Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / Ask the Expert: Foundation Fixes and Waterproofing Wisdom: Brett Hodgden on Avoiding Costly Mistakes

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Ask the Expert: Foundation Fixes and Waterproofing Wisdom: Brett Hodgden on Avoiding Costly Mistakes · WCHS Network Podcasts

0:00
Speaker 1: Unlock your dream property with MEEX Realty Group, where rich
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Speaker 1: the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
0:05
Speaker 1: residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
0:09
Speaker 1: key to exceptional real estate experience is start here MEEX
0:12
Speaker 1: Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us. Unlock your
0:16
Speaker 1: dream property with MEEX Realty Group, where rich the realtor
0:19
Speaker 1: makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's residential or commercial.
0:22
Speaker 1: We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your key to exceptional
0:25
Speaker 1: real estate experience is start here MEEX Realty Group. Contact
0:29
Speaker 1: us at Meeks dot us.
0:31
Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
0:34
Speaker 2: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS
0:38
Speaker 2: it's employees or WVRC Media.
0:52
Speaker 3: Twenty past State of Park. You're listening to as you
0:55
Speaker 3: Expert w SHS the Voice of Charleston. I'm Dell Cooper.
0:59
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in this morning. It is a jaunty
1:03
Speaker 3: Wednesday morning outside and we have in studio with us
1:05
Speaker 3: this morning. Always looking forward to our discussions. It's Brett Hodgton.
1:09
Speaker 3: He is the owner of Foster Foundation Repair. The Expert
1:13
Speaker 3: Show that comes on every month here right on five ADWC.
1:15
Speaker 3: Just breat Good morning. How you doing this morning?
1:17
Speaker 4: Doing well, It's a pretty day out there, nice and
1:19
Speaker 4: cool for the guys to be working.
1:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got to be. There's gotta be a little
1:22
Speaker 3: bit of a sweet spot on either side of the year,
1:24
Speaker 3: like when you get from winter into spring, and then
1:28
Speaker 3: when you get from summer into autumn. There's gotta be
1:30
Speaker 3: like kind of a sweet spot where you have really
1:31
Speaker 3: nice mornings, where the days don't get too too hot,
1:34
Speaker 3: where you can get some stuff done.
1:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we're we're doing that right now. It's more
1:38
Speaker 4: dusty than dirt and muddy, so they enjoy that.
1:41
Speaker 3: And my poor mom has basically a whole mountain up
1:45
Speaker 3: in Beaumont, and she does in her retirement. You know,
1:47
Speaker 3: she's always caretaking the yard and things like that. But
1:50
Speaker 3: I was talking to her last night and she basically
1:51
Speaker 3: can't do anything right now because anything that requires working
1:55
Speaker 3: with the ground just aerosolizes so much dust and everything
1:57
Speaker 3: she's trying to work. Yeah, we's so dry.
1:59
Speaker 4: We've got where dust mask just out out in the
2:02
Speaker 4: open air right now, which is unusual.
2:04
Speaker 3: Pretty crazy. And we'll talk about that in just a minute.
2:05
Speaker 3: But that does, uh, that can can tend to lead
2:08
Speaker 3: to some problems because we've had some uh uh some
2:11
Speaker 3: cycles of intense water and then intense uh intense drought,
2:15
Speaker 3: and it's gone back and forth a couple of times.
2:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is really a second year. We've had
2:21
Speaker 4: a pretty substantial drought throughout the summer and and now
2:24
Speaker 4: kind of moving into fall that doesn't look like is
2:26
Speaker 4: gonna let up much. And and last year we saw
2:31
Speaker 4: quite a bit of settlement foundation settlement, and I'm still
2:36
Speaker 4: we're kind of wrapping up all that work from last
2:38
Speaker 4: last summer and fall, and and I'm starting to see
2:40
Speaker 4: it kind of repeat to where unfortunately people are suffering
2:45
Speaker 4: from from that again.
2:47
Speaker 3: Foster Foundation Repair. You can find out more information online.
2:49
Speaker 3: It's Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Uh.
2:54
Speaker 3: If we're starting, we're in uh really late September, now
2:57
Speaker 3: mid late September is where we're looking at. Obvious, there's
3:00
Speaker 3: a little bit of a of a landing time. As
3:03
Speaker 3: far as work that you're able to do. You have
3:06
Speaker 3: to schedule it out a little bit. What kind of
3:08
Speaker 3: work are you is typically best? If we start talking
3:10
Speaker 3: about October November, and we start talking about the type
3:12
Speaker 3: of work that generally homeowners should look into doing, then
3:16
Speaker 3: what type of work is that you're looking to get
3:17
Speaker 3: into during the winter months.
3:19
Speaker 4: So right now we're wrapping up all our big, big
3:22
Speaker 4: excavations where we dig out basement foundations or even cross
3:26
Speaker 4: spaces and replace the water proofing and drainage systems. Network
3:31
Speaker 4: is very very difficult to do in the winter. So
3:35
Speaker 4: that kind of work the bigger, the bigger outside stuff,
3:38
Speaker 4: we're trying to wrap that up or plan for our
3:41
Speaker 4: last last few month month and a half of that.
3:45
Speaker 4: But interior work we can We can still do a
3:47
Speaker 4: lot of interior work in the in the in the
3:50
Speaker 4: winter to address water and foundation movement. A good example
3:53
Speaker 4: is interior basement drains or interior cross based drains. If
3:57
Speaker 4: if somebody's suffering from water infiltration, which ironically some people
4:02
Speaker 4: still do this time of year, if there's some sort
4:04
Speaker 4: of spring or something that's feeding the water source, they
4:07
Speaker 4: can still be getting water on a daily basis, even
4:11
Speaker 4: even during a fairly dry period like we're experiencing now.
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Speaker 4: But there's a lot of things we can do inside
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Speaker 4: to like for for for the water for Boeing walls
4:20
Speaker 4: is another good example. We can stabilize a Boeing or
4:24
Speaker 4: a leaning foundation wall from the interior. Oftentimes will do
4:29
Speaker 4: these interior options when the situation is such that there's
4:34
Speaker 4: a large hillside behind the house or steep hillside where
4:37
Speaker 4: access is very poor, or or if somebody is very
4:41
Speaker 4: budget conscious, we can we can typically do some work
4:44
Speaker 4: inside to stabilize the house or to manage the water
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Speaker 4: from the interior at a lesser cost than than the
4:53
Speaker 4: outside excavation. Yeah, but I my preference is always to
4:58
Speaker 4: do it from the outside, even though is more expensive
5:02
Speaker 4: and the goal.
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Speaker 3: The reason I like.
