Myths about North Texas Foundations, Part 2

Myth - "A home inspector cleared the house for sale so everything must be okay."

Home inspectors look at a lot of different things during their inspection, but they only draw attention to the foundation if there are clear and obvious symptoms of foundation movement. Most symptoms of foundation movement may have been expertly covered over before the inspector ever sees the property.

Myth - "The foundation has been repaired and comes with a warranty, so I won't have to deal with foundation problems."

There are two problems with this thought.

First, any area of the foundation not worked on can always develop problems not covered by the warranty.

Second, sellers often hire the cheapest company to put in the cheapest piers. This practice often results in the most ongoing problems.

Myth - "The more expensive or custom built a house is, the fewer problems I will have with it."

Allow me to answer this myth with a story. In the 1980s, Dallas experienced a crash in real estate prices. Several years after the crash, Ace Foundation Repair (my company) was called out to inspect the foundation of a beautiful three million dollar mansion in Dallas which had gotten caught in the crash and never sold.

At the time, some realtors had a foreign doctor willing to buy the house for a million dollars and they were thrilled. The builders had failed to insulate the fresh water lines running up between the walls to serve the upstairs bath areas. Dallas had had a hard freeze while the house was vacant. The pipes froze and ruptured and water drained town throughout the interior! The foundation was a pier and beam which had massive support beams, as required for such a large structure. The problem was, the builders ran out of room under the house and ran the beams right into the dirt. Guess where they were having foundation problems? And the builders had built the mansion as a shining example of their work!

I hope I've dispelled some of the myths you may have had heard concerning foundations here in North Texas. If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact me at Ace Foundation Repair (phone: 972-272-1900) and I'll be happy to talk to you.

Alan Ardoin, President
Ace Foundation Repair