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We know, by your communication with us, you are a reasonable and smart. We also know, by your videos (which were awesome, btw, perfect illustration of the multiple issues) you have an accent and are not Caucasian. I happen to be Caucasian myself and am totally not influenced by ethnicity. There are people out there who are and I'm not trying to open a can of worms. I'm sure this is something you think about and possibly deal with. It is a non-issue on paper but you're dealing with someone who is already blowing smoke. If I were you I would be looking for affordable legal representation who specializes in that and turn it over to them. They will have a civil engineer working for them.
I wonder what would happen if you walked into the town building inspectors' office and talked to them? They should have a civil engineer working for them. But if they're friends with the building....
But I think it's a good idea to scour your contract and see if you can ask for your $25K back. If you surrender $5K for it, that might be cheaper than legal action.
But I think it's a good idea to scour your contract and see if you can ask for your $25K back. If you surrender $5K for it, that might be cheaper than legal action.
I agree.
The way the builder handled the email reply is totally out of line and indicative of the care and attention he will give the rest of the job, which amounts to almost none.
No need to leave any money to get out of contract.
This builder is facing way more problems if he does not give your deposit back in full.
If he owns other lots in subdivision or has other homes under construction for clients, he does not
want word of his to get out. Let him know that before you file a lawsuit you will be contacting all
other clients (past and present) to see if they want to join a class action suit. They might want to
get structural engineers to look at their houses too.
Have your lawyer get the name of the foundation and backfill contractors, they should also be
defendants in the lawsuit. If foundation was inspected by the builder's structural engineer also
include them in the lawsuit. Generally you can not sue city or county building inspectors.
I assume he is financing this with a construction loan. Let him know you will be contacting the bank
to shut down construction until lawsuit is resolved. Make sure your lawyer files a lis pendents on
the property.
Any realtors or marketing people involved in the project should be notified.
Getting local media involved would be a good idea.
Once the builder sees that he can not walk all over you and that you are prepared to fight,
he will refund your money. No builder wants the headaches this can bring.
Do NOT continue with this builder! This is only the very beginning of the problems!
His email tells you everything you need to know about his lack of quality and ethics.
As a semi-retired builder, I think his BS response to your email tells me he does not want you looking too closely at all the corners he plans on cutting. I would encourage customers to inspect my work as it was built, so they knew what they were getting, he is saying "after completion and CO, you can inspect".
Also your email asked some pretty specific questions and he blew them all off.
Why would he not tell you if there is rebar? And how long after pour they backfilled?
And is there waterproofing? If he built it correctly he would have no reason to not answer.
With his lack of quality, knowledge, customer service etc etc, I see your building and warranty period being one big battle. Hope you have a great lawyer, he will be very busy if you continue.
PS: Not sure of your location, but also noticed no insulation on outside of foundation.
No insulation, no waterproofing, no drain rock. I suspect there is nobody on site who actually knows how to build a house. It looks like they are planning on insulating the inside of the concrete, which will work, but you can't waterproof the inside of concrete. That won't work. It looks like they get rain in that area, because you can see moisture wicking up the concrete from the dirt. Part of the cracking is probably due to the backfill. It's hard to tell if they pushed the schedule before the concrete came up to strength, or if it will ever come up to strength. From the pretty form prints, it looks like they used a "12 inch slump" which means the concrete ran like water. There are hand held hardness testers that will give you an idea if the concrete meets design strength. Those are very tall walls (15'?), and the 10" thickness implies to me that they had to meet retaining wall design, not just foundation design. They needed additional reinforcing and the concrete strength should have been specified. You can ruin the batch design just by adding water on the job site. At the least the building department should have inspected the rebar, unless this is in one of those backwater states with no building codes. The concrete supplier will have tickets recording the batch strength and the amount of water added on site.
I have put together subcontract packages to build houses, but I was on site every day to direct traffic, solve problems and inspect the work. I was famous for making sure things ran smoothly. Nobody was scheduled before the previous work was complete or before the necessary materials were on site. Nobody ever got held up because the plans were confusing or incomplete. The backing was always in before the drywall went on. The plumber got to do his work before the insulation contractor. I used good subs, and always got a break on their price because they knew I wouldn't jack them around.
The other thing is that if the owner had a concern, I always met with them on site as soon as possible. If that meant evenings or weekends, that's when we did it. It's their money, and I never forgot who I was working for. That said, you can nitpick every construction job ever done. There is no such thing as perfect in the construction world.
OP, I agree with the others, hold your ground. Someone brought up contacting the zoning and permit office. Why not stop in and ask for whoever manages building inspections during construction? Show him (or her) the videos you posted and all the pictures you had on this site. Get the county to comment on it.