5:03
Speaker 4: To do it from the outside is we're actually addressing
5:05
Speaker 4: the source of the problem where we're collecting the water
5:09
Speaker 4: outside and moving it around the building, rather than managing
5:13
Speaker 4: it on the interior of the building.
5:15
Speaker 3: Which at any point is going to be a more
5:17
Speaker 3: solvent fix, I guess, right, because if you're I mean,
5:20
Speaker 3: everybody familiar with the term of band aid fix or
5:22
Speaker 3: something like that. But but if you're not addressing the
5:24
Speaker 3: main problem, you're just going to have different symptoms basically
5:27
Speaker 3: that's going to pop up at different times.
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Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, like water is a good example we can.
5:33
Speaker 4: We can collect it out on the outside. We can
5:35
Speaker 4: waterproof foundation, and we can collect the water outside with
5:38
Speaker 4: proper storm water management at the roof and at the
5:40
Speaker 4: ground level. And then with a proper, properly functioning foundation drain,
5:45
Speaker 4: we can collect the residual ground water or water that
5:49
Speaker 4: still migrates up next to the foundation. And that's that's
5:54
Speaker 4: a true proper repair for a water system. There's also
5:59
Speaker 4: the option and to manage it inside, which unfortunately I'm
6:03
Speaker 4: hearing from from clients and potential clients that that others
6:07
Speaker 4: in our industry are are pushing the interior drain as
6:11
Speaker 4: the best option and and that's not that's truly not
6:15
Speaker 4: the case. Anytime you see a set of architectural drawings
6:21
Speaker 4: with for a building, you're gonna you're not going to
6:22
Speaker 4: see an interior foundation drain. You're going to see an
6:24
Speaker 4: outside foundation drain.
6:27
Speaker 3: By the way, that's gott to drive you nuts. As
6:28
Speaker 3: a professional right for people claiming a standard is something
6:31
Speaker 3: that is in a standard, you know, like a best standard,
6:33
Speaker 3: that's got to drive you a little nuts. It does.
6:35
Speaker 4: It does, because I mean, that's that's half of what
6:38
Speaker 4: my my job is when I'm out meeting with the
6:40
Speaker 4: client is to educate them and explain the different options,
6:43
Speaker 4: the pros, the cons which every every every option we
6:46
Speaker 4: have has a prono con ones might be more expensive. Uh,
6:49
Speaker 4: the interior drain we're we're collecting the water inside and
6:53
Speaker 4: managing it and removing it from the interior. And another
6:57
Speaker 4: thing that the the end of a lot of people
6:59
Speaker 4: in our industry do is they call that interior drain
7:01
Speaker 4: system a waterproofing system. It is not a waterproofing system.
7:06
Speaker 4: A waterproofing system is defined in the building code as
7:10
Speaker 4: doing these steps on the exterior of the building. It
7:14
Speaker 4: is a water management system. And again, we install these systems,
7:18
Speaker 4: but it's kind of I don't like when it's kind
7:22
Speaker 4: of misconstrued. You had all these other all these websites
7:25
Speaker 4: that say basement waterproofing, and they're they're doing an into
7:28
Speaker 4: your foundation drain man.
7:30
Speaker 3: That's a that's an important distinction and one that you
7:32
Speaker 3: probably aren't going to run into if you're just casually
7:34
Speaker 3: reading these things when you're trying to find when you're
7:37
Speaker 3: trying to find someone to do the work for you.
7:39
Speaker 3: You can find out more information on line Foster Foundation
7:41
Speaker 3: Repair dot com. Give us a call this morn If
7:43
Speaker 3: you have any questions for Bread about your foundation, about
7:46
Speaker 3: some issue with your water management or waterproofing, or anything
7:50
Speaker 3: along those lines, you give us all this morning three
7:52
Speaker 3: or four three four five fifty eight fifty eight threes
7:53
Speaker 3: or a four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
7:56
Speaker 3: I want to tell a little bit of a tail
7:57
Speaker 3: on myself and then ask you some questions relative to this.
8:01
Speaker 3: You know, we talk a lot about the uh, the
8:03
Speaker 3: the eaves and uh and drainage off the roof and
8:06
Speaker 3: things like that, and and and you've mentioned many times
8:08
Speaker 3: that that's one of the main things that a homewner
8:09
Speaker 3: can do, is make sure that that you're down, that
8:12
Speaker 3: your down spouts are clear, and that everything's good. I
8:14
Speaker 3: tried to rig up something to save myself a little time.
8:17
Speaker 3: So I have one of those big tree tremmors, you know,
8:18
Speaker 3: with the big big pole with the little lever that
8:20
Speaker 3: you that you pull on it. And so I rigged
8:22
Speaker 3: up an old cell phone on to the top of
8:24
Speaker 3: one of those and put it on video mode so
8:26
Speaker 3: I could hold it above my uh, hold it above
8:28
Speaker 3: my eaves and take a look and see how badly
8:30
Speaker 3: that they're they're clogged up, you know, thinking that you know,
8:33
Speaker 3: I could isolate some time. If I just needed to
8:35
Speaker 3: get to certain corners of the house, I could get
8:37
Speaker 3: to it and not have to worry about it. I
8:38
Speaker 3: did that a while back, and I thought that I
8:40
Speaker 3: was clever. So there was only a couple of places
8:42
Speaker 3: that I really went into and went up and had
8:44
Speaker 3: to pull some stuff out of. I was like, it's
8:45
Speaker 3: not that bad. And it was the side of the
8:46
Speaker 3: house I expected with the trees that kind of overhanging
8:48
Speaker 3: a little bit and everything. So I thought I was
8:50
Speaker 3: I was really clever. And then when we finally got
8:52
Speaker 3: a rain, when was it we finally got rained, like
8:53
Speaker 3: last weekend or whenever it was when we find out
8:55
Speaker 3: of rain my back corner of the house that I
8:57
Speaker 3: had some problems with once again, water just cascading over
8:59
Speaker 3: the side. I'm like, I just did this. How in
9:02
Speaker 3: the heck is this possible? So I took my lazy
9:04
Speaker 3: butt up there. I should have done this the first time,
9:06
Speaker 3: right with my ladder. I take my lazy butt up
9:08
Speaker 3: there and take a look in and some dirt rocks,
9:11
Speaker 3: basically all kinds of stuff had got compacted down into
9:14
Speaker 3: the hole. So although I had used my little camera
9:16
Speaker 3: to look. I didn't see anything protruding. It was down
9:19
Speaker 3: in there. I had to like basically poke it through
9:21
Speaker 3: and then clear it out a little bit, almost like
9:22
Speaker 3: you're clearing out of drain to get it to go through.
