Hi hive mind! Need some advice.
My son bought a house in San Antonio 2-3 years ago and he has recently noticed signs of foundation settling. He is on a concrete slab I believe. He had the number one rated foundation company have a look and they say he is out of line three inches from centerline in the front and four and a half inches in back. They quoted $28,000 to stabilize, using piers driven into bedrock. He had the house inspected prior to purchase.
Does he have any possible recourse on the inspector, prior owner or realtor? Is that estimate totally out of line? I asked about mud-jacking and he said that came up in discussion but the company recommended against it, saying it was only a temporary fix.

quote:

Originally posted by Trooperdan:
Hi hive mind! Need some advice.
My son bought a house in San Antonio 2-3 years ago and he has recently noticed signs of foundation settling. He is on a concrete slab I believe. He had the number one rated foundation company have a look and they say he is out of line three inches from centerline in the front and four and a half inches in back. They quoted $28,000 to stabilize, using piers driven into bedrock. He had the house inspected prior to purchase.
Does he have any possible recourse on the inspector, prior owner or realtor? Is that estimate totally out of line? I asked about mud-jacking and he said that came up in discussion but the company recommended against it, saying it was only a temporary fix.

I'm not an expert, but I think I'd confer with some sort of structural engineer who works with this sort of thing.

I mean a real credentialed engineer, not Joe Blow who calls himself as such.

Best wishes to you.

Was this a new house? Do other houses in the neighborhood have the same problem?

It's conceivable that when the house was sold there was no evidence of the problem, and that it occurred in the last year or two.

There are areas of San Antonio that have expansive clay soils-when they get wet they swell, and in dry weather they shrink. I recollect that there are some neighborhoods where every home has that problem, and it seems to me that there was a lawsuit against the builder over it.

Unless you can prove the real estate sales person knew there was a problem and concealed it I don't know how you could hold them legally responsible for the issue.

I have had RamJack work on about half my house which is a 2400 sq ft foundation on piers, and it was no where near $28K. I would get a price from someone else.

Keep in mind that usually the price is based upon x number of pile driven x number of feet, if more or deeper is required that is on you, at least with RamJack.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
There are areas of San Antonio that have expansive clay soils-when they get wet they swell, and in dry weather they shrink.

Tell your son to run the sprinklers a lot more often!

If there was no known issues at the time of sale, then your son won't have any recourse. His home owners insurance may cover it. Is it bad enough to have to stabilize it now or wait? Most slabs will settle some......an inch is pretty normal.....3-4" is more than normal.

A buddy in Norman, Oklahoma had this issue. Found out as he was prepping to sell.

I thought his cost was around $13K for ten pillars under the slab.

Have a registered professional geotechnical engineer come up with a solution. Driving piers to bedrock seems rather excessive to me and I am an engineer. This isn't a bridge or high rise building where you would typically see the foundation driven to bedrock. There are a lot of soil stabilization chemicals, grout injects, etc. that could be a possibility. Better to consult with a geotechnical engineer with experience in that geographical region.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Have a registered professional geotechnical engineer come up with a solution. Driving piers to bedrock seems rather excessive to me and I am an engineer. This isn't a bridge or high rise building where you would typically see the foundation driven to bedrock. There are a lot of soil stabilization chemicals, grout injects, etc. that could be a possibility. Better to consult with a geotechnical engineer with experience in that geographical region.

I don't know about the OP's area. But, here in South Florida if they're building a house near the water....within 1/8 mile, that's exactly what they do is drive concrete pilings till they hit bedrock.

I've also seen where they've taken a concrete truck and pumped concrete under the foundation to raise and stabilize a sinking foundation in part of a house. They did it under a bedroom in my mothers house (about 450 sq foot bedroom).

I've lived in DFW and Houston, and it's a pretty common problem. I've always heard the jacking and leveling was about $14k, but no first hand experience.

When I lived in Houston's Heights, I had a "foundation zone" added to my sprinkler system and watered 2 sides that didn't have grass or landscaping just keep the moisture level even on the foundation. When I lived in DFW, I knew people who had soaker hoses along their foundation to run on a timer on days their sprinklers weren't watering their lawns.

I didn't own in San Antonio; I rented. But here's what I saw back in the 90's...

We rented the first house in a rush (only so long to look for a place before the move) and only stayed for a year. The house was on a slab (I don't remember any with a basement). One corner was cantilevered about 6' from erosion, and that corner of the house visibly sagged somewhat when we moved in, and more so before we moved out. The house was only about 10 years old or so.