You are going to find some resistance if it's a well known builder in the area. You may need to go one or two towns over to find an attorney willing to take this seriously. Your biggest challenge is to stop the construction before they cover it up. Did you use a Realtor? You need their involvement. If you didn't have one, you just found a reason to have one. (Your agent could have used their company's resources to get you answers). All of this may very well be up to code. And if that is the case, no one should have any issues going on record saying this, right? Pay the extra money to get it checked out, even if you have to get a court order to do it. (Check your contract - it may have binding arbitration).
You have a bunch of people here cheering you on....and we would all be happy if the foundation got a clean bill of health. But you are at a point were you can't ignore what you have seen. The extra effort is what will allow you to sleep at night. Good luck and keep us posted.
OP, I agree with the others, hold your ground. Someone brought up contacting the zoning and permit office. Why not stop in and ask for whoever manages building inspections during construction? Show him (or her) the videos you posted and all the pictures you had on this site. Get the county to comment on it.
You are going to find some resistance if it's a well known builder in the area. You may need to go one or two towns over to find an attorney willing to take this seriously. Your biggest challenge is to stop the construction before they cover it up. Did you use a Realtor? You need their involvement. If you didn't have one, you just found a reason to have one. (Your agent could have used their company's resources to get you answers). All of this may very well be up to code. And if that is the case, no one should have any issues going on record saying this, right? Pay the extra money to get it checked out, even if you have to get a court order to do it. (Check your contract - it may have binding arbitration).
You have a bunch of people here cheering you on....and we would all be happy if the foundation got a clean bill of health. But you are at a point were you can't ignore what you have seen. The extra effort is what will allow you to sleep at night. Good luck and keep us posted.
REALLY, REALLY BAD ADVICE! In construction, time is money, and if you stop the work you open yourself to delay claims that can be very expensive. All you have to do is notify the contractor that you do not accept the work because of defective quality. That puts the rock in his pocket. He would then bear the expense of uncovering anything that was covered up.
The cracks in this foundation wall are from the earthwork contractor not shoring the wall prior to placing back fill. Typically, the floor framing and floor sheathing are installed to stabilize the top of the foundation wall prior to placing fill at the foundation perimeter - this obviously wasn't done as evidenced by your video.
Residential building codes provide allowable concrete wall thicknesses with reinforcing steel patterns assuming the foundation wall is continuously supported top and bottom. In typical construction, the concrete floor slab supports the bottom of the foundation wall and the floor framing/sheathing supports the top of the wall. The foundation wall shown in your video has neither the top or the bottom of the wall supported and the concrete wall is under designed for such a condition. The under designed wall is experiencing excessive deflection at the top of the foundation wall. It is also possible that the footings are pushed inwards from placing the fill without the floor slab in place.
For this particular foundation, the cracks probably could be repaired with epoxy injection. However, many of the cracks are no longer accessible with the fill in place, requiring excavation to fill the cracks which are inaccessible from the inside face of the wall.
There are also several other build quality issues present such as the missing bituminous waterproofing at the exterior side of the foundation wall and the large boulders mixed into the back fill material.
If in your position, I would ask the builder to demo the existing foundation construction and re-construct the entire foundation or return the earnest money in full and part ways.
I have been reading this thread with horror, and it has brought back many bad memories from our own experience. I will try to briefly share them, in the hopes that you will run away from this builder.
We moved into a townhouse that was built in the late 1980's. Several months later we noticed a sewerage odor. Long story short, we had a broken pipe and hired a plumber to fix it (townhouse was built on a concrete slab). When the plumber drilled through the concrete to replace the pipe, he discovered that we had 18 - 24" of settlement beneath the slab. Every pipe was broken and all of the waste product had to be pumped out.
We consulted with a lawyer, but in our case the builder was long gone. Got the name of a good structural engineer (who also brought in a soil engineer). This began a year long nightmare, since when work was started, they kept discovering more things wrong, including no piers being used, even though they were shown in the building plans, substandard soil that was not tamped down correctly, etc.
We fought with our association and the township, both of whom wanted us to "go away" and not give them bad publicity.
In the midst of our repair, our neighboring unit had a pipe break, and his sewerage was flooding our now open slab.
Long story short, the project consumed the better part of a year and cost us 6 figures to repair.
I also discovered that building inspectors don't know much. When ours had to sign off on the new construction, he confessed that it was totally beyond his abilities, but he knew the engineer had a "Cadillac reputation" and approved the plan.
I'm telling you this because I would hate to see anyone go through the nightmare DH and I endured.
I hope by now you have seen a good lawyer who specializes in this area and that you will be able to walk away from the nightmare that this sounds like it will be. You do not want to go through with this purchase. I wish you the best of luck on this - stay strong.
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I used good subs, and always got a break on their price because they knew I wouldn't jack them around. 