9:24
Speaker 3: And it was fine now. But that was just something
9:27
Speaker 3: being a knucklehead. If I was just taking the time
9:28
Speaker 3: to do it right, that wouldn't fact it didn't cause
9:30
Speaker 3: any damage. But still I would have done it right
9:32
Speaker 3: the first time. And it just got me thinking when
9:34
Speaker 3: I did that, and I was kind of kicking myself
9:35
Speaker 3: for it. I bet you see tons of STFF. Now
9:37
Speaker 3: that's relatively minor, but I bet you see tons of
9:39
Speaker 3: stuff with people trying to fix things, add things, you know,
9:43
Speaker 3: d y I type things that kind of mess up
9:47
Speaker 3: the thing that you need to come in and fix later.
9:50
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I mean I kind of on your your
9:52
Speaker 4: pole IDEA. There's actually that from my home inspection days,
9:57
Speaker 4: there used to be there is a device out there
9:59
Speaker 4: that is a exactly that. It's a it's for the
10:01
Speaker 4: home inspection industry. It's a it's a camera on a stick.
10:05
Speaker 3: I taped my cell phone, my old cell phone to
10:07
Speaker 3: it worked fine. If I would have just taken a
10:09
Speaker 3: little bit more time with it.
10:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean to your point, you checked your gutters
10:13
Speaker 4: and they were clean, and then they're not. That's I mean, trees,
10:16
Speaker 4: trees are putting right now, the an acorns falling, so
10:20
Speaker 4: we're you know, I've seen I've seen plenty of gutters
10:24
Speaker 4: down spouts and the piping system full of acorns or
10:28
Speaker 4: I don't know what they're called. I think the hickory
10:31
Speaker 4: balls of the spiky balls, just all those things. If
10:34
Speaker 4: they hit the roof, they're going down to the gutter.
10:36
Speaker 4: It's catching it and then the water flushes it out.
10:39
Speaker 4: So the really commonplace for a gutter or a gutter
10:43
Speaker 4: down spout system to get clogged is in the elbows
10:46
Speaker 4: of the down spouts. That's that's a very commonplace.
10:49
Speaker 3: I think. We have a caller who's called in this
10:51
Speaker 3: morning has a question for you this morning, Brett caller,
10:53
Speaker 3: you are on the air. What's your first name? Hey, Matt,
10:58
Speaker 3: how you doing? Were you calling in for Brett?
11:00
Speaker 5: I am Actually I just wanted to give him a
11:02
Speaker 5: shout out because, oh, a year or so ago, when
11:05
Speaker 5: he was first on here, I heard about his services.
11:07
Speaker 5: My mom and Huntington was having some issues with a
11:11
Speaker 5: front door closing and had two or three different estimates
11:15
Speaker 5: to do some work to sort that out, and they
11:18
Speaker 5: were pretty substantial. But I heard Brett called he himself,
11:23
Speaker 5: came out there, used the lasers, everything else ended up
11:26
Speaker 5: saving her multiple thousands of dollars. It's still sorted out.
11:30
Speaker 5: It's been great. I just wanted to say that they
11:33
Speaker 5: did a great job and took a lot of care.
11:36
Speaker 5: Customer service was top notch, and you know, I've got
11:39
Speaker 5: an eighty five year old mother who's very happy, So
11:42
Speaker 5: I just wanted to say, great work. If you're wondering
11:46
Speaker 5: about a problem you might have, I would give him
11:48
Speaker 5: a call and have them come down. So that's all
11:51
Speaker 5: I just want to say. It's We've been very happy
11:53
Speaker 5: and thanks to the show and to Brett's it's been
11:57
Speaker 5: a really good outcome for my mother.
11:58
Speaker 3: Well, man, we really appreciate and we got to take
12:00
Speaker 3: care of her.
12:00
Speaker 4: Mom's right, Yeah, Matt, I really appreciate that. Did I'm
12:04
Speaker 4: trying to remember, did we also do a vapor barrier
12:07
Speaker 4: for your mother?
12:09
Speaker 5: You actually did, and it was a lot less expensive
12:12
Speaker 5: than what she's been quoted.
12:14
Speaker 3: But just the.
12:15
Speaker 5: Quality of work and the care that you took in
12:17
Speaker 5: coming out and evaluating the problem pretty quickly sorted out
12:22
Speaker 5: that a couple of things that she's been told were
12:24
Speaker 5: not correct, and given your background, I trusted you and anyway,
12:28
Speaker 5: it's it's I appreciate it. Just just pros there and
12:32
Speaker 5: his wife and the customer service were wonderful.
12:35
Speaker 4: So well, Matt, No, really really appreciate your words, Matt.
12:38
Speaker 3: Thank you, Matt. We appreciate that. Thanks a bunch for
12:40
Speaker 3: calling in this morning. Yeah, we appreciate that. And that's
12:42
Speaker 3: that's Matt calling in. You can do the same. Hey,
12:44
Speaker 3: we take testimonials too. There's nothing they're wrong with that
12:46
Speaker 3: at all. You can give us a call this morning
12:48
Speaker 3: at three zero four three four five fifty fifty eight.
12:50
Speaker 3: Three zero four three four five fifty fifty just like
12:52
Speaker 3: Matt did. It's an AUTOQ, so you'll be put on
12:55
Speaker 3: to hold right away. You'll be able to hear the show.
12:57
Speaker 3: But then we'll ask your name when you go in there,
12:59
Speaker 3: so just be ready for that. If you call in
13:00
Speaker 3: once again, you can give us a call three zer
13:02
Speaker 3: a four three four five fifty fifty eight. Threes are
13:04
Speaker 3: a four three four five fifty eight fifty eight You
13:05
Speaker 3: can text over your questions as well, if you have
13:07
Speaker 3: any text questions. Threes are A four non, three five,
13:09
Speaker 3: five zero zero eight. Threes are a four nine three
13:12
Speaker 3: five five zeros or eight. Nothing on the text line
13:13
Speaker 3: yet this morning, So you're welcome to get in and
13:15
Speaker 3: get your questions in three zero four non three five
13:17
Speaker 3: five zero zero eight. One of the things I was wondering,
13:20
Speaker 3: and you do such a great job explaining these things
13:22
Speaker 3: when you're on the air, and so and I think
13:25
Speaker 3: this is the Matt's call was a great opening for this.
13:28
Speaker 3: One of the things that your services can help with.
13:30
Speaker 3: If somebody is faced with where they know they have
13:33
Speaker 3: a project ahead of them, they know that they have
13:35
Speaker 3: a repair, the foundation repair they need to do, or
13:37
Speaker 3: some other kind of major work that comes in like that.
13:39
Speaker 3: One of the things you can help do is kind
13:41
Speaker 3: of calm down a little bit. They're faced with this, what,
13:43
Speaker 3: to you know a lay person, seems like an insurmountable project,
13:47
Speaker 3: and you know, suddenly you're getting all of these things.
