Foundation issues or normal settling? (San Antonio, Round Rock: sales, loan, attorney)

[krysmh]

Our house is four years old, and I've noticed a few issues that I'm wondering about. For one, we have several tiles in our living room and master bath that sound hollow, have cracked, and have come up off the floor. I've heard them pop, when we're not even near them. It's crazy.

Two, there is one bedroom door upstairs that does not stay closed anymore. Also our pantry door swings open when it shouldn't.

Three, there's a very thin but long crack in the garage floor.

Four, the frame around the garage on one side is pulling away a bit.

Five, the stone facing directly above the garage frame that's pulling away has stairstep cracking in the grout.

I contacted our 2-10 warranty company, and they were basically useless. Their rep pretty much said unless the house is in danger of falling down or is otherwise immediately unsafe, we're out of luck with foundation repairs. I really want to have the flooring replaced, but don't want to invest in that if it's just going to keep happening due to underlying issues. We also want to sell our house in the next year or so, so I'm concerned about that as well.

Does this sound like a foundation problem, or normal settling and maybe a crappy tiling job? I'm upset that during our one year warranty inspection, the contractor ignored me when I raised concerns about a few hollow tiles. I wish I had pushed the issue, but didn't, and obviously now it's much more than just a few hollow tiles.

[TrapperL]

Call the builder warranty department only this time ask to speak to the head of the department. If they give you the run around and won't put him on the phone, write a detailed letter about the issues and send it certified mail with an additional sentence that your preference is to not have to get an attorney involved. That should push it to his hands. The warranty rep did nothing but give you a canned answer. Not seeing the crack or how wide the crack in the slab I couldn't tell you if it's settlement or failure. As a general rule, if you have a 1/4" crack in the field (middle of the floor) and it has differential (difference in height), it warrants an inspection by a structural engineer. The builder pays for the inspection. If you have a crack that has any width and is beyond the surface of the slab and it is in a beam(the perimeter has these beams), then it warrants an inspection by a structural engineer. In regards to the doors. Settlement can cause doors to open or close. Apparently they will close which indicates to me settlement as failure would have them not closing at all. The rule of thumb used by builders is a 2% deviation is the maximum a slab can move before it requires any remediation. So if a slab has moved in elevation from side to side or anywhere along the length or width 2%, they won't fix it. Anything more than 2% means they have to fix it. Another thing you might need to know, in Texas, the builder MUST warrant any builder defects in perpetuity- that means forever. But you are in the position to prove it is a builder defect. You can proceed along these lines or you can hire and pay for your own inspection. Unfortunately you have to use a structural engineer that does not also do foundation repairs- conflict of interests. I've always recommended Homer Parker out of Round Rock Texas. He's the best and very good at explaining what is going on with the slab. There are others out there. You can call his office and they can give you an approximate cost of the inspection.
Parker Engineering

I don't suppose you are on the northeast side of town? Have you maintained the watering regimen for the foundation? If you haven't been watering the foundation, this is probably your own fault. This is the most often overlooked part of home maintenance by folks in SA. Think of your home built on a sponge. When it's dry, it shrinks. When it rains it swells. That what's happening under your home and while you don't see or feel it, the ground can literally be rising and falling as much as 16 vertical inches. You can't expect it to land in the same place everytime. So we water our foundations to limit the dry and shrinkage. It's all due to the black clay soils in and around SA.
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/texa...l_map-2008.pdf

[Bradford72]

Until recently, I’d never heard of watering a foundation. (Disclaimer, we are from California and only recently began the home buying process). My sales associate led me to believe watering the foundation was only necessary in the beginning, while the foundation “cures”. Now it seems, reading here, that I’ll need to water the foundation FOREVER???


If that’s the case, what’s the proper “watering regimen”? The home we are having built is in Alamo Ranch (1604/151). Not sure how that soil compares to others in and around San Antonio. Any suggestions?

