Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
An engineer friend, once he heard we had started the process to buy a home here in Oregon, has just provided the straw to break this camel’s back! As if finding an agent, shopping for a mortgage loan, looking for a home to buy, and trying to understand offers, appraisals, inspections, etc. etc. etc. until my poor brain cells implode weren’t enough, this guy decided to helpfully point out that much of the United States is cursed with “expansive soils” that can damage house foundations, basements, walls, driveways, pavements, and other structural elements. Most “heave and the associated structural distress” (engineer-speak) occurs within eight years of construction but may not be observed for many years after that. He gleefully pointed out that expansive soils are the most costly natural hazard in America, causing more damage than all other hazards combined (earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, alien invasions, whatever.) Noticing my glassy-eyed, thousand-yard stare, he told me to just get a vulnerability assessment so that a risk analysis can be completed, as, according to him, maintenance and repair requirements can be extensive and expenses can grossly exceed original costs.
Please help me pick up the pieces here and put myself back together. What do I ask my agent? How do I assume my home inspector is qualified in “expansive soil” analysis? I’m about ready to just rent for the rest of my life and let the landlord worry about it.
Not an expert at all here but it's probably not a big deal if you maintain the house properly. When expansive soild is wet, it expands, when it's dry, it shrinks - thus causing the foundation problems. So you have to keep the area around the house at a constant moisture level - never too wet, never too dry. If it doesn't rain for a while, water 18 inches from the foundation to keep the moisture there (but don't over-water)
If you are looking at older homes check from cracks around door and window frames, door that open or close on their own, put a ball on the floor at see it it rolls.
You can google more info on this and you can sheck the San Antonio forum. There is a bunch of info there - we have lots of expansive soil.
Oh yeah, must keep moisture level even all the way around the house. If you have a leaky house that is putting a bunch of water at one place it that house, you will have problems.
Good luck
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonecypher5413
An engineer friend, once he heard we had started the process to buy a home here in Oregon, has just provided the straw to break this camel’s back! As if finding an agent, shopping for a mortgage loan, looking for a home to buy, and trying to understand offers, appraisals, inspections, etc. etc. etc. until my poor brain cells implode weren’t enough, this guy decided to helpfully point out that much of the United States is cursed with “expansive soils” that can damage house foundations, basements, walls, driveways, pavements, and other structural elements. Most “heave and the associated structural distress” (engineer-speak) occurs within eight years of construction but may not be observed for many years after that. He gleefully pointed out that expansive soils are the most costly natural hazard in America, causing more damage than all other hazards combined (earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, alien invasions, whatever.) Noticing my glassy-eyed, thousand-yard stare, he told me to just get a vulnerability assessment so that a risk analysis can be completed, as, according to him, maintenance and repair requirements can be extensive and expenses can grossly exceed original costs.
Please help me pick up the pieces here and put myself back together. What do I ask my agent? How do I assume my home inspector is qualified in “expansive soil” analysis? I’m about ready to just rent for the rest of my life and let the landlord worry about it.
Is soil drying up and getting wet again likely to be a big issue in Oregon or, more specifically, in the area in which you are buying?
We have clay soils here that expand and contract quite a bit, because we have a drought/flood/drought/flood weather pattern. I'd never heard that that was a problem in Oregon (and my brief experience there taught me that flood was more likely than drought!).
I'd talk to your agent, to the inspector, etc., to see just what problems ARE common in your area. I think your engineer friend may be suffering from the "I have this shiny hammer, it must be a nail!" syndrome.
As a fellow Oregonian...
Your home inspector is not qualified to talk about soils in any depth (nor am I). If you are worried about it hire a soil engineer (usually a geologist) or a civil engineer.
The Willamette Valley of Oregon is clay. I know the Bend area is sandier and has a different geology than we have here. Clay is an expansive soil. So our soil does not percolate well. Percolation has to do with how a soil maintains water. Does it drain fast or slow? Our soil does not percolate well so water drains slowly through it.
What this means is that in the winter time the water sits in the soil and the soil expands and gets loser around the house. In the summer when we don't get rain, the soil contracts and gets tighter around the house. What this does is push and pull the house in different directions. Most homes have some settling cracks in them as a result. Settling cracks aren't typically an issue out here due to the soil unless they are really large, but if you purchase a new construction home you can expect to have some maintenance with this in the first few years. THEY SHOULD NOT BE LARGE. I have seen some new construction homes with significant cracking which is a sign of poor construction. A home inspector will tell you if they are of concern.
The soil is especially of concern on slopes since the home is not on flat land and the home can not settle evenly. Many of our older homes (1905ish) have sloped floors due to the expansive soils over time.
What you want to look for in a home:
1) driveways, pathways, etc flow away from the house
2) Gutter systems don't dump water right by the house
3) Landscaping is graded away from the house
4) If the home sits below grade, a good sump pump/sewage pump system
5) Does it have a swale (usually look like dry creek beds) or drainage system on the property for low lying areas, or sloped lots.
6) If you are at the bottom of a hill, what drainage system is in place. Runoff will head your way.
Due to our rain, you just want to make sure that you funnel as much water away from the foundation of the house and that it isn't pooling there. This will minimize the expansion of the soils right by the house, which will ease the stress of these natural forces.
If you are really concerned there are many civil engineers that will come out and do a site evaluation and tell you if the home is properly engineered for our soil.
Also a fellow Oregonian. We do have expansive soils here, in certain areas. My house sits on one, a "silty clay loam." It loosens up in winter, then locks up in summer, during the 4 month "dry" season. The USDA keeps an on-line mapping database of soils across the U.S. Also look at the Oregon Department of Mines, and the USGS. You could also talk to the local county extension agent, which I believe is out of OSU.
If the house you are looking at is on a slope, then you most definitely want to have a qualified soils engineer looking at it, because we do have some trouble with landslides. In fact, just about every year there are some serious landslides somewhere in Oregon, usually on the wet side of the Cascades. The soils are on geologically young, upthrust hills, the clay soils are sort of "greasy," and when they get waterlogged-- well, you just get out of the way. Google "flood" and "landslide" and you'll see all the trouble we had last winter. That was pretty bad.
Thank you all (and especially my fellow Oregonians) for the valuable information. It's helping me put the pieces back together, get up, dust myself off, and get back into the shark-infested waters comprising the Home-Buying Sea.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