13:50
Speaker 3: I got to do this, and I gotta do this,
13:51
Speaker 3: so what's going to mean for my house? Everything else?
13:53
Speaker 3: You can really help take the panic down a little
13:55
Speaker 3: bit and give step by step, this is what we're
13:58
Speaker 3: going to do. This is how we're going to resolve
13:59
Speaker 3: your issue.
14:00
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean there's a lot of people out there
14:02
Speaker 4: that sort of like Matt. Matt kind of alluded to that.
14:06
Speaker 4: I don't remember the exact situation with the other contractors,
14:09
Speaker 4: but certainly sometimes things get blown out of proportion and
14:15
Speaker 4: they're not that big of a deal. A good example
14:18
Speaker 4: is a couple of days ago, I was at a
14:20
Speaker 4: house that had a little bit of cracking. The owner stated,
14:24
Speaker 4: it just developed, it has just recently developed, and it.
14:27
Speaker 2: Was right now.
14:28
Speaker 4: It is on the one side of a garage, next
14:32
Speaker 4: on the driveway side of the garage, and she had
14:35
Speaker 4: another contractor out quoted her installing three helical piers or
14:39
Speaker 4: three push piers in this case, which are designed to
14:43
Speaker 4: stabilize a house against settlement. But I set up a
14:47
Speaker 4: laser level essentially zero changing in the elevation of anything
14:53
Speaker 4: that would suggest settlement. When I walked up to the house,
14:57
Speaker 4: I pretty well knew what it was. It was just
14:59
Speaker 4: based on the crack pattern. It was pretty obvious to me.
15:02
Speaker 4: But what had happened in this case is somebody had
15:04
Speaker 4: impacted the front of this building with a vehicle. She
15:07
Speaker 4: had just had a roof replaced. She has a younger
15:11
Speaker 4: son that lives in the house, so I suggested that
15:14
Speaker 4: she might want to check her son's venders. But it
15:17
Speaker 4: was simply an impact and this person was quoted, this
15:20
Speaker 4: contractor quoted or almost eight thousand dollars to install three
15:24
Speaker 4: helical peers that would have not addressed the situation at all,
15:28
Speaker 4: that were not warranted, and we were I just provided
15:34
Speaker 4: her to the quote, but we were quite a bit
15:35
Speaker 4: less expensive, and it was more of just a reinforcement
15:38
Speaker 4: of the masonry in that corner.
15:40
Speaker 3: And that's exactly the kind of confidence that you want
15:43
Speaker 3: to have in the work that's being quoted to you
15:45
Speaker 3: we're going to have done. And it may not always
15:47
Speaker 3: be a money saving situation, I mean, but you want
15:50
Speaker 3: to make sure the work is done correctly, and sometimes
15:53
Speaker 3: it turns into that because I mean, unfortunately, there's a
15:56
Speaker 3: couple of different ways you can approach sales. And I
15:58
Speaker 3: remember the first sales gig that ever had basically being
16:01
Speaker 3: taught sales by a guy, and he was very good
16:03
Speaker 3: at his job, and he was right. He said, there's
16:04
Speaker 3: a couple of different ways that you can approach. When
16:06
Speaker 3: you're going to talk to someone about the services you
16:08
Speaker 3: can offer, you can take the fear approach. You can
16:10
Speaker 3: try to scare them into your services, and that might work. Honestly,
16:13
Speaker 3: that might work, but it works once you know, and
16:15
Speaker 3: then over the years what happens is that person figures
16:18
Speaker 3: out they shouldn't have been so scared, and then they're
16:20
Speaker 3: not going to call you back. The other way you
16:21
Speaker 3: can try to do it is being an information based salesperson,
16:24
Speaker 3: where you tell people and let them make an education decision,
16:28
Speaker 3: give them the power to do it. Suddenly they're making
16:30
Speaker 3: their own decisions. They're happy with the work. When they
16:32
Speaker 3: need to work again, they're going to go to the
16:33
Speaker 3: person that gave them the information, where they had the
16:35
Speaker 3: power and an agency to make the right decision, and
16:37
Speaker 3: not the person to try to scare them into doing something.
16:39
Speaker 3: And so that's really the right way to do things.
16:41
Speaker 4: That's very true, and I am certainly the latter. I'm
16:45
Speaker 4: not a salesperson. That was never in my bones. I
16:48
Speaker 4: don't like promoting myself in any real way. Your conversation
16:55
Speaker 4: reminds me of things. Another estimate I went to last
16:59
Speaker 4: week or so, another contractor had already been in to
17:02
Speaker 4: do repairs and they sold in a crawl space. They
17:05
Speaker 4: sold this this older lady some new footings, posts and
17:10
Speaker 4: beams to support her her floor system that was sagging,
17:14
Speaker 4: and they they she was having issues still. After the
17:18
Speaker 4: work was done, they created a big hump in the
17:20
Speaker 4: floor and so she she called us to take another look,
17:25
Speaker 4: and I don't know what they charged her. They had
17:29
Speaker 4: she had another quote from another contractor, but none of these,
17:33
Speaker 4: none of their options were going to actually fix the
17:35
Speaker 4: problem this. This was a situation where there was no
17:40
Speaker 4: insulation around the perimeter of the floor and and condensation
17:44
Speaker 4: was developing uh in the winter months on the floor
17:47
Speaker 4: system around the perimeter and it slowly deteriorated the sial
17:51
Speaker 4: plate and the floor joists. So around the entire perimeter
17:53
Speaker 4: of this crawl space, the floor joist had deteriorate in
17:56
Speaker 4: and were crushing, and none of the repair options were
17:59
Speaker 4: addressing this. So we ended up giving her the quote
18:02
Speaker 4: to address the damage, but also the other sources, which
18:06
Speaker 4: were the water issues she was having in the crawl space,
18:09
Speaker 4: but both the standing water and the liquid water, so
18:12
Speaker 4: our in this situation, our price was substantially higher than
18:15
Speaker 4: what everybody else was, but it was a phase approach
18:18
Speaker 4: or gave her all the three options that she needed,
18:21
Speaker 4: and number one being fixed the structure and then fixed
18:23
Speaker 4: the water issues that cause of that to develop. Whereas
18:28
Speaker 4: first off, the other individuals weren't able to identify the
18:31
Speaker 4: actual culprit for what was causing her problems and then
18:36
Speaker 4: tried to get her to do something that wasn't even
18:37
Speaker 4: going to help her. And the second estimate that I
18:39
Speaker 4: saw was substantial. It was over twenty thousand dollars. And
18:43
Speaker 4: I don't know what the first person charged. There was
18:44
Speaker 4: not a big project that they that they did, but
18:47
Speaker 4: they collected money and it hasn't helped.
