Foundation heaving (Earth: new house, construction, inspector)

[KRE HR]

Hello,

We have closed on a brand new built house 6 months ago and recently noticed a large crack in the ceiling, followed by more cracks inside and outside, cracked bricks, window pulling away from the brick.. Long story short we found that one part of our house is heaving and is 3" higher than the rest of the house. We are waiting on structural engineer to evaluate the situation. Anyone has any advice or thoughts? Thanks so much in advance!

[SuperPollito]

No advice, but what part of town?

[rb29335i]

Yes, more importantly which builder (for those of us looking at new town homes and terrified of the same thing happening)

[Aliana926]

At least your house is still under warranty.

[jtothemak]

Did you have a 3rd party inspector inspect the house before you closed and if so did they not find any structural issues?

Most builders have a structural warranty however I would suggest to read your warranty in detail to see what is actually covered.

[d2mini]

Good luck OP. As stated, at least you are under warranty.
The one time we had heaving of the foundation, it was due to cracked plumbing beneath that part of the foundation.
But this was in a 40+ year old house, not uncommon.

[Altuve]

Most likely one of two things caused it: builder tore out a big tree right before he built your house (you may be able to determine this by looking at Google Earth to see if there was a large tree on your lot), or there's a water line/sewer break under the soil. You can fix a water line/sewer break. Theoretically the ground will subside after it dries out and your house will be back to normal.

If it was a tree that was removed, the soil is likely expanding, causing the heaving. Had this happen to a house of mine. House was on pier and beam, probably about 100 piers under the house, maybe about 5 of the piers were heaving upwards. Two separate foundation engineers told me that to fix it, you have to drill 95 new piers and raise the rest of the house that hasn't heaved. Seriously. I was wondering why you could not just destroy the 5 piers that were heaving and put in 5 new ones. Anyway, I ignored the piers, just fixed the cracks and had one portion of my house that was a little higher than the rest (I think I was the only one who noticed it).

You'll need to talk to a foundation company and a structural engineer. I recommend Bonilla for the foundation work if you have pier and beam.

[right]

every house on the NE side of the county would have structural issues if removed trees ruined future foundations.

[Altuve]

Originally Posted by right

every house on the NE side of the county would have structural issues if removed trees ruined future foundations.

Yeah, I should have been more specific. I'm talking about removal of large trees (in my case, it was a 35 foot oak tree) in the footprint of the new house with predominant clay layers underneath the footprint of the new house/old tree. And even then, it's ok to remove the trees and build, but construction should not be started until the soil stabilizes.

[HookTheBrotherUp]

A crack is one thing, but a three inches out of level sounds severe. I would get a plumber to run a camera down the length of your plumbing from all points inside the house to see if there are any problems, anywhere it is bent, or raised. If so, you will have expensive problems down the road, I'd make them fix it.