Foundation question

[Lakewooder]

Buy a house on pier and beam foundation...Raised Floor Systems

[Rakin]

Buy a house on pier and beam foundation

Problem is very few homes are built this way today so you'd be limited to 30-50 year old homes. Even in areas with high soil movement many builders today do lime injection instead of pier & beam. This maybe OK in the long run but worries me where I've seen it done.

[Karen Hall]

I am a Realtor in Arkansas. There is a stigma to a home that has had foundation repair in our area. You need to be aware of that when you choose to purchase that home. However, ever area is different. It might be that in Texas this is more common, thus not the same stigma.

[loves2read]

whiile having foundations problems IS probably more common in DFW area because of the soils and the failure of the cities/counties to mandate an individual soil test for each house constructed AND to make sure the slabs are really engineered correctly
(most developers/builders soil test areas in development but NOT each individual house lot) and while they will not do a pour slab with piered beams because of the significant cost increase--most of them do not do a quality job of doing a more conventional "floating" slab because that too involves cost...
my realtor who has been in the RE business for more than 30 years says that if a foundation has not failed in 10 years it probably wont--but that is really no guarantee either--
having a house foundation fail so quickly is just a sign that the builder was trimming costs and had poor supervision on site--makes me wonder what else will go wrong

look around-- plenty of houses on the market--can't you find one you like as well

if you do want this house--foundation problems SOMETIMES can be fixed--can be expensive or not too bad a bite on your pocketbook--but negotiate the price of the house DOWN--make them put money in escrow to cover costs of repairs--and have a real engineer to do the inspection of the slab...
AND they are definitely a negative when you go to re-sale--so profit from this mistake because you won't profit when you re-sell the house....

[Hiep]

I am looking for a house in Allen area Texas. This is a brand new house, but I found out that there are many cracking on the floor in the garage. Is there a symptom for the problems of the house's foundation??
How can I know that will relate to foundation?
Thanks

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Bad sign in a brand new house! Walk away from it. If you find one you like, you need a structural engineer to do a foundation inspection - not the companies that fix foundations.

[escanlan]

Hello Hiep,

Without viewing the actual cracks and foundation it would be difficult to tell you exactly what your symptoms are displaying, how significant it is and what could potentially happen in the future. The Foundation Performance Association Of Texas has a great deal of very good information on their WEB site to help you understand the significance of cracking. A very good document is "Causes And Cures Of Cracking In Concrete" and can be found at
http://www.foundationperformance.org...es-12Nov08.pdf. There are many other good publications on this WEB site as well.

Have you had this home inspected by a Professional Real Estate Inspector? I would highly advise that you do. A full home inspection can potentially reveal other related issues with the home.