18:50
Speaker 3: Oh boy, now that's what you want to try to avoid.
18:52
Speaker 3: Foster Foundation Repair more information online Foster Foundation Repair dot com.
18:55
Speaker 3: Foster Foundation Repair dot com located on Woodrom Lane here
18:58
Speaker 3: in Charleston. The phone number for Brett and Foster Foundation
19:02
Speaker 3: Repair is threes are of four seven seven six sixty
19:04
Speaker 3: two sixty three. That's threes are of four seven seven
19:06
Speaker 3: six sixty two sixty three seven seven six sixty two
19:09
Speaker 3: sixty three. We'll take some more phone calls when we
19:11
Speaker 3: come back. We're going to take a commercial break here
19:13
Speaker 3: in just a moment. But one of the things I
19:15
Speaker 3: was going I'm going to ask Brett about is is
19:18
Speaker 3: the difference in technology. You know, you've been doing this
19:19
Speaker 3: for a long time, and heck, we've done back in
19:22
Speaker 3: year when you just started out, we did radio shows
19:25
Speaker 3: what ten years ago or something I think just about
19:27
Speaker 3: so you've seen a lot of things coming and going
19:29
Speaker 3: in this industry. So we'll talk about how things maybe
19:31
Speaker 3: have improved as far as the tools for your job
19:34
Speaker 3: and things like that goes. And also your phone calls
19:36
Speaker 3: and your questions as well. Want to talk about foundation
19:39
Speaker 3: repair and how Brett Hodgton and Foster Foundation and Repair
19:42
Speaker 3: can help you out. You give us a call three
19:43
Speaker 3: zero A four three four five fifty fifty eight, or
19:45
Speaker 3: you can text any questions to threes are four non
19:47
Speaker 3: three five five zero zero eight. We'll take a break
19:49
Speaker 3: and be a backrafter this you're listening to ask the expert.
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21:34
Speaker 9: Good morning, here's your traffic update. There's a disabled vehicle
21:37
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21:44
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22:14
Speaker 3: It is eighteen minutes until the top of the hour.
22:16
Speaker 3: You're welcome to give us a call. This morning. You're
22:17
Speaker 3: listening to ask the expert. I'm del Cooper in studio
22:20
Speaker 3: with me this morning. It is the monthly tern for
22:22
Speaker 3: Brett Hodshton from Foster Foundation Repair. Having a great conversation
22:24
Speaker 3: this morning about foundation repair, your basements, water management and waterproofing.
22:30
Speaker 3: If it comes to that. If you have any questions
22:32
Speaker 3: about those things, you can give us a call this morning.
22:33
Speaker 3: Three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
22:35
Speaker 3: Three zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight.
22:37
Speaker 3: You can text three zero four none three five five
22:39
Speaker 3: zeros youerar eighth three zero four non three five five
22:41
Speaker 3: zeros er eight. I was interested in talking about some
22:45
Speaker 3: of the We've touched on this a little bit before,
22:47
Speaker 3: but I was interested in talking about some of the
22:48
Speaker 3: technology that's come about, either in products or in evaluations
22:52
Speaker 3: or something like that. If somebody had had some foundation
22:55
Speaker 3: work done at some point in the past, like you know,
22:57
Speaker 3: twenty years ago, they had some work done, and they
22:58
Speaker 3: have some experience in their have things come Is there
23:02
Speaker 3: a technology in services and in materials and things like
23:05
Speaker 3: that that have changed in the last ten to fifteen
23:07
Speaker 3: years or something like that.
23:09
Speaker 4: To some extent, yes, I mean first generation repairs were
23:12
Speaker 4: typically like for example, for settlement issues, the first generation
23:16
Speaker 4: repair back in the seventies eighties were concrete underpins, and
23:21
Speaker 4: what that consisted of is digging down to the foot
23:23
Speaker 4: or actually undermining the foot and pouring more concrete under
23:27
Speaker 4: the foundation. And the hope was that you were getting
23:30
Speaker 4: deeper down into better, more competent soil. The problem with
23:34
Speaker 4: that type of repair is you're adding a lot of weight.
23:37
Speaker 4: Concretes very heavy, so oftentimes it actually exasperbated the problem
23:41
Speaker 4: and the settlement continued or actually the pace increased. So
23:46
Speaker 4: concrete underpins are really not a I don't see people
23:50
Speaker 4: offering to do those anymore. For settlement issues. It's typically
23:54
Speaker 4: a helical peer or a push pier. We exclusively install
23:58
Speaker 4: helical peers because in our region, I just see there's
24:05
Speaker 4: a lot of push piers that fail, and we do
24:08
Speaker 4: a lot of repairs on foundations that have already had
24:11
Speaker 4: push piers installed and the problem continues. And the reason
24:16
Speaker 4: for that is push peers are installed by using a
24:20
Speaker 4: hydraulic ram that is attached to the house and you
24:23
Speaker 4: use the weight of the house to push the pier down.
24:27
Speaker 4: The problem with that is is once the push piers
24:31
Speaker 4: down into soil that is equal to the weight of
24:33
Speaker 4: the house, the house starts to lift and at that
24:36
Speaker 4: point in time, you have a one to one degree
24:38
Speaker 4: one to one safety factor for the way of the
24:41
Speaker 4: house to the capacity of the pile. A pushper is
24:44
Speaker 4: perfect on a house that is heavy and you're able
24:47
Speaker 4: to push it all the way down to bedrock, but
24:49
Speaker 4: if you if it stopped short in a shale or something,
24:52
Speaker 4: they tend to bleed off. So the difference with a
24:55
Speaker 4: pushpier to a helical pier is helical pier is spun
24:59
Speaker 4: into the earth. It's like a big screw, and it's dependent.
25:03
Speaker 4: Its depth is dependent on the capacity of the installation
25:06
Speaker 4: equipment used to install it, so it is not relying
25:10
Speaker 4: on the way to the house. It is spun into
25:12
Speaker 4: the earth like a screw with a hydraulic drive head
25:16
Speaker 4: or a drive tool, and you install that until either
25:20
Speaker 4: your equipment can no longer push it further or you
25:22
Speaker 4: decide that that's adequate based on the pressure that's being applied,
25:26
Speaker 4: and we're able to we're able to calculate a theoretical
25:31
Speaker 4: capacity of the pile based on how much pressure it
25:34
Speaker 4: takes to install it. So essentially we have a level
25:37
Speaker 4: of confidence of what that pile can hold when it's installed,
25:42
Speaker 4: and our practices is to install it to refusal, so
25:45
Speaker 4: essentially install it until our equipment is maxed out and
25:48
Speaker 4: that gets it well passed where it needs to be
25:51
Speaker 4: to hold a typical residential structure.