The second house was perhaps 30 years old and was solid. Still on a slab, but no signs of erosion or any other foundation problems.

On the drive to work, you'd go past a vacant field of lots. One day, there'd be survey work going on; then piping would be laid in trenches; then forms for slabs staked out; then the concrete would be poured... on the topsoil, not a hint of a blade scraped across the site. A few months later there'd be 20 timebombs - I mean houses - in what had been a vacant field. I don't know how they got away with it, but the population growth at the time was very rapid, and housing was very short.

Point is, your son is facing a problem common in that area, and the contractors have had to deal with it a lot. They'll know from experience, good and bad, what works and what doesn't.

I agree that the mudjacking would be at best a temporary fix, as the erosion will just continue around and under the new material. He's going to need piers if he wants to really correct the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by jcsabolt2:
Have a registered professional geotechnical engineer come up with a solution. Driving piers to bedrock seems rather excessive to me and I am an engineer. This isn't a bridge or high rise building where you would typically see the foundation driven to bedrock. There are a lot of soil stabilization chemicals, grout injects, etc. that could be a possibility. Better to consult with a geotechnical engineer with experience in that geographical region.

I always thought driving to bedrock was tied to the lifetime warranty, not sure how they would guarantee the work without doing that. I know cost is tied to how much digging there is, getting under the slab requires a lot of manual digging.

quote:

Originally posted by LS1 GTO:
A buddy in Norman, Oklahoma had this issue. Found out as he was prepping to sell.

I thought his cost was around $13K for ten pillars under the slab.

Do you know who he used?
My house is having this problem, and is getting worse. Diagonal cracks, doors not closing...

I just went through the process of getting estimates for having my foundation worked on my house. The estimates varied from $4300 for concrete piers to over $20k for steel piers. All included a lifetime warranty. Ramjack provided the 20k estimate. When I met thier rep outside my home he told me that it would be at least that amount BEFORE he even went into the house. I told him we shouldn't bother going inside because I had no intentions of spending that kind of money. I ended up going with Perma Pier utilizing pressed concrete blocks for $4300. That was for only nine piers across the back of my home and one on each side. Given that they all provided a lifetime warranty I saw no reason to go with another company.

I lived in Houston most of my life where this was a common problem. I owned several houses, including new and used. I layed soaker hose in a shallow trench around my houses and watered them once a week. Seemed to work as neighbors around me had to have slabs stabilized. IIRC, many builders provide warrenties for slabs for 10 or 12 years, I forget which. After that, you’re on your own.

I read that one Texas coastal city outlawed slabs in their building code because they are just not suited for clay soil. There was once a movement to do this either state wide or in some counties. Don’t remember details. Broken slabs in Texas are a huge problem. Naturally, the homebuilders lobby ordered the politicians to kill any legislation that would regulate slabs. Slabs are cheap and the builder has no responsibility to repair after the warrenty. They usually begin to shift noticeably after about 10 to 20 years. It used to be common for home builders to periodically close their businesses and reopen under a different name in order to avoid claims for shoddy work. Used to be a common joke in Houston industry circles. Once enough lawsuits build upmagainst a builder, he declares bancruptcy or closes and reopens somewhere else.

You need local advice and local solutions. Comparing experiences from other parts of the country are pretty useless. Your house could be sitting on anything from well drained sediment to solid limestone and anything in between depending on where you live in San Antonio. Get several bids and pick a good contractor and get your home owners insurance involved if applicable.

Born & raised in SA and still live here. Foundation issues are very common all over here and $20k doesn't sound out of line from stories I've heard. Our last house in Cibolo (about 5 years old) didn't have any issues yet, but there was 2-3 houses on every street in that subdivision that was having foundation work done. Wanted to sell that and build elsewhere before we noticed any problems. Did very well in selling that one.

I had this work done on my home in the DFW area probably 30-35 years ago. Best I remember, the cost was dependent on how far down they had to go to get to either rock or the clay strata. Apparently in this area there is sometimes clay that’s compressed above the rock layer. I had 11-12 piers installed, they dug down put in reenforcement and poured concrete. I believe the average was 8-9 feet of depth. Metal shims went on top of this to do the fine leveling. I got it done for $7K (30+ years ago). So double that easily and I would not be surprised to hear more than that.

/Levity break/

Could it be the submarine batteries that the solar panels dump into weighing it down?

/levity Off/

Sorry, reference to a book series that starts in San Antonio.
I hope you find an answer/solution and it’s cheaper than you imagine.