home Buyers

 

 

Top Tips For Home Buyers 

Be cautious when buying a new house.     Do not rely on a new home foundation warranty.     Study the Houston Area Soils and Areas web page.     Keep things in perspective.     Consider buying a resale house that is at least 5-years old.     Be cautious about buying a recently underpinned house.     Do not rely on a foundation contractor repair warranty.     Attend the inspection.     Understand the foundation inspection process.     Be able to recognize foundation repair contractor scare tactics.  

Tip #1: Be cautious when buying a new house:  Do not make the common mistake of thinking you can avoid foundation problems by buying a new home.  There are several reasons why a new home may not be the best choice from a foundation performance perspective.

bullet The best indicator of future foundation performance is how well the foundation has performed in the past.  With a new house there is no "past".
bullet All foundations go through a period of initial settlement.  It is not uncommon for a house to show signs of damage due to foundation movement for up to 3-years after the house is constructed.
bullet All wood frame houses go through a period of drying out after construction.  Even after initial occupancy, many of the building materials have not yet completely dried out.  This includes caulks, paint, drywall mud, and wood framing.  As these materials dry they shrink and sometimes crack.  This is particularly true where different materials intersect, such as where wood trim meets drywall.

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Tip #2: Do not rely on a new home foundation warranty: One reason some home buyers feel comfortable purchasing a new homes is that they (usually) come with a 10-year foundation warranty.  I suspect that if buyers would read these warranties they would not feel nearly as comfortable.  There are two aspects of these warranties that any buyer should understand.

bullet These warranties require that there be damage to a listed structural member: The large majority of houses that experience foundation problems will not show damage to a listed structural member.  The damage is almost always restricted to brittle wall coverings such as drywall (sheetrock), brick veneer and stucco.  These coverings are not listed structural members. Regardless of how severely damaged wall coverings are, such damage is not covered by the 10-year foundation warranty.
bullet The damage to a listed structural member must render the house unlivable or unsafe.  This is even less likely.  In practice, virtually the only way this can happen is for a door that is a primary or secondary fire escape door to stick or bind so that small child may not be able to open the door.  But, even if this happens, it can almost always be corrected without underpinning the foundation.  

The bottom line is this : The typical new home foundation warranty is akin to an insurance policy protecting you from the theft of an in-ground concrete swimming pool.  It provides protection only against an extremely unlikely event.
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Tip #3: Study the Houston Soils web page: The Houston Soils web page is organized by various areas and subdivisions and provides a wealth of information on the soils and foundation performance problems found in each of the listed areas and subdivisions.  You can print the entire web page or browse the web page clicking on an area or subdivision and reading the comments for that area or neighborhood.  Browsing through the entire list will give you a better feel for the variety of soils and foundation problems found in the Greater Houston Area.

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Tip #4: Keep things in perspective:  This is a very important point.  For the average person, there are many aspects of a house that are more important than the foundation.  Examples are the schools that serve the area where the house is located, the number of bath rooms and bedrooms, the amount of traffic on the street, the proximity of schools, churches, employment and shopping.  All most people want is for the foundation be adequate.  Given the soil conditions that exist in the Greater Houston Area and the almost universal use of non-structural house foundations that distort as the soil distorts, it is virtually inevitable that most resale houses will show some signs of damage due to foundation movement.  You have to decide how much damage you are willing to tolerate.

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Tip #5: Consider buying a resale house that is at least 5-years old:  The most reliable indicator of future foundation performance is how well or how poorly the foundation has performed in the past.  Houses that are at least 5-years old have a "history" that can be used to judge the past performance of the foundation.  Of course, this assumes that the owner has not made repairs or has not made them so skillfully that they are, in effect, concealed.  But houses that are at least 5-years old have probably been through most, if not all,  of the expected initial settlement and has been through at least 5 seasonal wet/dry cycles; it has probably also been through at least one wet/dry cycle that is more severe than a normal seasonal cycle.  In a sense, the foundation to of a 5-year old house has been load-tested.

Buyers who are intolerant of damage due to foundation movement would do well to restrict their house search to older houses that show not signs of past damage due to foundation movement and no known history of foundation repair or repaired foundation related damage.

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Tip #6: Be cautious about buying a recently underpinned house:  Many buyers make a mistake in thinking that they are safe in buying a house that has been recently underpinned.  (By recently I mean less than 2-years ago and maybe longer depending on the severity of the wet/dry cycles that have occurred since the foundation repair.)  As a general rule, houses that have been underpinned in the past have a higher risk of future damage due to foundation movement and the risk is higher the less time that has passed since the foundation repair.

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Tip #7: Do not rely on a foundation contractor repair warranty:  A foundation repair warranty is no better than the company that stands behind it.  This industry is littered with repair warranty programs and companies that have gone bankrupt leaving homeowners with little more than pieces of paper that say Lifetime Warranty, disconnected phone numbers and addresses where there is nothing but an empty lot.

The typical foundation repair warranty requires only that the foundation repair contractor make adjustments to the piles or piers during the life of the warranty if certain conditions are met.  The foundation contractor is not liable for any damage that may result from such adjustments.  The cost of the adjustments may be borne by the contractor or may cost the owner an amount stipulated in the foundation repair warranty.

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Tip #8: Beware of a common distortion mode shown by repaired slab-on-ground foundations: Just as a slab-on-grade foundation have characteristic distortion modes, so to does a slab-on-ground foundation that has been underpinned.  The specific geometry of the distortion mode depends on the specifics of the foundation geometry and the underpinning.  In a common situation, the foundation will be rectangular in shape and will be underpinned along the entire perimeter of the foundation.  In the situation, if there is an extended period of dry weather, the clay soil will lose moisture and shrink. The foundation would normally float downward with the shrinking soil, but the underpinning under the edge of the slab will prevent the slab edge from floating downward; since there are, typically, no piers placed under the central portion of the foundation.