25:54
Speaker 3: Now, when you just think about the kind of the
25:57
Speaker 3: point to point that you illustrated there and talking about
26:00
Speaker 3: to the steps that you take if you're on the
26:01
Speaker 3: outside listening into something like this, I mean again the
26:05
Speaker 3: confidence that goes into because these are all major projects.
26:07
Speaker 3: Generally speaking, these are all major projects, and each.
26:09
Speaker 4: One of those is two thousand dollars.
26:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And we were talking a little bit
26:13
Speaker 3: during the break that I know somebody personally in my
26:14
Speaker 3: family who unfortunately maybe was talked into who are who
26:19
Speaker 3: was in kind of a struggling situation, who was maybe
26:22
Speaker 3: talked into a repair that went the wrong direction and
26:25
Speaker 3: invested a lot of money in a foundation repair that
26:27
Speaker 3: wasn't the right thing, ended up having to redo it
26:29
Speaker 3: at a later time, and so the cost of having
26:31
Speaker 3: that done twice was substantial. You want to have it
26:34
Speaker 3: done right the first time and make sure that you
26:37
Speaker 3: have the right person that's doing that, and just the
26:39
Speaker 3: confidence that you have in walking through those steps and
26:42
Speaker 3: illustrating to people exactly what that means and how it's
26:45
Speaker 3: going to affect them. It should just give the client
26:49
Speaker 3: a lot more a lot more confidence that they're not
26:51
Speaker 3: going to have to go back and redo this type
26:53
Speaker 3: of thing.
26:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's I have seen a lot
26:57
Speaker 4: of mixed misdiagnosises to kind of exactly to your point.
27:02
Speaker 4: Where a house is suffering from lateral displacement and it
27:06
Speaker 4: creates stairstep cracks, say the front wall is bowing in,
27:10
Speaker 4: it will oftentimes create stairsteps cracks on the back side
27:13
Speaker 4: of the house, which is oftentimes misdiagnosed for settlement cracks.
27:18
Speaker 4: So a contractor comes in and puts helical piers or
27:21
Speaker 4: push piers on the back side of the house when
27:23
Speaker 4: the problem was on the other side of the house.
27:25
Speaker 4: And and I've seen that plenty of times. Somebody will
27:28
Speaker 4: spend twenty thousand dollars over there and that it wasn't
27:30
Speaker 4: warranted and and the problem was on the other side
27:33
Speaker 4: of the house. But kind of back to your your
27:37
Speaker 4: the evolution of our industry another you know, the push
27:41
Speaker 4: the helical peer to me is a great evolution from
27:45
Speaker 4: the concrete underpin right. We've I've seen recently. This this
27:49
Speaker 4: new to me, which is is a the intent of
27:55
Speaker 4: this new system, it's a it's a way to manage
27:57
Speaker 4: water inside of basement. The way the purpose of the
28:01
Speaker 4: entire purpose of this new system is to cut cost,
28:03
Speaker 4: to lower the cost of the install and I call
28:07
Speaker 4: it a top of foot or drain, And what it
28:08
Speaker 4: is is on the endside of the building, the concrete
28:11
Speaker 4: basement floor is cut about four inches and it's replaced
28:15
Speaker 4: with a rectangular shaped drain that has is perforated and
28:21
Speaker 4: it sits on top of the footer, which presumably was
28:23
Speaker 4: flat when it was installed, so the drain will have
28:26
Speaker 4: no pitch. But probably most importantly, by removing that little
28:31
Speaker 4: bit of concrete, you've eliminated the lateral support for the
28:36
Speaker 4: bottom of the wall, and that concrete slab is counteracting
28:40
Speaker 4: the pressure that is being exerted on the foundation by
28:43
Speaker 4: all the soil that is retaining. So that's that's something
28:47
Speaker 4: I don't like about what I'm seeing in our industry.
28:51
Speaker 4: And again it's it's simply a cost saving method that
28:56
Speaker 4: a lot of people are using. We do not install
28:59
Speaker 4: that type of drain system when we when we do
29:01
Speaker 4: our interior dreams we'll actually take more concrete out, put
29:04
Speaker 4: the drain down below the floor slab, and replace the
29:08
Speaker 4: floor slab when we're complete. But the risk is, and
29:11
Speaker 4: the reason I won't do it is there is it
29:13
Speaker 4: is cheaper, and a lot of people will go for
29:16
Speaker 4: that system, even after I've tried to do my best
29:18
Speaker 4: to educate them, because it is there is cost savings.
29:22
Speaker 4: But we won't do it because the first one I
29:24
Speaker 4: would do, we would that foundation would fail and we'd
29:28
Speaker 4: have a base wall share and we'd end up with
29:30
Speaker 4: a very large problem that needed to be addressed. And
29:33
Speaker 4: in fact, if you read their warranty documents, they don't
29:36
Speaker 4: warrant what the risk is. They only want. They're only
29:40
Speaker 4: warranting water entry. They're only guaranteeing that your basement is
29:45
Speaker 4: going to be dry. Uh they're not. I mean it
29:48
Speaker 4: specifically excludes the type of movement or failure that could
29:51
Speaker 4: occur as a result of that installation.
29:54
Speaker 3: Wow, man, there's a lot said. That's exactly. You know,
29:56
Speaker 3: we have John er Dad on here every Monday, And
29:58
Speaker 3: obviously planning out your or financial future is a very
30:01
Speaker 3: complicated thing, and you have to know all the tools
30:03
Speaker 3: and the nuances that go behind it. I mean, this
30:04
Speaker 3: is really I mean, it's a completely different industry, but
30:07
Speaker 3: it's really not different from the fact of the matter
30:09
Speaker 3: that you need to have the correct plan for your
30:12
Speaker 3: house and for your situation. It's not a cookie cother situation.
30:16
Speaker 3: And people that come in trying to sell you products
30:18
Speaker 3: and services first before taking a look at at what
30:21
Speaker 3: it is that you actually need, you're going to get
30:23
Speaker 3: yourself into a situation where you may not get be
30:26
Speaker 3: getting the thing that matches up to what you need,
30:27
Speaker 3: over paying for something that you don't need. And like
30:29
Speaker 3: we said, the worst possible situation doing a full full
30:33
Speaker 3: on Like you know, you get a second mortgage out
30:35
Speaker 3: to take care of a foundation repair, you get it done,
30:37
Speaker 3: and then you come to find out later it didn't
30:38
Speaker 3: fix your problem. That's a major issue for somebody's life.
