New Construction

[William E. Siegel]

This is the home I inpsected for my client today. They want the builder to give them their money back, and he is fighting them all the way. This home failed its first foundation inspection. Builder says it can be fixed no problem.

[William E. Siegel]

One more picture

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Was this house built on 10 feet of non-compacted fill, a land fill, or a sink hole?

If this builder says he can fix this with no problem, I would really like to meet him. Who in hell is he bull##itting.??

Marcel

[William E. Siegel]

My client paid an extra $30,000 to hve the elevation raised, if you can believe that.

[gbrasseur]

It just ceases to amaze me how many CRAPPY builders there are out there!! It seems they are just getting WORSE with time!....wow

[Jeff Cardile]

Unbelieveable!!!!

[Kenton H. Shepard, CMI]

Time to recommend a Structural Engineer or a reputable foundation contractor. It looks like there's a lot of liability (money) attached to this one.

[Russel Ray]

Cosmetic damage is not within the scope of most of my inspections.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Apparently, the Builder feels the same way RR.

Marcel

[john bubber]

suggestions for some of these knothead builders......G.C....

dip his butt in brown gravy and lock him in a small room with a wolverine who`s high on angel dust.

crucify `em at halftime on Monday Night Football, and crucify `em upside-down and, like St Peter, feet up, head down. Couldn`t wait to hear Tony Kornheiser explain how the nails would have to go in at a certain angle.

bring back beheadings! have these beheadings up on a small hill and have 5 numbered holes at bottom of hill and we could bet on which hole the head rolls into!

[ckratzer]

William,
I don't know anything about Florida soil or building requirements but in Missouri , where I build , footings are required to go on undisturbed soil.
Any time a fill or soil compaction issue occurs it must be engineered and the stamped engineer documents have to be approved by the building authority before anything else is done.
I would find out if this is the case for your client as you indicated the home was built on fill.If anyone ever asked me to build on fill I would happily walk away from that job.I have a fine reputation and would like to keep it that way.
The builder should have that document and so should building planning and zoning.The existance or the lack thereof that document is a good place to start looking for facts.

Cheremie

[Brian R. Sumpter]

That is awful!

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Originally Posted by ckratzer

William,
I don't know anything about Florida soil or building requirements but in Missouri , where I build , footings are required to go on undisturbed soil.
Any time a fill or soil compaction issue occurs it must be engineered and the stamped engineer documents have to be approved by the building authority before anything else is done.
I would find out if this is the case for your client as you indicated the home was built on fill.If anyone ever asked me to build on fill I would happily walk away from that job.I have a fine reputation and would like to keep it that way.
The builder should have that document and so should building planning and zoning.The existance or the lack thereof that document is a good place to start looking for facts.

Cheremie

As Cherimie is pointing out, that document would be from a Geotech firm which would indicate soil bearing capacities along with field density test results from the field testing as the fill was being placed.
Buildings are built on fill all the time, but there are stringent procedures to follow and is usually monitored by a Geotech Firm.

Finding out if this was done should answer all your questions to the structural failures.

Marcel
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[ckratzer]

I'm thinking some more on this.
If the documentation checks out this problem could also have a good deal to do with the actual pour of the footings.
Here we must pour the footing in one pour as a monolith.
The foundation contractor could have ran short of concrete and ended up with a cold joint by the time the concrete plant truck arrived with more.
You might be able to get the p.o.tickets from the plant.Genarally those tickets have an in and out time on their drivers.
You can also find out the "recipie" on the actual batch mix from the plant.You would do this because it would tell you if the concrete psi was within an acceptable range for your geological area.
For my area 2500 psi is standard but I like to go 3000.The foundation is never the place anyone should shave the cost on.
It could also mean re-bar failure or total lack of re-bar.But since it was inspected I can't imagine that is something an inspector would miss as that is one of the main things they are supposed to be looking for.

Hope this helps.
Cheremie

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Cheremie; Are you following me?? ha. ha.

I guess the bottom line would be that for an SOP HI, you would note what you see and report it and leave it up to the Client to do as he or she pleases, right??

The problem with this place way exceeds what would normally be expected of an HI to resolve.
The problem existed with the Builder as you and me know, and there is nothing we can do about it.
If there is, I am willing to help if I can.
It is unfortunate that innocent people in the buyers market for such places are so positioned in the Twilight Zone of circumstances of an incompatible Builder with no conscience other than money benefits.

Marcel
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P.S. I don't think that the Builder of this house has heard of dry density weights and Proctors of the Soil so compaction test can be initiated.