This example shows that repairing a slab-on-ground foundation does not make a foundation stable or level; it does change how the foundation will respond to soil distortion.  The distortion pattern exhibited by the repaired foundation will be different than the foundation exhibited prior to the repair; it might produce less damage to the house and it might produce more. 

Tip #9: Attend the inspection:  You should attend the inspection if at all possible.  By attending the inspection you will almost certainly learn more about the house than you would by merely reading the report.  And watching the inspector or engineer do his work and discussing your concerns with the inspector or engineer can help you understand the context of the written report.  If you cannot attend the entire inspection, do try to be there at the end.

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Tip #9: Understand the foundation inspection process:  It is very important for you as a buyer to understand the different roles played by real estate inspectors and engineers in the inspection process.

From a practical perspective the difference between what a real estate inspector and an engineer comes down to what they report if the foundation performance is judged to be inadequate.

 

bullet The Real Estate Inspection Approach: Under the rules licensed real estate inspectors are required to follow, if they judge the performance of the foundation to be inadequate, the inspector is required to report the foundation as in need of repair.
bullet The Engineering Approach: An example of an engineering approach can be found in a publication of Texas Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.  The guidelines state that if the foundation performance is judged to be inadequate, the engineer should report to his client the options that are available to improve the performance.  Those options may include structural foundation repair but also may include non-structural options such as landscaping changes, more or less aggressive watering of the foundation, making cosmetic repairs and/or changes to the house and, if appropriate, doing nothing.  
bullet Why the Engineering Approach is a More Comprehensive  Approach: According to the US Army Corps of Engineers publication Foundations in Expansive Soils, the fact that a foundation is not performing "adequately" does not mean that foundation repair is either necessary or desirable.  Nor does it mean that foundation repair will actually improve the performance of the foundation.  An engineer has both the training and duty to exercise his engineering and analytical judgment in judging both the adequacy of the performance of the foundation and in reporting what options are applicable for improving inadequate foundation performance.  The real estate inspection approach frequently results in a repair  recommendation that is both unnecessary and counterproductive.  Many real estate inspectors know this.  They usually follow the TREC rules by reporting a house that shows signs of damage due to foundation movement as in need of foundation repair but then also recommend a second opinion from a structural engineer.

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Tip #10: Be able to recognize foundation repair contractor scare tactics: It has been my experience that some (but certainly not all) foundation repair contractors are not above using unethical scare tactics to sell foundation repair work.  The most common and egregious tactics are listed below:

 

bullet The finish floor (or foundation surface) exceeds the allowable slope: The scam here is that there is no “allowable slope”.  Construction tolerances published by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) allow for a new slab to have a slope as high as 1.25 inches over 10-feet.  But neither the ACI or any code authority publishes a maximum allowable slope tolerance for existing slab-on-ground foundations.
bullet The finish floor (or foundation surface) exceeds the allowable levelness criterion: Foundation repair contractors will sometimes tell a homeowner that his foundation is excessively out of level.  This is misleading at best and a scam at worst.  There is no code requirement, or other accepted industry standard, that stipulates how level a slab-on-ground foundation should be.  The levelness of the foundation surface is an aesthetic issue, not a code issue. 
bullet The roof rafters are being pulled apart: When there are gaps between the roof rafters and the ridge beam, the typical cause is sloppy framing, not foundation movement.  One way to check to see if foundation movement is a possible cause of such gaps is to test plumb of the of wall the rafter frame into.  If the wall is reasonably plumb, foundation movement is not likely to be pulling the roof rafters apart.
bullet Snakes and other vermin can enter the house.: I have been told stories of foundation repair contractors telling homeowners that if they do not underpin their foundation snakes and other vermin can enter the house.  This is an obvious scare tactic.  The truth is that vermin can enter any house.  No one likes to hear that, but it is true.  Underpinning the foundation is not going to change that fact.
bullet If you do not underpin the foundation perimeter now, you will have to underpin the interior later: This is almost laughable.  Underpinning the perimeter of a foundation can result in the normally dormant area of the foundation becoming unstable.  The fact is that foundation repair is rarely an emergency situation.  Taking your time to make a well-considered decision is not likely to result in having to do even more repair work in the future.  Do not let a repair contractor hurry your decision.
bullet If you do not underpin the foundation you cannot sell the house: I will admit that if a house shows signs of significant foundation movement, it may be easier to sell the house if it has been underpinned, especially if the repair work comes with a Lifetime warranty.  But it is also true that underpinning the foundation may also make the house more difficult to sell.  There is no clearer proof that a foundation has performed inadequately in the past than the fact that the owner spent several thousand dollars to try to make it perform better.
bullet You must repair the foundation now or face bigger problems later: In most cases, there is no reason to believe that you will face even more repairs in the future if you do not repair the foundation now.  I cannot stress enough that foundation underpinning is rarely an emergency situation.  It is almost always prudent to take your time and make a decision only after you are satisfied you have enough information.

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© 2004 R. Michael Gray, P.E. and Matthew T. Gray.  This material may be reprinted for personal and educational non-commercial use only.  This material is based on generally accepted engineering principles and practices; it is for general information only.  The information contained herein should not be used without first securing competent professional advice with respect to its suitability for a general or specific application.  Anyone using this information assumes all liability for such use.