30:41
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, or or it didn't you fix the wrong thing,
30:45
Speaker 4: or they just didn't get it done right. And that
30:47
Speaker 4: was another example. I saw last week a house in
30:52
Speaker 4: Saint Albans was I happened I don't know why I
30:55
Speaker 4: was in the area, but I happened to see a
30:56
Speaker 4: house last winter when we had that the big snow
30:59
Speaker 4: on they had all three or all four sides of
31:02
Speaker 4: this house excavated in the middle of the dead, middle
31:04
Speaker 4: of winter, trying to do a new waterproofing system, and
31:08
Speaker 4: I was called out last week or the week before
31:11
Speaker 4: to look at it because she's still suffering water infiltration.
31:13
Speaker 4: And I don't know if it was I think the
31:18
Speaker 4: weather was probably a major factor in the fact that
31:22
Speaker 4: that project wasn't successful, because that's why we don't do
31:25
Speaker 4: them that time of year, because you're digging a hole
31:28
Speaker 4: and it just that's where all the water ends up
31:30
Speaker 4: in a when we're doing those excavations. So, yeah, it's
31:34
Speaker 4: very unfortunate to see these, you know, these situations where
31:37
Speaker 4: people have invested so much money and they're still having
31:40
Speaker 4: the problems.
31:40
Speaker 3: That makes sense, That doesn't make sense and something you
31:42
Speaker 3: would definitely want to uh to casting yourself on. You
31:45
Speaker 3: can find out more about Foster Construction online Foster Foundation
31:48
Speaker 3: Repair Online is Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Foster Foundation
31:51
Speaker 3: Repair dot com located at the forty two twenty six
31:53
Speaker 3: Woodham Lane here in Charleston. Their phone number threes are
31:56
Speaker 3: A four seven seven six sixty two sixty three. Threes
31:58
Speaker 3: are A four seven seven six sixty two sixty three
32:00
Speaker 3: we have ten minutes or nine minutes or so left
32:02
Speaker 3: in the program this morning. You even give us a
32:04
Speaker 3: call threes erre a four three four five fifty eight
32:05
Speaker 3: fifty eight. Threes are four three four five fifty eight
32:07
Speaker 3: fifty eight. You can text threes are A four non
32:09
Speaker 3: three five five zero zero eighth from the three zero
32:11
Speaker 3: A four seven eight one. Can you waterproof a basement
32:13
Speaker 3: that already has finished walls and carpet.
32:16
Speaker 4: Yes, that can be done from the exterior. That is
32:20
Speaker 4: a true waterproofing system. So in a case like in
32:23
Speaker 4: that case, we would excavate the soil along that along
32:26
Speaker 4: that wall or whatever walls were needed, all the way
32:29
Speaker 4: down to the footer. We would clean off the wall
32:32
Speaker 4: apply We install a commercial grade waterproofing system called Carlisle.
32:38
Speaker 4: It consists of a self adhering rubber membrane. So essentially
32:42
Speaker 4: it's a piece of rubber and a sheet that we
32:44
Speaker 4: roll out on the on the wall and that gets
32:48
Speaker 4: installed in a shingle type fashion. Soever you start at
32:51
Speaker 4: the bottom and the next the next row overhangs the
32:55
Speaker 4: first row and you carry that all the way up
32:57
Speaker 4: the wall. And then we install a product call mirror Dry,
33:00
Speaker 4: which is a nippled membrane with a filter cloth on
33:03
Speaker 4: it that goes directly against the wall there. So you've
33:06
Speaker 4: got a rubber seal, and then you've got a vertical
33:08
Speaker 4: drainage plane that directs all the water down at the
33:12
Speaker 4: bottom of that excavation, we'll put a perforated pipe. Before
33:16
Speaker 4: we put the pipe in, we'll put we'll wrap uh,
33:18
Speaker 4: we'll put in non woven geotextile fabric to keep all
33:21
Speaker 4: the fine soil particles out of our new drainage plane,
33:24
Speaker 4: and then we backfill that whole thing with gravel. So essentially,
33:26
Speaker 4: any water that gets near the foundation has a direct
33:29
Speaker 4: path down to the foot or drain, which is a
33:31
Speaker 4: perforated pipe. Some people will call it a fringe drain,
33:34
Speaker 4: but it's a perforated pipe that is then directed out
33:37
Speaker 4: to the to the opposite side of the building.
33:40
Speaker 3: If someone is planning a basement remodel of some kind
33:44
Speaker 3: and they're wondering about either a water management or a
33:47
Speaker 3: water proofing system, is it always better to get the
33:50
Speaker 3: xterior done if you're going to be doing anything. Is
33:52
Speaker 3: it a situation dependent? For example, like if you're not
33:55
Speaker 3: doing a full like carpet ceiling type of thing, and
33:59
Speaker 3: you're just I'll use myself as an example. I'm looking
34:02
Speaker 3: right now into I don't want to finish my basement,
34:04
Speaker 3: but I want to think about putting like a half
34:05
Speaker 3: bath down there and finish like a little area so
34:07
Speaker 3: we have a little extra room down there. But I
34:09
Speaker 3: don't need I'm not going to finish the whole thing now.
34:12
Speaker 3: I have a current water management system where it whereas
34:15
Speaker 3: funnels everything to the sump pump and it pumps it out,
34:17
Speaker 3: and it seems to work okay as far as my
34:19
Speaker 3: house goes. But if someone's looking to do various stages
34:22
Speaker 3: of a remodel to their basement, either a partial one
34:24
Speaker 3: where they're looking to just add more storage or something
34:26
Speaker 3: or like a full on you know, man cave or
34:29
Speaker 3: something along those lines, what is the best solution for them.
34:32
Speaker 4: It's very case dependent. You know, your house in Kanal
34:36
Speaker 4: City is on flat ground, so we don't have a
34:39
Speaker 4: great option for daylight drains. Basically, the foundation drain runs
34:45
Speaker 4: downhill to a point where it pops out of the
34:47
Speaker 4: hillside and the water's just draining via gravity. In situations
34:52
Speaker 4: like that, we typically end up with an exterior sump
34:55
Speaker 4: pump or an interior sump pump. So it's really case dependent.
34:59
Speaker 4: It depends on really the goals the budget. I mean,
35:02
Speaker 4: there's a lot of different things to consider. Uh, if
35:05
Speaker 4: there's been movement of the foundation, that's certainly a big consideration,
35:09
Speaker 4: because if the if the wall is bowing in, for example,
35:13
Speaker 4: the there's a lot of pressure on the wall and
35:16
Speaker 4: that water is is a is applying pressure, So that's
35:19
Speaker 4: that's certainly a consideration. We interior foundation drains. I would
35:26
Speaker 4: never install one with the intent of reducing pressure that's
35:30
Speaker 4: acting on the wall. I have seen situations where it
35:34
Speaker 4: appeared the wall relaxed after that system was installed. But
35:39
Speaker 4: the I mean essentially an interior drain is you're you're
35:42
Speaker 4: drilling a hole through the face of the foundation, not
35:46
Speaker 4: all the way to the outside, but just essentially we're
35:48
Speaker 4: letting the water out of the block into our new
35:50
Speaker 4: drainage system. So we're not we're not actually taking the
35:53
Speaker 4: water from the outside and purposely bringing it in. We're
35:57
Speaker 4: just managing it once it comes in. So the bottom line,
36:02
Speaker 4: long answer to your question, it really is case dependent.
