Foundation Repair “101” for the Texas Homeowner.

As a Real Estate Owner, you want your foundation to do two things; (1) Support the structure above it, and (2) Keep your feet out of the dirt. Q.) How do we know if it is supporting the structure? A.) Function! All doors and windows should be square in their openings, should work without dragging or sticking, and should latch and lock easily. Exterior joints around these openings should be uniform and caulk-able. Exterior/interior finishes such as brick or rock veneers and sheetrock should be free of cracks or patches covering old cracks and nails shouldn't be popping out. Floors should be fairly level and should not slope noticeably.

That’s fairly vague huh? For simplicities sake, use a four foot long builder’s level (available for as little as ten dollars at any hardware store). Place the level on the floor along all of the walls at 4 foot intervals and observe the bubble (in the little vial centered in your tool). If you must lift either end of the level more than one quarter of an inch to get the bubble dead center between the lines, you probably have foundation failure.

The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA) consider 1 inch of rise or fall, in a sixteen foot span, as acceptable for their loan programs. The foundation can’t be level for twelve feet and drop an inch in four feet; it must be a uniform slope of no more than ¼ inch every four feet. There are 3 types of houses in Texas; Ones that need foundation repair, Ones that have had a foundation repair and the ones that will be repaired again because they weren't fixed right the first time! Call a reputable foundation contractor for a no or low cost estimate or you can pay a Structural Engineer around $350.00 for his professional opinion which could be even more generous than the FHA/VA in situations where the home has had expensive remodeling upgrades. The education and experience of the Engineer allows them to sign off on slopes, up to twice as much as the FHA/VA and still be fund-able. In the old days, the FHA/VA would require the entire structure be repaired under an Engineer’s supervision. Today, you can fix only the area that has moved with an Engineer’s Inspection and your foundation repair contractor has to provide a minimum 5 year warranty. If you do the repair and hold the house for more than One year, you don’t need the Engineer’s blessing as long as 4 years remain on the warranty and the house has not moved past the 1 inch in 16 feet requirement. If your home is fairly new, you should expect to be crack free for about the first 10 to 15 years and your floors should not slope more than 1 inch in 30 feet. The homebuilder is on the hook with the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) to warrant the home against such defects for at least 10 years.

That being said, you do have to perform some maintenance to prevent future foundation movement. No one gives you a handbook on the care and feeding of your new home when you buy a house in Texas and that results in a lot of "Victimized Yankees". No offense intended, it's just that the black dirt up north is not alive like the Black Gumbo clays we have in the south. You need to maintain positive drainage away from your homes foundation to avoid over watering isolated areas and should water around your foundation, to the tune of about an inch of water per week, when mother nature does not provide rainfall of an equal amount. Soaker hoses attached to a ten pound pressure reducer, buried even a few inches deep, work best. That allows a slow even deep watering and conserves water.

I am available through the forum to answer any questions you may have, as a result of this sparse introduction to the joys of homeownership and look forward to serving you.

Gary A. Coffing, Sr.
President, BTFR, Inc.,
General Partner and Manager,
Bestech Foundation Repair
And House Leveling, L.P.
713-868-2246
www.bestechfr.com
gcoffing@peoplepc.com