[Hedgehog_Mom]

I had a foundation problem bad enough that it was fixed by the warranty company. It took a few years to get it fixed. First, I had cracked tiles in a bathroom and in the laundry closet. Then cracks in the walls around those parts of the house. Then, cracks in the visible parts of the foundation slab outside. The crack in the tile in the laundry closet started to get wider. When it was 1/4", the warranty company sent an engineer out to inspect the foundation. He said it was 3" lower in the front of the house than the back, and that something was definitely happening but it didn't meet their criteria for repair at that point. Two years later, there were cracks in the drywall above all the windows in the house, the walls in the hallway had pulled apart, the bathroom wall had a bulge, the crack in the laundry closet floor was wide enough to put my hand into, and when you closed the door from the garage to the house fairly gently, it made a booming sound and shook the whole front of the house. I contacted the warranty company again, they sent an engineer out, and he said that the house was 5.5" lower in front than back and that it met the criteria for repair.

When the warranty company had soil tests done, they determined that the builder added 8' of fill dirt to the front of the lot and did not compact it, which caused the foundation to fail. Around that same time, the builder quit building in this state. I have other neighbors on my street and the street around mine who are having foundation problems, and it's all the same floorplan as my house.

After my repair, which was a major pain to deal with, I still have some cracks showing up in the walls and the one in the floor of the laundry closet is back, although it's not wide and uneven like it was before. I think it's because my foundation slab actually split into two halves, so no matter how good the repair was, there's going to be some slight movement at the point where the two halves meet.

Anyhow, hollow tiles don't necessarily indicate a foundation problem. The crack in the concrete doesn't necessarily indicate a foundation problem either, if the sides of the crack are still firmly together and the two sides are the same height. Concrete cracks...that's why they put lines in sidewalks, to encourage the concrete to only crack at those lines. You probably need to have an engineer out to look at it, like TrapperL suggested, to figure out if there's really a problem.

[krysmh]

The rep did say she could send an inspector, but then said it would cost us $250 and would likely be a waste of money and time due to my description of the issues.

We are in the NE, in Schertz. Our building contractor said that using our irrigation system would be sufficient for watering the foundation, and we have done that. But I think my husband may turn it off in the winter months.

[krysmh]

Someone told me that if we look under the broken tiles and if there aren't foundation cracks underneath, it's likely not a foundation issue but a bad tiling job. Is this true?

[krysmh]

The crack in the garage is definitely nowhere near 1/4"... It's wide enough for me to put my fingernail in but that's it. However, I think one side does feel very slightly higher when I rub my finger over it.

[Hedgehog_Mom]

Originally Posted by krysmh

The rep did say she could send an inspector, but then said it would cost us $250 and would likely be a waste of money and time due to my description of the issues.

We are in the NE, in Schertz. Our building contractor said that using our irrigation system would be sufficient for watering the foundation, and we have done that. But I think my husband may turn it off in the winter months.

Do you have a FHA loan? I believe they're not allowed to charge you for the inspection if you have a FHA loan. I never had to pay for the two inspections I had done. The booklet they gave me said they charged $500 for the inspection, but when I spoke to them I asked if there was a charge for the inspection and they said no.

The tiles that I had that were over the cracks in my foundation cracked in lines following the foundation crack, so the cracks were running across the room from tile to tile. I pulled the pieces out of one tile because I was afraid my kids would cut their foot on it, and you could see the cracked slab underneath. In the laundry closet, the tile cracked first, the broke off in chunks around the crack. I could get my hand into the crack up to my knuckles, and I don't have very small hands.

You can get hollow tiles from a bad tile job or from someone walking on the floor before it has set. I have one hollow tile because my daughter forgot which ones were okay to step on and walked on it sooner than we were supposed to.

[flashfearless]

Tiles popping could just mean the builder thinned out the quickset to save money.

[StealthRabbit]

Something is moving.

Listen to TrapperL and move forward with knowledge. Learning all the way.

May not be covered by warrantee, not gonna implode... Just fix what is reasonable and secure a maint plan ( probably foundation irrigation).

Do carefully observe rain runoff and get it far away from your house.

recycle it !!!