36:06
Speaker 4: A lot of different factors have to be to be considered.
36:11
Speaker 4: The situation, the location, budget, a lot of different things.
36:15
Speaker 3: I think back on some people I've known in my life.
36:17
Speaker 3: I've known two people, and this was years ago in Michigan,
36:20
Speaker 3: but I still know two people that made significant investments
36:23
Speaker 3: in one putting. In one case it was a family room.
36:26
Speaker 3: In another case it was this elaborate man cave before
36:28
Speaker 3: man cave was even a thing. A friend of mine
36:31
Speaker 3: made his own, like Bruce Wayne Chamber with like all
36:35
Speaker 3: of his suits and like all kinds of stuff. And anyway,
36:37
Speaker 3: neither of them, they both of them did in the
36:39
Speaker 3: basement of their house. Neither of them, I don't think
36:42
Speaker 3: evaluated just how safe the structure was for that. Anyway,
36:44
Speaker 3: they both got their basements flooded yea, and it kind
36:46
Speaker 3: of all the fancy stuff they put in there and
36:49
Speaker 3: everything else, electronics, carpet and all that stuff got relatively ruined.
36:52
Speaker 3: Which leads me to another question. That stuff unfortunately happens
36:56
Speaker 3: not to anything that you take care of. But if
36:58
Speaker 3: someone knows that they need to get a water management
37:00
Speaker 3: or waterproofing system done to their basement, and they just
37:02
Speaker 3: got over a problem so they had to like I e.
37:05
Speaker 3: Fifteen years ago, I had to go get a pump
37:08
Speaker 3: and put it down in my basement and suck it
37:09
Speaker 3: all out into my ba into my alley. To get
37:12
Speaker 3: literally like a foot and a half of water out
37:13
Speaker 3: of my basement though was terrible. So if you have that
37:15
Speaker 3: much water standing in your basement for a while and
37:17
Speaker 3: you have to suck it out, what do you have
37:18
Speaker 3: to do first before you can even call you to
37:21
Speaker 3: have you come in to to start taking a look
37:23
Speaker 3: at helping water management, because there's some cleanup it's involved here, right, yeah, I.
37:26
Speaker 4: Mean, this situation like that, obviously pump the water out.
37:28
Speaker 4: You're probably gonna want to depending on damage you're I mean,
37:32
Speaker 4: you'll probably want to discuss that with an insurance agent
37:34
Speaker 4: or water like a restoration company. But as long as
37:39
Speaker 4: you know we can get down in there, there's not
37:41
Speaker 4: much to do. But kind of for people that are
37:44
Speaker 4: considering that have exposed basements or you know, unfinished basements,
37:50
Speaker 4: things to look for if you're considering to finish the
37:53
Speaker 4: basement out before you would just go do that without
37:56
Speaker 4: maybe taking some additional steps is obviously water standing. But
37:59
Speaker 4: another very very good thing to look for is a
38:03
Speaker 4: white powdery substance that might develop on the wall. It's
38:06
Speaker 4: called efflorescence. Sometimes if the wall has been painted, the
38:10
Speaker 4: paint will kind of get bubbly and if you touch it,
38:12
Speaker 4: it kind of gets crunchy. And what that is is
38:15
Speaker 4: as the water is moving through the wall, it's picking
38:18
Speaker 4: up salts and minerals. It gets to the inside face
38:21
Speaker 4: of the foundation and then evaporates and it leaves those
38:25
Speaker 4: minerals behind. And that's what that powdery substance is. The
38:28
Speaker 4: problem is, when you know it's evaporating into the house,
38:31
Speaker 4: it might elevate your humidity in the home slightly. The
38:35
Speaker 4: problem is is when somebody goes and puts a finished
38:37
Speaker 4: material up there, now you're trapping that moisture behind the wall,
38:40
Speaker 4: which could then lead to a mold related issue. So
38:43
Speaker 4: there are certain that's one thing people can look for,
38:46
Speaker 4: is that kind of white substance or a kind of
38:50
Speaker 4: a bubbling paint or a flaky paint of some sort.
38:54
Speaker 3: That's great information. As always with bred Hodgton, the owner
38:57
Speaker 3: of Foster Foundation Repair. As we wrap up the show
38:59
Speaker 3: this morning, let me make sure that I get all
39:00
Speaker 3: of the information out to you so you can get
39:01
Speaker 3: a hold of a Brett for any future concerns that
39:04
Speaker 3: you have to worry about. As we heard from Matt
39:05
Speaker 3: a little bit earlier, Brett could definitely help you out,
39:07
Speaker 3: make sure you get on the right path, make sure
39:09
Speaker 3: you're not being sold a bill of goods that you
39:12
Speaker 3: don't need, and to get the job done correctly. You
39:14
Speaker 3: can contact Foster Foundation Repair first. You can check the
39:16
Speaker 3: information Foster Foundation Repair dot com online. That's Foster Foundation
39:19
Speaker 3: Repair dot Com located here in Charleston, forty two twenty
39:22
Speaker 3: six Woodroum Lane in Charleston. The phone number three zer
39:24
Speaker 3: A four seven seven six sixty two sixty three, three
39:27
Speaker 3: zer A four seven seven six sixty two sixty three.
39:29
Speaker 3: Once again three zer A four seven seven six sixty
39:32
Speaker 3: two sixty three Foster Foundation Repair dot Com. Brett, thanks
39:35
Speaker 3: a lot for your for your insights this week. Great conversation. Yeah,
39:38
Speaker 3: thank you, sir, well, I appreciate see you back here
39:39
Speaker 3: next month. Yep, sounds good, sounds great. That's Brett Hodston,
39:42
Speaker 3: owner of Foster Foundation Repair. Foster Foundation Repair dot Com.
39:45
Speaker 3: Coming up next, Dave Allen on The Dave Allen Show
39:48
Speaker 3: five eighty live, follow About talk Line, then midday. I'll
39:50
Speaker 3: be back this afternoon at three oh six with Dave
39:52
Speaker 3: Weekly on Hotline. Have a great day. Everyone listening to
39:55
Speaker 3: five ADWCHS. We are the voice of Charleston.
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