Another house that has issues..do most FC houses have structural probs? (Loveland: buying a house)

[Cin]

Okay, I probobly shouldn't even look in the neighborhood anymore. Saw another potential house in same neighborhood that had the past heaving drain issues...Realtor say expansive soils and all that. We had that in AZ also...but didn't have all these structural problems. Is this just something we have to consider...buying a house that has had past structural issues living here..or is it that the builder(same for both homes)didn't do his job/drainage wise etc? Supposedly you test the soil and build a home a certain way because of the soil type. Do we just say goodbye to this particular neighborhood or is this just how it is here? Cin

[tfox]

I would keep looking. No, it's not true that a majority of houses have expansive soils issues. One advantage of buying a resale home is that if there are potential issues with expansive soils, you're likely to have seen their effects by now.

[BigCheeze]

I'd avoid that builder.

[ncrea]

There are some neighborhoods that will have issues. I know that Loveland has a couple and my last house in Ft. Collins was in one. My current neighborhood in Loveland has no soil issues.

You could just be unlucky that you are 2 for 2 and have unfortunately selected two homes by the same builder in the same neighborhood that has issues. My last house was built on bentonite and I only had issues with the garage floor and basement floor. I had no cracks in the foundation walls or interior walls and ceilings. I know there were a couple of other homes in the neighborhood that had structural problems. If the builder didn't take steps to address the expansive soils, then the house will have problems.

Houses built on bentonite need to be on caissons. Some builders will overdig the foundation and back fill with non-expansive soils. French draining helps as well as a sump pump. Driveways, sidewalks, garage floors, and basement floors should be caulked so that water cannot get under the cement slabs and into the soil. The dirt around the foundation should be sloped away from the foundation, and technically, no plantings should be within 3'-5' of the foundation. Basement walls should be erected to float, allowing a floor to move up or down without damaging the walls.

I'm guessing that not every single house in that particular neighborhood has or has had problems. There are lots of houses out there that don't have structural issues. For now, maybe you should look in another neighborhood. There has to be other neighborhoods that have similar style homes and amenities that are appealing to you.

Best of luck.

[sunsprit]

ncrea has it nailed down pretty well.

you've unfortunately found a builder who either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore bentonite soil construction issues.

In a neighborhood with several homes having these problems, all the property values are at risk.

You'd do better to buy in an area where they don't have the problem soil or where the proper measures have been taken at the time of construction to mitigate the issue. There's lot of those around.

If you're working through a realtor who hasn't been awake enough to recognize your concern about this, then find another ... professional, not amateur ... realtor who doesn't want to waste your time and money to his/her sole benefit. You will pay a substantial amount of money for service, so do your part to obtain the quality of service you want.