Tip #1: Educate
your buyer or seller: The number one way you can educate your buyers
and sellers about foundation performance evaluations is to recommend they
visit this website. This site was specifically designed to inform buyers
and sellers about these issues; we are convinced that every buyer and seller of
a house in the Greater Houston Area should educate themselves by reading this
website.
There are two other sites that are also
useful. One is www.foundationrepair.org. This is a very good trade
association website that has a lot of engineering input. Another is
www.dawsonfoundationrepair.com. This is a foundation contractor website that
is very informative. This website gives a good overview of the repair
process. It also includes a refreshingly candid explanation of how the
need for foundation repair should normally be determined:
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“The majority of home foundation
problems are not jeopardizing the structural integrity of the home.
Rather, the foundation problems present cosmetic deficiencies
(cracked brick veneer), inconveniences (fixing jammed doors) and a need
for greater home maintenance (fixing broken plumbing pipes).
The final decision concerning the repair of a home’s foundation
depends on the individual homeowner’s tolerance of the symptoms.”
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I want to repeat that last
sentence: The final decision concerning the repair of a
home’s foundation depends on the individual homeowner’s tolerance of the
symptoms. This simple truth makes this site the most informative of
all the foundation contractor web sites and helps keep the issue of foundation
performance and repair in perspective.
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Tip #2: Understand new home
warranties: I strongly recommend you read the major 3rd party
foundation (major structural defect) warranties that frequently come with new
homes. Buyers frequently misunderstand these warranties. There are
two aspects of these warranties that any
real estate agent should understand.
 | 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.
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| 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 may 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. |
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The bottom line is this : The typical new home foundation warranty
is akin to an insurance policy protecting the owner 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: Understand foundation
repair warranties: 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 #4: Understand the TREC
foundation repair recommendation: It is very important for you to understand
the different roles played by real estate inspectors and engineers in the
foundation inspection and evaluation 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.
| 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.
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| 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. |
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Tip #5: Recommend an
engineer: 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 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 #6: Know your
buyer: This
may seem obvious, but it is not. If you are working with a buyer that
shows a lower than normal tolerance for living in a house that shows damage due
to foundation movement, then do not show him or her houses that have a known
history of foundation repair or a known history of damage due to foundation
movement. One of the authors, R. Michael Gray, P.E., once inspected
a house for a buyer that stated that his highest priority was that he did not
want to deal with any foundation problems. The house was on the Westbury
area and had been underpinned 3 separate times in the last 8-years. There
was simply no way the house was going to meet his unrealistic expectations.
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Tip #7: Be able to recognize a substandard
engineering report:
A competent engineering foundation evaluation will identify any damage observed
by the engineer; if the damage is confined to cosmetic and minor door issues
(like sticking doors) foundation repair should be presented as an option and not
as a necessity. Only if foundation movement has damaged the house so that
it is unsafe to live in should foundation repair be presented as a
necessity or requirement.
To paraphrase the
recommendations of the Texas Section of the ASCE, if the house is found to be
unsafe due to foundation performance issues, the engineer is to inform the
client and/or civil authorities immediately.
If the performance of the
foundation judged to be inadequate, the engineer is to provide alternatives for
the client’s consideration. The
alternatives should be commensurate with the nature and cause of the performance
inadequacy and the seriousness of the consequences.
In making recommendations, the engineer is to take into consideration the
cost effectiveness and practicality of the recommendations, the projected
performance improvement that is likely to result, risks of diminished structural
performance that may result from the recommended remediation, and the needs of
the client. Some clients may choose
to perform periodic cosmetic repairs and door adjustments rather than undertake
foundation underpinning.
There are two aspects of
engineering reports you should look for:
| Foundation repair should normally be
presented as an option, not as a necessity:
If the foundation performance the engineer should, in our opinion,
discuss foundation repair as an option among other options.
Foundation repair only becomes a necessity if there is severe
structural damage to the house frame or to the foundation itself
that makes the frame incapable of safely carrying normally imposed
loads or if there are structural safety issues involved. Even
if one or both of these conditions exist, foundation repair would
still not be a necessity unless there were no other way to
practically deal with the problem.
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| If the foundation performance is judged
to be inadequate, any recommended option, including foundation
repair, should include a recognition of both the benefits and risks
of the option: Foundation repair usually does improve the
performance of the foundation; but there are attendant risks.
Those risks include severe structural damage to the foundation and
to the house structure. A recommendation to underpin a
foundation should reflect a considered judgment on the part of the
engineer. |
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Tip #8: 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:
| 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.
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| 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 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 life-time 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.
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| 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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